Apple TV+ today launched its new big-budget sci-fi series Invasion, streaming exclusively on Apple TV+. Here’s more about Invasion and how to watch.Invasion is a global sci-fi series, loosely based on the classic story from H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds. Invasion follows different individuals and families from around the world, as they all face and respond to an extraterrestrial threat.With Apple’s significant financial backing, rumored in the $200m range for the ten-episode season, Invasion’s story is ambitious in scope and spans five continents. Of course, a plot like this invites an ensemble cast.Invasion Season 1 Download
Sam Neill stars as a sheriff who is just days away from retirement, when he encounters evidence of alien life on Earth. Shamier Anderson plays a soldier in the Middle East who begins the series by fighting one of these alien creatures in the desert. Shioli Kutsana brings a space perspective to the series, with her being cast as an aerospace technician preparing for a new launch. Golshifteh Farahani plays a distraught mother who sacrificed her career for her husband, and Billy Barratt is a young bullied English kid. Each take very different paths in response to the invasion.It takes a while for the alien incursion promised in the title of Apple TV+’s Invasion to arrive, and even then, the aliens themselves and their purpose remain largely shrouded in mystery.
A slow-moving, often tedious disaster drama, Invasion takes five episodes to get through what a blockbuster movie might take care of in half an hour.That’s surprising, given that Invasion co-creator Simon Kinberg is best known for his work on just that kind of sci-fi film, including multiple X-Men movies. But Invasion isn’t just Independence Day as a TV show, and Kinberg and co-creator David Weil are clearly interested in crafting character studies rather than leading with explosions. This is a worthy goal, but Invasion’s characters are largely irritating and unlikable, with questionable relevance to larger global events.