TVSquad

Invasion is the best of the new sci-fi horror shows. While not as good as lost or Galactica, still much, much better than surface.



I dont know if its the bad effects, bad writing or bad acting, that does it for me. Maybe a combination of all three?

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It has to be all 3 Adam with a sprinkle of the preposterous to top it all off. The whole thing should be sponsored by Velveeta too, man it's cheesy. (Although I'll grant tonight's plot was interesting enough to keep the groans to a minimum.)

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I'm not sure why I keep coming back... maybe it was simply the only thing I could find during BSG's hiatus.



Surface could be a lot better, but Adam is right: The effects are great sometimes, but often obviously low-budget. It's hard to blame the actors though, because they can only recite what they're given.



My biggest pet peeve: When did any show's "Previously on..." segment at the beginning of the episode need a narrator?



I'm just glad that Battlestar is back.

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Surface is the best show--if you have a Tivo or DVR and can fast forward through the cheesy stuff. The Laura/Rich storyline is pretty intriguing, the Miles stuff is just plain stupid, or at least wasn't worth watching weeks 1-10. Tivo makes this a pretty good little half-hour show. "Invasion" lost me from the start, so I can't really comment. I haven't seen it since around week 2--but then I guess that's commentary in and of itself. Funny, but of the "alien/sci-fi" shows this season, the one I thought was best was "Threshold." I don't think they gave that show enough time to catch on. I'm not exactly going to mourn its passing though...

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Surface is good, and it is definately improving, but for my money Threshold was the best of the new Sci-Fi shows this season. It's a shame CBS was unwilling to give it a chance. If the reason for cancellation was the raitings, it's interesting that NBC is sticking with Surface even though it draws no more, and sometimes less, than what Threshold did. I guess that's the difference between being the number one network and the number three network. Given time, I think Surface could really be a good show, but it has a finite shelf life. There's only so much you can do with the direction the show has taken.

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"Invasion" is a terrible show - unlikeable characters, badly acted; no real action or suspense; and a glacially slow pace.



The sheriff and the brother-in-law/Jack Black clone/blogger are particularly annoying, but the whole cast pretty much sucks, and waiting for something to actually happen in one of the episodes is not quite as exciting as watching paint dry or grass grow. After a dozen episodes, the plot hasn't advanced at all. If it didn't have "Lost" as a lead-in, very few people would watch.



"Surface" was weak at first, but it's getting a lot better as the plot gathers momentum. The last three weeks have been a significant improvement over the earlier Spielbergesque episodes.



However, my real favorite of the season's new scifi offerings was Threshold - it had the best premise, best cast and best execution, but got stuck in a lousy time slot and then dumped before it could find an audience. The natural audience was young men, so it's hard to understand why they chose to air it on Fridays, when most of the target audience isn't home. Here's hoping Carla Gugino gets another series with a network that's willing to stick by her show for more than six episodes.

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I have one question. When the two fled the hotel room, how does the hotel handle this? I mean, do they keep charging the couple's Visa? C'mon writers...Don't leave us hangin' like this.

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Episode 12 is the best one so far.



And for all those who think that the acting is bad in Surface, I have two words for you: Martha Plimpton. Thank God she's come to the rescue. She's one of the finest, most under-rated, character actors around.

http://www.divester.com/2006/01/11/surface-episode-12-and-five-reasons-why-the-episode-was-awesome/

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Really looked forward to this episode, but Atlanta channel chose to put that stupid Wife Swap on. Very, very disappointing and disgusted with the channel. Glad to be able to at least read about what happened.

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As soon as the doctor said "because we could" I immediatedly thought of the dinner scene in Jurassic Park where they are talking about the ethics of cloning dinosaurs.



"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could do it, they didn't stop to think whether they should."



or something like that... is this Jurassic Park underwater?

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I like Surface. I wondered what was up with that scientist in the greenhouse. Was he some sort of crazy religious fanatic, attempting to bring about the end of humanity?



The Miles storyline is moving along slowly; the fact that something is happening to him is becoming more apparent.



People, I think you are all forgetting that, in order to succeed on network tv, scifi has to attract more than the usual scifi watchers. This is most likely why much time is spent on the everyday occurrences (Miles & his awkwardness with girls, for example). Invasion also has spent considerable time on developing its characters.



Look at Lost. The unusual elements were brought along slowly. Many episodes were just basic survival, character establishment and development. How long do you think Lost would have lived, if it had gone immediately into the Dharma Corporation and the push the button thing? Threshold had jumped straight into scifipremiseland. The people (who Felix Unger once referred to as "Mr. and Mrs. Front Porch") were probably confused. This (along with CBS' dismal track record in supporting its own scifi programming) is probably what doomed it. BSG (which I still think pales alongside of Farscape), doesn't have to ease its way into the comfort zone of Mr. & Mrs. Front Porch. Comparing scifi programming which must survive on network tv, with scifi programming which is located on a network dedicated to scifi, is just unfair.

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(or was that a leg, couldn't tell)



Does a leg wear a watch? :)

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Martha Plimpton was AMAZING in this episode. The quality of this show just shot up a hundred percent when she was on-screen. It felt like watching a whole new show. And I used to dislike her....

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Goonies never say die!

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