Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Invasion’ On Apple TV+, Where An Alien Invasion Is Shown From Five Different Perspectives Around The World

How would you react if your humdrum life was suddenly interrupted by an alien invasion? The new Apple series Invasion takes a look at such an worldwide event and boils it down to the perspective of five ordinary people. How will it affect their lives? Will their personal stuff help or hurt? Read on for more.

INVASION: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: “Arabian Desert, Yemen, Earth.” A man sees something crash land in the distance. He goes to see what it is and is confronted with an unusual rock. It lets out an ear-piercing sound, then blows the man away with an explosion that doesn’t create any fire.

The Gist: “Idabel, Oklahoma, USA, Earth.” John Bell Tyson (Sam Neill) is starting his last day as Idabel’s sheriff; he’s retiring after more than 40 years, thinking that the one big case he had — a decades-ago case of a missing girl that he found — would be the only one where he made any real impact. He and his deputy (DeWanda Wise) get called to a local farm to investigate a stolen pickup truck. He sees birds flying nearby in an unusual pattern, and he sees that there’s a massive, perfectly-formed circle of flattened corn in the distance. After he sees the massive crop circle, he wonders if God is giving him a reason to not retire.

“Long Island, NY, USA, Earth.” Aneesha Malik (Golshifteh Farahani) us up early, working out and making lunch for her two kids. She does all the work while their dad Ahmed (Firas Nassar) gets to be Fun Dad. As her kids Luke (Azhy Robertson) and Sarah (Tara Moayedi) go about their school day, all of the kids at the school come down with sudden nosebleeds — except for Luke. We find out that Aneesha went to medical school at Harvard but gave it up to have a family with Ahmed. The life she knows, though, comes crashing down when she doesn’t recognize where Find My Phone is showing the location of Ahmed’s phone.

“Tokyo, Japan, Earth.” A woman named Hinata Murai (Rinko Kikuchi) wakes up thinking she’s going to miss the sunrise. She’s an astronaut who is going to the International Space Station on a yearlong mission, and she doesn’t have the heart to say goodbye to her partner. During launch prep, there seems to be some glances being exchanged between her at Mitsuki Yamato (Shiori Kutsuna), one of the mission’s communications engineers. When Mitsuki returns to the same apartment we saw Hinata wake up in, we see the glow-in-the-dark star Hinata stuck to the ceiling.

After these life-altering events, things start to go haywire, all at the same time, and in different ways.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Invasion gives off the feel of some of M. Night Shyamalan’s early films, like Signs. The stories about the people who creators David Weil (Hunters) and Simon Kinberg (The Martian) chose to view this alien invasion through are told pretty completely before anything involving aliens actually happens.

Our Take: The entire first episode of Invasion sets up the people’s stories, of course, but it felt like there was a lot of setup. Aneesha confronts her husband over his cheating. Mitsuki will have to deal with the fact that JASA has lost contact with the woman she loves, Hanata, on the way to the ISS. Sheriff Tyson thinks that whatever this is is his calling. And we’re supposed to meet two other people that the first episode didn’t even feature.

The idea of seeing this invasion through the eyes of ordinary people is one worth exploring. The performances were excellent throughout, especially Neill as Sheriff Tyson, whose uneasiness over his retirement has nothing to do with getting older and everything to do with the feeling that he made zero impact. But we wonder how Aneesha’s life will transform because of this invasion. Catching your husband cheating with some blonde Instagram food influencer seems to have very little connection to the invasion, but the fact that her son might be affected by it differently than everyone else does.

We also appreciated the cinematic vision implemented by the episode’s director, Jakob Verbruggen. Lots of closeups that show the emotion in people’s eyes. Sweeping camera movements expand the viewer’s perception of what would otherwise be a static scene. It helps in creating a more epic feeling out of what are really smaller stories.

But we’re just wondering where this all goes. It’s good enough to stay with, that’s for sure. It does feel like, though, that the aliens are going to be beside the point in this show, kind of like the zombies became after the first season of The Walking Dead. And we’re not sure we want to see yet another series where other people are way worse than the unknown enemy that’s invading our world.

Sex and Skin: Other than Aneesha seeing her husband get his shirt taken off by the woman he’s cheating on her with, there’s nothing.

Parting Shot: Tyson, while digging through the dirt in the circle looking for someone who might be buried underneath, is hit by something mysterious, and falls unconscious. His eyes are open and he looks like he’s dead. The camera moves from a closeup of his face up to the dark sky above.

Sleeper Star: We haven’t seen Shameir Anderson as Navy SEAL Trevante Ward. So we’ll give him this slot just because we want to see someone else’s story. And we’re also big DeWanda Wise fans, so seeing more of her as Tyson’s deputy will be something we look forward to.

Most Pilot-y Line: When Aneesha mentions to the doctor looking at her daughter that she went to medical school at Harvard, she asks him where he went. “Hofstra,” he said, seemingly defeated. What’s wrong with Hofstra?

Our Call: STREAM IT. We’re on board with Invasion because of its performances and cinematic look. We’re just concerned that there won’t be any there there, and the show will spend its first season spinning its wheels more than advancing its story.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream Invasion On Apple TV+