The thing about watching the show for the first time and now knowing much about it was that I genuinely had no idea who the protagonist was going to be. The story begins with David Vincent stumbling across a landing alien spaceship and reporting it to the authorities, At this point I found it equally likely that Vincent could be the star (as he is by the fact I remember his name) or it could be a thing where he gets killed off and that makes the cop he was talking to realize that something is up and then HE becomes the star. Even just that little bit of uncertainty increased the tension of the episode
But it turns out that David Vincent (played by Roy Thinnes) with his impressive blue eyes is indeed the show’s star. Vincent has stumbled onto an ongoing alien invasion in which the Invaders are taking human form and infiltrating society. Anyway, the pilot episode lays all the tracks to have him lose any connections to his old home and begin wandering the country, nervous about who he trust. A perfect setup.
There’s a point in this episode where I got the impression that a human character identified someone as his aunt and that aunt turned out to be an alien. Did that mean the alien had replaced his actual aunt? It was unclear to me. Overall, it seems like the Invaders don’t replace existing humans on Earth, but just take a new human form and try to blend in. One thing that comes up in this episode is that their human forms have trouble simulating the pinky fingers of a human hands, and you can recognize an alien if their pinkies are stuck out, like polite little weirdos. This is an interesting start, through the episode takes that away fairly quickly and we’re told that not all of them have that problem. It does make me wonder about the natural form of the Invaders, though. Maybe they have hands with one less finger? Perhaps time shall tell.
Throughout this whole run of write-ups about the shorts, I’ve been noting that (assuming you accept my argument that T-Rexes having been relatively recently discovered, so they count) the shorts have all been about pitching Superman against some newfangled sci-fi threat. This one doesn’t do that. This time, it’s Superman versus Nature when a small island town is threatened by an ancient volcano becoming active again. All the newspapers are following the story, but only the Daily Planet actually sends some reporters to the scene, and wouldn’t you know it, it’s Lois and Clark that are sent (and Lois halves the group by stealing Clark’s press pass so he can’t get in). Everything goes badly and Superman has to save the town (and Lois) from lethal lava.
Now, there may be no scientific threat, but that’s not to say there’s no science at all. There’s a team of scientists who are studying the volcano and devising a plan to save the town which doesn’t go perfectly, but is the way Superman ultimately saves the day. That means science is not the tool of the villain here, it is a tool for good. I like to see that. Also, there IS NO villain here. As I make my complaints about the superhero genre, I’m often told that we Need To have supervillains and stories that end with fights because stories thrive on conflict. It’s always nice to see an example that proves my side.
Other than that, we get some good Lois here. I don’t like that she stole Clark’s press pass so he wouldn’t be able to play reporter with her, but I do like that she flees the erupting volcano by climbing hand-over-hand down the cable car cable. I’ve always said this woman is no mere “damsel in distress” no matter how often she is absolutely in distress.
A minor note from the opening too. Notice that they do the speeding bullet and locomotive, but then instead of leaping tall bullets, we’re told that Superman is “able to soar higher than any plane” and the plane we see is a bomber. A sign of the War creeping in for not the last time. Bombers are, of course, another example of Superman being contrasted against a modern invention. They just love to do it.
Except this time, it’s not me watching a sci-fi show from my youth again, it’s me watching a sci-fi show from the 60s that I’ve never seen before. The Invaders aired for two seasons in the ’60s. I know some things about the show (and as of this moment, I’ve actually watched the first four episodes), for example I know that it’s adjacent to the kind of Pod Person/Dire Wraith alien invasion story that I usually find quite fun. But there’s a lot I don’t know too, so I’ll probably just have to shut up and start documenting my thoughts as I watch.
