Two season in and I still have no idea what Invasion on Apple TV+ is trying to be.

Apple TV+ has a show on it called Invasion. It has two seasons thus far, and it's about an alien invasion that occurs on Earth. The cast for the show plays their parts well, but they are all new faces. You've got a Japanese sound engineer pseudo scientist named Mitsuki who's girlfriend was a closeted Japanese astronaut that was killed by the aliens. There's also a medical doctor named Aneesha who has a chunk of some alien metal that instantly kills aliens she stabs with it. There's a white English twink named Caspar who seems to have a psychic connection to the aliens. A black girl who really likes the twink and goes by the name India (she reminds me a lot of the Zendaya/Tom Holland thing). There's Trevante, who's a military guy from Afghanistan that saw his whole troop get affected by the alien invasion. And then there's Monty played by actor Paddy Holland, who is the youngest (in real life) brother to Tom Holland. His whole purpose seems to be part of a weird pre-teen love triangle created by the black girl (India), the twink (Caspar), and Tom Holland's brother (Monty).

A lot has happened since the invasion started (it's basically lasted about four months thus far). And the humans have predictably had a difficult time dealing with the aliens and their technology. As far as the look of the aliens goes, I kinda think that they resemble Hefty trash bags with no trash in them (kind of black and plastic looking). They create pseudopods to walk which make them resemble a sea anemone. As far as the humans go, they are mostly stupid, but I at least appreciate that the aliens look really strange. At times, the show does seem to be drunk on itself almost like when you hear a band's song build and build to then...not ever rock out. As I watch, I see smatterings of Arrival in the sense that it is pretty much left up to the character of Mitsuki to learn to communicate with the aliens and to determine what it is that they want. The kids can kind of see into the mind of the aliens, but you never understand why this is. Other than...maybe...it's an attempt to make kids interesting by giving them powers.

The other character, Aneesha, is probably the most annoying character in the series. She isn't a person you can trust, and because of that, she isn't particularly likeable. Additionally, she's always losing her kids, if not the son...then the daughter. And the missing kid becomes the impetus for her entire storyline told in a backdrop of an alien invasion. I also don't understand why Aneesha is hiding the one really effective weapon against the invaders, trying to keep it away from the military who might, say...use it against the invaders?

I think my biggest gripe about Apple's Invasion at this point, is that it doesn't know what kind of show it wants to be. Because it is told through a "fog of war" lens, we only know as much about the aliens and what is happening as the characters who experience those things. We bounce around the world multiple times during an episode to check-in with Caspar, with Mitsuki, with Aneesha, with Trevante, and it goes round and round like that. Each time, we get a little more knowledge to fill in the blanks with, and there does seem to be some attempt to bring these characters together. But as for what kind of show it wants to be? Well, it could be anything based on these main characters. Is it a love story about two British kids? Is it a hero arc of a war-torn vet from Afghanistan? Is it "science wins the world" like Jeff Goldblum in Independence Day. Is it that somehow a family with a fragment of alien tech is going to save the world through a mother's love? To hell if I know what it is about at this point, and I'm two season in. However, at this point I'm going to keep watching no matter how many episodes come out. I feel like there's got to be some big payoff coming. But if you decide to follow me into this strange science fiction take on alien invasion, be warned that it can be a slow burn at times.

That's basically all I have to say about Invasion at this time. For Friday's post, I'm going to talk about Amazon's Reacher and how it's easily the best show I've watched in a long while. On Monday, I'll talk about Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, and its first season (I loved it). On Wednesday, I'll discuss Lower Decks season four, and on Friday of next week, we'll talk about The Witcher season 3.