If there’s two things I love it’s science fiction, and a slow burner. So, you can imagine my excitement when I realised that Invasion, one of Apple TV+’s new shows, was a slow burn science fiction drama. But the thing that makes or breaks a slow burner is ultimately the payoff, you can’t slowly draw something out and build tension over time and then not do anything with it. So, does Invasion have a payoff that justifies its slow build, or does it leave you high and dry?
When a crop circle turns up on an Oklahoma farm the locals begin accusing some local miscreants, however Sheriff Tyson (Sam Neill) wonders whether there is something more ominous going on. A few hundred miles away in Long Island, Aneesha Malik (Golshifteh Farahani) collects her children from school following reports of all the children spontaneously encountering severe nosebleeds; then at home after discovering her husband Ahmed’s (Firas Nassar) infidelity the family experience multiple severe earthquakes. On deployment in the Middle East, U.S. Marine Treyvante Ward (Shamier Anderson) begins to encounter unexplainable phenomena and becomes separated from his squad deep in enemy territory. Caspar Morrow (Billy Barratt), a London schoolboy embarks on a school trip with some classmates, but when struck by falling debris the bus becomes stranded in the countryside. All meanwhile in Japan, JASA engineer Mitsuki Yamato (Shioli Kutsuna) loses contact with a shuttle en-route to the International Space Station and makes a shocking discovery.
When a crop circle turns up on an Oklahoma farm the locals begin accusing some local miscreants, however Sheriff Tyson (Sam Neill) wonders whether there is something more ominous going on. A few hundred miles away in Long Island, Aneesha Malik (Golshifteh Farahani) collects her children from school following reports of all the children spontaneously encountering severe nosebleeds; then at home after discovering her husband Ahmed’s (Firas Nassar) infidelity the family experience multiple severe earthquakes. On deployment in the Middle East, U.S. Marine Treyvante Ward (Shamier Anderson) begins to encounter unexplainable phenomena and becomes separated from his squad deep in enemy territory. Caspar Morrow (Billy Barratt), a London schoolboy embarks on a school trip with some classmates, but when struck by falling debris the bus becomes stranded in the countryside. All meanwhile in Japan, JASA engineer Mitsuki Yamato (Shioli Kutsuna) loses contact with a shuttle en-route to the International Space Station and makes a shocking discovery.
Invasion tells the story of a slow building and horrifying alien takeover of our planet from the perspectives of various people around the globe. From early and unexplainable peculiarities to full scale battles in the streets with seemingly unstoppable alien foes.
What is often the case with fragmented narratives told from multiple perspectives is that each narrative becomes interconnected and they’re all extremely important. But what I like about Invasion is that it bucks this cliché and instead presents five stories about nobodies that don’t have anything to do with each other, and in the grand scheme of things aren’t important people. A couple of the storylines intertwine, but it feels natural and coincidental in the way that they should. Caspar is a teenage boy with social anxiety, Aneesha is a housewife, Tyson is just a local sheriff, and Treyvante is an ordinary soldier. The only person who has any kind of important role to play in aiding the effort against the invaders is Mitsuki, but she’s not a leader of some kind of military or science program, she’s just an engineer who’s very skilled at her job.
The stories are all really interesting and approached in mostly unique ways. My personal favourite was Caspar’s story which starts out as a Lord of the Flies style scenario as the survivors of the bus crash bicker over supplies, a plan, and leadership; until it evolves into children navigating an apocalyptic England to make their way back home. Treyvante thinks he’s caught up in a terrorist attack for quite some time and doesn’t realise the threat he’s up against, which when he does suddenly changes his plans. Aneesha’s story takes a cliché concept of a family trying to survive the end of the world but throws in the spanner of a marriage breaking down. It’s all really good stuff!
My biggest problems with Invasion were that Sheriff Tyson is just such a bit part. He gets a very decent amount of screen time in the first episode because it’s Sam Neill, but without giving too much away he isn’t in any other episodes. His story is a great and mysterious setup for the events that will follow, but it was disappointing to see him out of the picture so quickly.
As well as this I found Aneesha’s children to be completely insufferable. I hated every moment they were on screen, whether that be because of their awful acting skills or just because they were badly written characters. Her son, Luke (Azhy Robertson), in particular became progressively more infuriating as the show went on because he actively did everything he was told not to do and had such an attitude for no reason.
The final episode also felt as though it overstayed its welcome. For everything it contained I would rather have just had the previous episode extended by twenty to thirty minutes to do the necessary setup for the inevitable Season Two, rather than having a full hour-long episode where not much happened.
For the most part I had a good time with Invasion and I feel like people who love slow burners are going to really enjoy it. Whilst the ending could have been paced better, it leaves the show in an exciting place going forward. Along with Foundation, Invasion is one of Apple TV+’s best reasons to subscribe to the service that is finally starting to bolster its relatively small library of content with some great stuff.
What is often the case with fragmented narratives told from multiple perspectives is that each narrative becomes interconnected and they’re all extremely important. But what I like about Invasion is that it bucks this cliché and instead presents five stories about nobodies that don’t have anything to do with each other, and in the grand scheme of things aren’t important people. A couple of the storylines intertwine, but it feels natural and coincidental in the way that they should. Caspar is a teenage boy with social anxiety, Aneesha is a housewife, Tyson is just a local sheriff, and Treyvante is an ordinary soldier. The only person who has any kind of important role to play in aiding the effort against the invaders is Mitsuki, but she’s not a leader of some kind of military or science program, she’s just an engineer who’s very skilled at her job.
The stories are all really interesting and approached in mostly unique ways. My personal favourite was Caspar’s story which starts out as a Lord of the Flies style scenario as the survivors of the bus crash bicker over supplies, a plan, and leadership; until it evolves into children navigating an apocalyptic England to make their way back home. Treyvante thinks he’s caught up in a terrorist attack for quite some time and doesn’t realise the threat he’s up against, which when he does suddenly changes his plans. Aneesha’s story takes a cliché concept of a family trying to survive the end of the world but throws in the spanner of a marriage breaking down. It’s all really good stuff!
My biggest problems with Invasion were that Sheriff Tyson is just such a bit part. He gets a very decent amount of screen time in the first episode because it’s Sam Neill, but without giving too much away he isn’t in any other episodes. His story is a great and mysterious setup for the events that will follow, but it was disappointing to see him out of the picture so quickly.
As well as this I found Aneesha’s children to be completely insufferable. I hated every moment they were on screen, whether that be because of their awful acting skills or just because they were badly written characters. Her son, Luke (Azhy Robertson), in particular became progressively more infuriating as the show went on because he actively did everything he was told not to do and had such an attitude for no reason.
The final episode also felt as though it overstayed its welcome. For everything it contained I would rather have just had the previous episode extended by twenty to thirty minutes to do the necessary setup for the inevitable Season Two, rather than having a full hour-long episode where not much happened.
For the most part I had a good time with Invasion and I feel like people who love slow burners are going to really enjoy it. Whilst the ending could have been paced better, it leaves the show in an exciting place going forward. Along with Foundation, Invasion is one of Apple TV+’s best reasons to subscribe to the service that is finally starting to bolster its relatively small library of content with some great stuff.