new television show: Invasion

Invasion
Wednesdays, 9 PM on ABC

2/5

A huge storms hits a town in Florida, wreaking havoc and firing up the imagination of Dave, a Jack Black look-alike conspiracy theorist, who appears to play an important but secondary role in this two-family drama. Maybe his character will become the focus of the show.



Russell Varon is a park ranger, who lives with his television journalist wife, brother Dave (the perpetually beer guzling and unemployed loafer conspiracy nut played by Tyler Labine) and two kids from his previous marriage. His ex-wife Mariel(Kari Matchett) is a doctor who is married to the creepy sherrif Tom Underlay, played to the hilt by William Fichtner.

After the night of the during the storm, the ranger's young daughter goes missing and witnesses "many lights falling into the water." No one pays any attention to her, save for Dave. Both a priest and Mariel go missing during the storm but are later found, naked but without a scratch. Dave heads out onto the everglades looking for aliens and comes across some mysterious wreakage and later a skeleton! He resists turning it into the police since he thinks the authorities, inlcuding the military, will cover it up.


Tyler Labine

The Dave character is mildly amusing, but the entire show is hopelessly predictable. When Dave and Russell are out on the water, checking out some mysterious, swimming luminescent creature, you just know they will lean over the edge the boat and get pulled into the water for a close encounter. After several seconds, of course, right on cue, they burst through the surface.


William Fichtner

William Fichtner was born to act as a creep. Witness his performace in 1999's Go. Apart from him and Tyler Labine, the cast are unexceptional. Created by Shaun Cassidy, I don't expect Invasion to make it to the next season. Still, the show should draw in some viewers looking for a continuosly unfolding drama.