Mars Attacks

Yes, I am very behind on the TiVo, but I finally watched the first 2 episodes of ABC's Invasion last night (I believe I still have one epsiode to catch up with, and then there is a new episode tonight.) Now, I have to admit at first I was a little angry at this show, because it bumped Alias from Wednesday nights... and once the shows started stacking on the TiVo, its hard for me to sit down and catch up with a show that I'm not emotionally involved with (is it wrong to use that phrase for a tv show instead of a guy?) But I decided to give it a chance anyway...

... at best, I'd say this show was okay (for now). Continuing on one of my usual gripes, I don't like the little girl - they are pushing too hard to make her Bo from M. Night Shyamalan's Signs (same "creepy" voice, weird foresight..etc) but she doesn't have nearly the same acting skills as the young actress from the movie. ABC is really trying to capitalize on the Sci-Fi-ish/Drama trend that's going on (thank you Lost), as are a lot of other shows that I have even less interest for (i.e. Supernatural, Surface, Threshold). Something about this show is seriously missing - the formula, or perhaps anti-formula, that works so well for Lost and Alias is that you don't know what's going on... you don't know the characters backgrounds, you don't know how they're really connected, you don't know what's really driving the mysterious things that are going on - you get to actually use your brain while watching these shows, thinking about past plot, foreshadowing, clues that won't be relavent until 10 episodes later.... In Invasion, you pretty much know that some alien is involved from the getgo (aliens always seem like such a cop out to me). It removes a lot of the mystery from the show. Okay, I guess I realize the whole premise of the show is on an Alien "Invasion", but does it have to be so cliched??? I'm going to give it a season, because there is a lot of potential... obviously, there is going to be some kind of government cover-up, but they could throw an interesting twist in there. Obviously there are pod-people walking around, but that too can become less spoon-fed to the audience. I think this show is not giving us enough credit as the viewers... once Invasion starts respecting us, I think the show can become really good. I guess we'll see.

High Point: Guessing what the Sheriff is up to - he seems pretty evil, and he has obviously orchestrated some of this "cover up".
Low Point: The crazy I-want-to-be-Jack-Black brother in law who's conspiracy theories are going to turn out to be true - its so predictable it hurts.