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Movies
And Specials: Invasion Earth
Synopsis:
Hotshot R.A.F. Flight Lieutenant Chris Drake (Regan) shoots down
a UFO over the Scottish North Sea, losing his aircraft and his
navigator in the process. At the same time, in a satellite monitoring
station in southeast England, the beautiful and brilliant scientist
Dr. Amanda Tucker (O'Neill) and her assistant receive an alien
transmission. They pinpoint its origin as being somewhere high
above Scotland, so Amanda heads north to investigate.
Meanwhile,
hard-nosed Major-General David Reece (Ward), an American Air Force
officer working with NATO, is also investigating the incident.
His men find and fire upon the "unidentified pilot" of the UFO's
escape pod, but the strangely clad "man" evades capture by turning
invisible.
Later, Tucker
and Drake meet in a Scottish pub and realize their common goal.
Having both been shut out of the official investigation, they
decide to join forces in order to uncover the truth. They find
the downed alien pilot at a local hospital, and, while he appears
to be completely human, he refuses to talk.
When Reece's
team arrives, they find an electronic device lodged in one of
the alien's teeth. They accidentally activate it, and a mysterious
force appears from another dimension and abducts several people,
including Tucker.
It turns
out that there are two races of aliens: the peaceful echoes and
the monstrous, dimension traveling nD's. Not only are they at
war with each other, but it seems the nD's are mounting an invasion
of Earth. And unless Amanda, Chris, Reece and Reece's team can
quickly learn the nD's plans and weaknesses, the entire planet
will surely be lost.
Filmed in
Scotland by the BBC and featuring a mostly British cast, Invasion
Earth is a six-hour mini-series that is unlike most American SF
fare. It is offbeat, often overacted, obviously low budget, and
it has the type of ambiguous ending U.S. productions can't get
away with anymore.
And while
the characters are quite well developed and modern, Invasion Earth
still feels more like Dr. Who or Gerry Anderson's U.F.O. than
ID4 or The X-Files. It's probably because Scotland hasn't been
invaded by aliens very often. And that's a big part of Invasion
Earth's charm.
The aliens
are very alien, the humans don't have a clue what to do about
them, and though they continually make brilliant deductions and
put brave plans into action, Drake, Tucker and Reece are constantly
thwarted by the nD's, usually suffering great losses in the process.
It's much
more like a real war than the "we'll just give 'em a computer
virus and have a cigar" macho mentality of Independence Day. The
characters in Invasion Earth don't know what's going to happen
to them, and neither do viewers. Each episode ends with a cliffhanger,
and each subsequent installment leads to more heinous revelations
about the nD's.
The ambiguous
ending may be unsatisfying for the many American viewers who have
come to expect neatly wrapped, happy endings, but SF fans who
like the genre to spark debate should be happily surprised. It's
not The Prisoner, but it's trying.
The special
effects are merely okay by today's standards, but they are at
least put to good use. And though the writing can be hokey and
melodramatic at times, the actors are usually able to make the
story believable. (courtesy Scifi.com)
The Cast:
Vincent Regan as Flight Lieutenant Chris Drake
Maggie O'Neill as Dr. Amanda Tucker
Fred Ward as Major General David Reece
Phyllis Logan as Squadron Leader Helen Knox
Anton Lesser as Lieutenant Charles Terrell
Sara Kestelman as Group Captain Susan Preston
Paul Medford as Nick Shay
Jonathan Dow as Flight Lieutenant Jim Radcliffe
Gerard Rooney as Sergeant Tuffley
Christopher Fairbank as Wing Cmdr. Friday
Nicola Buckingham as Echo
Diana Payan as Gran
Laura Harling as Emily Tucker
Bob Barrett as Flight Lieutenant Stewart
David Albion as Sergeant Lynch
Ian Aspinall as Fighter Controller
Graham Bryan as SAC Woodward
Jonathan Coy as Major Alex Friedkin
Sean Fall as R.A.F. Sentry
Kieron Forsyth as Private Grover
Tom Freeman as SAC Miles
Luke Garrett as SAC Burton
Valerie Gogan as Angela Llewellyn
Nicola Grier as Detective Sergeant Rebecca Holland
Sheila Grier as Jenny Marchant
Selina Griffiths as Civilian Doctor
Terence Harvey as General Ramsey
Barbara Horne as Doctor's Receptionist
William Hoyland as Station Commander
Miriam Leake as Fighter Controller
Anna Maclay as Sarah
Chris Matthews as Army Doctor
Stuart McQuarrie as Flight Lieutenant Gerry Llewellyn
Brian Pettifer as Motorist
Jim Pyke as Fighter Controller
Hugh Ross as Dr. Vickers
John Shrapnel as Air Marshal Bentley
Simon Slater as Edward Fleming
Zoe Telford as Nurse Louise Reynolds
James Vaughan as Squadron Leader Haynes
Michael Vaughan as Inspector Boyd
Mark Webb as RAF Doctor
The Episodes:
Six Sixty-Minute episodes aired on the BBC 1 from May 1998 June
1998. The episodes also aired as a three-day miniseries on the
Sci-Fi Channel on December 8th, 9th and 10th, 1998.
1- 1 The
Last War--05/08/1998
1- 2 The Fourth Dimension--05/15/1998
1- 3 Only the Dead--05/22/1998
1- 4 29 May 98 The Fall of Man
1- 5 5 Jun 98 The Battle More Costly
1- 6 12 Jun 98 The Shatterer of Worlds
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