Talk about a slow burn.....
Spoiler Free
I get what they were probably thinking about in the conception of this show. An alien invasion show where we get to see the invasion from multiple points of view, a more intimate version of a invasion if you will, somewhat like Tom Cruise's War of the Worlds, or 2011 Falling Skies on tv. The idea is good, the idea is sound, but in reality producers Simon Kinberg and David Weil have set up what instead is quite frankly one of the most boring sci fi shows in the last few years. Now this may sound confusing, but this show is not terrible. Its just incredibly badly paced, with no satisfying payoff. I love a slow burn tv show. Westworld and The outsider are great examples of shows that give character's time to develop properly, which is what all great shows should aim to do do. Invasion is set up in a way that's its all about the way characters feel and interact with each other. It comes of as a attempt to recreate the early magic of the Walking Dead. So far so good. In fact it has some great performances from the likes of, Sam Neil as a cop on his last day before retirement (seriously), and Shamier Anderson as a solider who gets into some alien trouble in the middle east. In fact its mostly good performances all round. That's not really the issue here to be honest. Lets try something. Here's 3 questions you will probably have by the end of episode 2.
Why is this happening?
What are the attacks?
Is the invasion worldwide?
Now I don't expect to have all the answers to all the questions I have, given to me in one season, but the showrunners at least in the first half of the season, don't even hint at any of the answers. I've watched the entire season and I have no idea what one of the alien attack looks like. Is it the power cuts? Is it the movement of earth? Communication interruptions? Is it million of the A quiet place type aliens running around? Is it whatever happened to the soldiers in Afghanistan? I guess its probably a combination of all these things, but it's presented in such a way where it just seems like everything is happening offscreen, and that we should be more concerned with how the characters are dealing with the situation. The problem is that you will be constantly questioning, 'what is the situation?'.
To be honest if it wasn't for the strong performances and some interesting flipping of tropes I may not have made it through to the end. But great performances can only take a show so far when the actual characters are so lackluster and underdeveloped. Which is really weird for a show that spends so much time with each of them.
This show reportedly cost $200m, which if is true then I cost $200m. Its obviously not cheap but that $200m is no where to be seen on screen. The little action we see is very small scale and the FX are very sparingly used. The budget was presumably used filming in real locations all over the world. If only they'd spent more time and effort on the massive pacing issues and developing better characters.
Very disappointing.
Rating 4/10
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