Invasion Season One Review

Apple TV Plus’s Invasion is a sci-fi series that tries to bring a refreshing take to a tired and over-used genre. Alien invasion stories are more common than one may think, but unfortunately, they’re not all as entertaining. The series is told through the eyes of several characters from all walks of life who become survivors of an alien invasion. Each of these unique perspectives to the story made for a different yet enjoyable spin as the series catered to them by offering viewers different experiences.

Bouncing from a mother named Aneesha Malik (Golshifteh Farahani), a pair of soldiers named Trevante Ward (Shamier Anderson). Mitsuki Yamato (Shioli Kutsuna), and a British student named Casper Morrow (Billy Barrett), episodes of Invasion divide their time between these characters as their storylines are told at an oddly slow pace resulting in a challenging watch. Once viewers become more accustomed to this approach, that experience gets better as the season goes on. The latter two storylines were the clear standouts compared to the other two which were nowhere near as interesting. Is it believable that a couple who are going through a break-up due to the husband’s infidelity care more about that than the fact that the world could be coming to an end? Yeah, not believable at all.

Meanwhile, Invasion boasts a few too many plot holes that only serve to offer viewers increasingly less hope that its storylines will ever improve. But that being said, Yamato and Morrow’s storylines seemed to carry the season as a whole right through to the end. However, the ending could definitely have come a lot sooner. By the time the season finally winds down, one can’t help but have lost all patience with Ward’s struggles with reality and dealing with the aftermath of disconnection from his family or with Malik’s cheating husband, who was already a highly dislikable character.

Despite all that has been said thus far, it was not the individual stories that were the problem as far as this first season of Invasion is concerned. Though the acting is solid, it is just that some of the characters seem are silly and there isn’t a lot more to say about that. While the actors do a good enough job for the most part with these different characters representing all walks of life from all over the world, something just seems missing as if these stories were only half-written. Technically-speaking, Apple certainly put their weight behind the series. The aliens look threatening enough to believe in and not too ridiculous and far-fetched, taking a more grounded approach.

At the end of the day, Invasion may not appear on many viewers’ lists of their top invasion-related TV series. The series just doesn’t have enough wow factor to draw in viewers and keep them engaged.

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