It looks like ABC’s “Invasion” has made it through the mid-season cuts which normally occur around this time of year.
Shaun Cassidy’s slow-moving series about waterborne aliens that take over human bodies, duplicating them and all their memories will survive according to ABC’s Entertainment president Stephen McPherson.
At a news conference Cassidy expressed his confidence but was “cautiously optimistic that they’ll (ABC Execs.) recognize the incredible quality of our program.”
A real plus for Invasion is the fact that it proceeds ABC’s highest rated and award winning scifi drama LOST. A real downside for the show is also just because it follows LOST. Cassidy put it this way in the same interview, “You have a very intelligent, dense, novel-like show in Lost. I would venture to say in all humility our show is very similar in that sense. I think it requires a great deal of commitment on the part of any audience member to sit for two and sometimes three hours, because they run Lost at 8 often. Writers on my own staff say to me, when I ask on Thursday morning, ‘Did you see the show last night?’ ‘Well, no, because I watched Lost and then I was so tired. I Tivo’d it.’ L.A. Weekly said we’re the number-one Tivo show in America, and I think it might be true. … I think our show might actually benefit from being on a different night.” ABC has not made a public decision on whether or not they plan on putting Invasion on a different night.
One of the major complaints from fans about the show is its slow pace and the dragging out of the plot week after week. Perhaps recognizing this problem, Cassidy has picked up the pace over the last two episodes to the point of actually allowing one of the main characters (Mariel) to finally realize she is not who she thinks she is, but is really an alien clone and not her real self. Also Sheriff Tom Underlay’s (William Fichtner) plans are starting to be revealed as well. One can only hope that over the next several weeks ABC’s confidence in its Invasion of the Body Snatchers updated re-do will not let them down.
“Invasion” airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET/PT.
