David Vincent and the Invaders working together? I never thought I’d see the day!
This one starts with a couple of doctors. By that I mean that they are two doctors, but also they are a romantic couple. One of the doctors is killed (by an Invader, naturally) leaving his fiance Maria behind. The cops do manage to arrest the Invader, though. This is all happening in a small town called Carterville or something, which is in a relatively isolated valley and that’s the important part.
David Vincent recognizes the murderer as an Invader he encountered in some off-screen adventure, so he’s asks the local Sheriff to just check the murderer’s pulse. Vincent knows that the guy won’t have a pulse, proving he isn’t human, but the Sheriff and Maria assume this is some scam to get them to do something illegal to their prisoner that will lead to a mistrial. Vincent also calls in the Air Force to investigate, but that gets intercepted by the Invaders and they come to town posing as the Air Force. But things change when the murderer makes a run for it and gets gunned down in front of dozens of witnesses and then burns up in the manner that the Invaders do. Vincent has what he wants: people are now willing to believe him.
With that, and with people he believes are the Air Force on the case, Vincent is feeling good. But when an earthquake blocks the way out of town and something shuts off everything mechanical, so nobody can escape, our hero realizes that something is up. And the only new faces in town are the Air Force, so he puts two-and-two together and confronts the Invader in command.
This is where the episode becomes fascinating to me. David Vincent and the Invader posing as Captain (or whatever rank) named Taft. Vincent immediately understands the situation, that they’re going to wipe out the whole town to cover their secrets. Taft acts perfectly civil to Vincent and admits that yes, they are going to use some kind of fancy mist that makes humans remain perfectly still (but which the Invaders are immune to) and then blow the dam, which will flood the town and be blamed on the earthquake. Vincent uses logic to say that it’s too many people, it will lead to investigations and the Invaders don’t want that. Taft agrees, and he admits he doesn’t expect to get out alive himself since he has to be punished for messing up enough to let it get this bad. Taft admits he’d love a better way to clean this up, but if Vincent can’t do it soon, it’s flood time.
So Vincent and aliens work together to try to find a way out that works for both sides. Vincent tries telling everyone that it was all a hoax, but their plans keep failing.
Finally Vincent points out that the Invaders could use their hypnotism crystals to make everyone forget, but he is told that it doesn’t work like that, even if the town forgot the day they knew the aliens were here, the memories would come back. In the end what they have to do is have the aliens bring their biggest, most powerful version of their hypnotism tech and mass hypnotize the town into reliving the day they lost, but with Vincent changing his own actions so that the day goes differently. I can’t see this as a perfect result, but it is good enough for the Invaders, who let the town live.
Taft and the other aliens here still come across as the usual Invaders, but they’re willing to work with Vincent out of self-protection and logic. There’s no sympathy to their actions, but it makes sense to them in this case. And it made an interesting episode.
