The Invaders: A Short-lived but Good 1960’s Scifi Series
by Guy Belleranti
A number of science fiction television series hit the airways in
the mid to late 1960s. One of these was The Invaders.
Created by Larry Cohen and produced by Quinn Martin, the series had a
short, but quite popular, 1½ season run on ABC. The series had some
similarities to the hit Quinn Martin television program
The Fugitive.
Among these similarities:
- Both featured main characters who slowly develop an almost doomed
attitude: The Invaders’ David Vincent (played by Roy Thinnes) and The
Fugitive’s Richard Kimball (played by David Janssen). However, unlike
Kimble, Vincent isn’t being hunted for a crime he didn’t commit.
Instead, he is trying to do everything in his power to warn the public
that invaders from another world are on earth and plotting to take over.
Like Kimble, Vincent travels the countryside week after week, episode
after episode.
Each episode of both programs featured opening narrations
explaining the main character’s predicament. The Invaders narrator
began: “Alien beings from a dying planet. Their destination: the Earth.
Their purpose: to make it their world.” It then went on to explain how
David Vincent had become lost one night on a lonely country road,
stopped by a deserted diner, and then witnessed the landing of a craft
from another galaxy.
The Invaders was set in the present time, unlike many of the other
Sci-Fi television series of the era. It undoubtedly was influenced by
the great 1956 film
Invasion of
the Body Snatchers.
For 43 episodes David Vincent battled The Invaders. These
aliens always took human form, but Vincent, and the viewer, soon learned
how to distinguish an Invader from a real human. First, most Invaders
had no emotions. Many couldn’t bend their little finger, though some
more advanced forms could. Invaders never bled, and when killed their
dead bodies would glow and then disappear, clothes and all. In addition,
each Invader needed to regularly regenerate itself.
A number of guest stars appeared either as Invaders or as people
whom Vincent tried to convince of the alien plot. Vincent did get a few
believers to help him fight the invasion, including millionaire Edgar
Scoville (played by Kent Smith). However, a number of people, both
believers and non-believers, also died in the fight, being killed when
an Invader pressed a glowing disc to the human’s neck, causing a
cerebral hemorrhage.
The series featured an otherworldly musical score composed by Dominic
Frontiere, the man who also did the score for the television Sci-Fi
classic The Outer Limits.
Why the program was cancelled after 1½ seasons is anyone’s guess.
In 1995 an attempt to revive it was made with a 4 hour TV miniseries. A
much older Roy Thinnes even had a tiny guest spot as David Vincent, with
Scott Bakula having the lead as a man named Nolan Wood. However, the
program wasn’t anywhere near as good as the original series.
