We want news about Foundation, we get news about Invasion. Apple TV+’s global alien invasion series now has a premiere date—October 22—and a trailer, which looks very sleek and very familiar. But it is always nice to see Sam Neill.
Invasion follows an alien invasion from the perspectives of various characters around the globe, including Neill’s Sheriff John Bell Tyson, who is, of course, on the verge of retirement when the arrival of aliens gives his life a new purpose. (Someone’s always finding a disconcerting purpose in aliens, aren’t they?) Shamier Anderson plays Trevante Ward, a soldier stationed in Afghanistan; Shioli Kutsuna is Mitsuki, who works for Japan’s space program in mission control. Golshifteh Farahani and Firas Nassar play a Long Island couple who are parents and first generation Syrian immigrants.
The series comes from executive producers Simon Kinberg and David Weil, who make an interesting pair. Kinberg has had his hands in the X-Men franchise for years, and wrote the unfortunate X-Men: The Last Stand. But he’s also a successful producer (The Martian) and the co-creator of Star Wars Rebels. Weil created Amazon’s Hunters and Solos, and had a story credit on one episode of the short-lived Twilight Zone reboot.
Early reports about the show note that it was occasionally referred to as a War of the Worlds-inspired project “because [of] an early incarnation of the project’s parallels to HG Wells’ classic.” There are no Wells references to be seen in the show’s current description—but the shape of the alien at the end suggests his influence on the series remains.
The first three episodes of Invasion premiere on Apple TV+ on October 22, with the rest of the 10-episode season airing weekly.
