|  | Directors: Don Medford, George McCowan, Gerald Mayer, Jesse Hibbs, Lewis Allen
Actors: Roy Thinnes, R.G. Armstrong, Diana Muldaur, Arthur Franz, Kent Smith
Studio: Paramount
List Price: $36.98
Buy New: $24.88
as of 11/23/2009 07:49 CST details
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New (23) Used (5) Collectible (1) from $24.88
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Rating:  36 reviews
Sales Rank: 17051
Format: Box set, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number Of Discs: 7
Running Time: 1320 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.4 x 1
MPN: 138744
UPC: 097361387444
EAN: 0097361387444
ASIN: B001HUHBB8
Release Date: January 27, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: BRAND NEW, Factory Sealed items direct from the Studios. 30 Day Satisfaction Guarantee. Quick International Airmail!
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Showing reviews 11-15 of 36
 When Storyline and Acting ruled over Special Effects March 16, 2009
Kevin R. Austra (Delaware Valley, USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This was a great television series. As a child in the late 1960's, when THE INVADERS aired in prime time, the opening credits images, narration, and music from this series continually scared me into another room. It was not until 16 years later that I stumbled onto re-runs of the series, sadly with solitary episodes broadcast on sunday afternoons, when I rediscovered the show. When the DVD series was released I was able to get down to some serious INVADERS mini marathons.
Season two is a full season of THE INVADERS. As such there are a full 24 episodes against Season One's 17 episodes. Essentially David Vincent was the Carl Kolchak, THE NIGHT STALKER, of his day. Vincent wandered around the country painfully spreading word of the alien invasion to anyone who would listen. In the episode, THE WATCHERS, Vincent describes himself as a crusader.
In Season Two Vincent faces many of the same obstacles he encountered in Season One with most people writing him off as a kook, while others passively support him. With Vincent's travels around the United States one wonders how he was able to financially support himself, though in one episode we see Vincent still employed as an architect. One of Vincent's allies is multi-millionaire industrialist Edgar Scoville. The assumption is that Scoville is Vincent's source to finance his travels, as well as his daily existance, while pursuing the Invaders. Vincent also has a substantial intelligence network in that he is somehow tipped off to obscure alien activity and arrives by car shortly thereafter. In each episode the aliens are generally foiled in their attempts to further their control of earth.
Unfortunately, as this was the last season of the show, there is no climactic concluding episode. The final episode of the Season Two finds Vincent and Scoville in Washington DC only to be indicted for murder on flimsy circumstantial evidence. As you would expect the murders are actually that of aliens who incinerate upon their deaths thus leaving only ashes. In a special features interview Roy Thinnes explains that his character lost much of its Richard Kimble, THE FUGITIVE, similarities once David Vincent became associated with a larger organization. If so the last episode was an opportunity to dissolve the organization and return to basics when false information implicates the believers, as they are called, and wealthy Scoville is shot. However, by the end of the episode Vincent and Scoville are cleared of all charges and the end narration verifies that Scoville will recover from his injuries.
Essentially nothing is resolved by the unplanned final episode.
As with the first season, you can choose an option to view Roy Thinnes' introduction to the episodes. With few exceptions these introductions offer very little in the way of insider information. In this I do not fault Thinnes as there is a separate interview section where Thinnes does get to talk about his experiences working with Quinn Martin productions. My disappointment with a majority of the introductions is that poor Mr. Thinnes appears to have been made to sit in one place and offer a few seconds of introduction for two seasons worth of episodes -- all in one afternoon. His intro's are little more than a brief plot synopsis, mention of particular guest stars associated with that episode, and the original television air date of the episode.
There are some very familiar faces in terms of guest stars in Season two including Gene Hackman, William Windom, Michael Rennie, as well as Dawn Wells and Russell Johnson of GILLIGAN'S ISLAND fame. Also look for Ted Knight both as a supporting actor in one episode, and as a control room voice in another.
THE INVADERS makes no attempt to explain much about the aliens and their plans for the earth. We never see their true form and their technology, including saucer control panels, are very earth-like. It is also amusing to see that an alien command post on earth is equipped with a rotary telephone. The stories are the strength of this series. Yes, it is great to see the aliens glow red and disappear when they are killed or seriously wounded, but the special effects are basically a byproduct of the great stories.
