This episode is full of shocks. First of all, it is the first (and I believe only) two-parter of the show, so we know David Vincent isn’t getting it all wrapped up in time for the end of the episode.

Okay, here’s the setup: radiation levels around the world are increasing except for one place in Scandinavia. It’s all part of an Invader plan to get a bunch of world leaders together for a summit meeting (like in the title) so they can kill them all. Over the course of the episode we learn that they have Invaders in positions high enough in the various world governments that if they wipe out the leaders, they will be able to take over. A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies.

But maybe not. It turns out that not all the Invaders like the idea. David Vincent goes on a date with a woman, but it turns out she was an Invader sent to kill him, but she doesn’t do it because she needs his help to stop the plan! That’s right, Vincent is working with the Invaders again! But unlike the Invader who fell in love with him way back in the Mutation, this sexy lady is NOT interested in Vincent. She thinks the plan is stupid, it would draw attention to their actions and the radiation ruins the very world they are trying to conquer. She makes it clear that outside of his help on this, she has no desire to see David Vincent continue to live. He feels the same way about her.

Also in the episode is a friend of Vincent, Mike Tressider, who is America’s largest defence contractor. It’s treated as if he and Vincent have met before and dealt with Invaders together, but I think that may have been an Untold Tale because I don’t think we know that story. Anyway, the Invaders hypnotize Mike and he shoots Vincent, fortunately only managing a flesh wound before snapping out of the mind control. His connections to the government will be what allows him, Vincent, and Ellie the Invader to get into the summit meeting next episode.

We also get a human villain in the episode, a General who has sided with the Invaders because he sees them as strong and powerful and that’s what he values. He gives a good little speech about how Mike could have been such a great scientist to help the world, but he sold out for money from the government in the military industries. It’s a nice little bit about humans and their ability to betray their own kind, which I think it excellent in this kind of story. It’s also, I think, the third time a military guy has betrayed humanity to join the Invaders. It speaks to the kind of society the Invaders offer to those they ask to work with them.

But the single most shocking thing in this entire episode comes near the beginning when we learn that David Vincent is, and presumably still has this whole time, still been doing architect jobs. It really felt like he stopped that as soon as he began his quest to fight the Invaders, but no, we see him working late into the night. It explains how he has money to do anything, I suppose.

At this point I assume David Vincent just scours the newspapers for any report of a cerebral hemorrhage because when the aliens kill two guys in their usual way, of course Vincent comes to town to check it out. There he finds them doing their thing, he investigates, winds up on a saucer going into flight, and then lands somewhere else (it’s the Vasquez Rocks again). For a moment he isn’t sure if he’s still on Earth and neither is the viewer, which was neat. But he was on Earth, and he comes across a science class on a science hike or whatever. A teacher and five teenagers. Vincent tries to convince them there was a flying saucer nearby and it doesn’t go well.

Then we get a scene that I can’t help but find darkly amusing. Vincent and the teacher go off to explore the supposed aliens and they find a military base to sneak around in. They find what may be the biggest Invaders operation we’ve seen on the show so far, there’s like twenty of them around. Anyway, Vincent takes the opportunity to sneak in like a cheeky little guy and steal a piece of their technology, and it ends up getting the teacher killed. So then Vincent has to go back to the student and be like “Yeah, I went off with your teacher and he’s dead now, but you can trust me.” A very funny situation for our hero to be in (actual line of dialogue: “He’s dead. The people from the flying saucer killed him.”), though the Invaders make it easier on him by showing up posing as the real army and bringing the whole lot of them in.

What follows is the Invaders trying to get their crystal back from Vincent and the students, the students don’t know who to trust, various alien schemes, eventually the kids come around the Vincent’s side and win the day. Of course, when they bring in the real military to see the base, the Invaders have left no evidence of their operation there. A victory for Vincent and his allies (five of them survive this one!), but they can prove nothing. Typical fare, but not a bad episode.

The operation at the base, incidentally, was one we’ve seen before where they bring their people in to regenerate them. One Invader at the start of the episode (named Fletcher) is being brought there because he has chicken pox. That raises some questions for me. Is there something about their human forms that make them semi-susceptible to our diseases? If so, Vincent needs to look into biological warfare. The other question though is about why they’re bothering to heal Fletcher at all. We’ve seen these guys throw their lives away pretty casually (like the ones who killed themselves immediately after testifying against Vincent’s friend) so why is Fletcher worth saving? Was he a key part of some scheme? Alien stuff. Hard to get one’s head around.

The most important thing, though, is that one of the students is played by Dawn Wells! Another Gilligan’s Island actor! Between the previous one showing up in The Trial we’ve had the entirety of “The Rest” on the show.