Without keeping too sharp a lookout you will recognize familiar shooting locations around Los Angeles including Lone Pine, a location very familiar to westerns, Star Trek, and The Rat Patrol, as well as the concrete culverts along the resevoir road at Franklin Canyon. Franklin Canyon was a favorite location for Sergeant Saunders and his squad in COMBAT!, as well as for the opening title sequence of The Andy Griffith Show.
Childhood Memories Safe March 8, 2009
Jim M. Hastings-trew (Saskatoon, SK Canada)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I was 10 years old when The Invaders was on TV. I wasn't really allowed to watch it - too dark, too violent, too serious for an impressionable young mind. But all the kids in school talked about it - the cool way the aliens died, the crooked little fingers, etc. So of course I had to sneak a peek a the show to see what all the fuss was about. And it was great, of course.
The Invaders never went into syndication, so that unlike a lot of the shows produced in the 60's, it was never re-run, never ended up on the "UHF" channels as a regular program. It remained this elusive, almost magical childhood memory of this really cool show that almost nobody I know today has ever heard of.
This DVD set of the second season, and the first season set, finally let me see the show in it's entirety. My fears about buying these sets were, "Will the show still hold up today compared to the impression it left on my 10 year old brain? Will this ruin a childhood memory?" Luckily, the answer to those questions are "Yes - it holds up really well", and "No, the childhood memory is not ruined."
Watching the entire series was a delight. Yes, the effects are hokey - even for it's day. Yes, sometimes the serious suffers from a loopy lack of logic (but not often). Watching the shows back to back will reveal the same props - paintings, lamps, radios, etc, used over and over again in the same sets, rearranged to look like different locations - the budget for the show must have been razor thin. But out of all it's impediments, a great, entertaining show emerges. It has a crazy, grim atmosphere of paranoia, and a deadly earnest seriousness and a complete lack of tongue-in-cheek "camp" that makes it rise above it's low-budget roots and makes it rock-solid entertainment.
One of the things that makes the series great for me was the guest stars - Susanne Pleshette, Ed Asner, Ed Begley, Gene Hackman, Dabney Coleman, Anne Francis, etc. Even Canadian comedian Don Harron (Charlie Farquharson) was on an episode as an alien. And the cars that David Vincent drove were always cool - mostly a parade of Mustangs and Chargers.
Roy Thinnes brought a rugged seriousness to this series. He's been criticized for being unemotional and humorless on this show, but given the character's circumstances, anything else would have read as "camp" or false. I have a lot of respect for Roy as an actor, and this series represents a lot of solid, hard work that he rightly remains proud of. The DVD has Roy, now in his 70s, introduce each episode, plus he has a bit of an interview on the last disc of each season set. These interviews are terrific, especially the one on the second season set. My only regret is that they could have been longer. Roy brings a great deal of personal warmth to these interviews, and when he gets on a topic that he really likes, his face lights up and you can still see the young man he was on the series shine through.
If you are new to this series, I'd have to say, take caution and "sample" the show first before laying out cash for the set - you'll have to see if it is to your liking. But if you are, like me, an older customer and have fond memories of the show, you can buy this set without fear that it's going to ruin your memories of the show. It really was as great as you remember.
 The Invaders March 8, 2009
T. Walters (Anchorage, Alaska)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
A very good old tv series at one time I also had this series in VHS tape
It is a good series and woth watching again.
Back to Basics March 1, 2009
Jeffery J. Lovejoy (Bellingham, WA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
A simple concept that captured the times exceptionally well. You don't really need to use terms like "back then" to describe the show's appeal for any generation. For its time, this '60s TV show is still captivating today. Although obviously produced on the cheap, it is the writing and story lines that is the back bone of this TV show. As with so many shows like "The Invaders", this one was produced to offer thrills not to be ignored - one man against the world - in this case one man against an alien world. Perhaps the lasting calling card of the show today is the alien's spacecraft, and the sound effect associated with the craft, which has become an iconic figure over the years by taking its place alongside all the other famous "flying saucers" of the '50s and '60s. The model, first offered by a Aurora, and now periodically released under the Monogram label, is still a popular seller - another example of the hot rod art direction that populated all these types of shows back then. A+++
Show was firing on all cylinders by Season 2... February 27, 2009
Dan Hagen
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Great stories that ware surprisingly hard to outguess, a who's who of 60's character actors, and a surprisingly good transfer to DVD, this second season was SERIOUSLY good 60's television.
How did a series this good turn red and disappear after just two seasons? Did someone at the network have a malformed finger? So sad.
PS Watching the 'Special Feature' interview with Thinnes in this set was a treat!
Showing reviews 11-15 of 36
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