Episode 19 : "The Saucer"

Summary

A real nail-biter.

Review

Poor old Dabney Coleman. The guy just never had a chance. You knew the minute you laid eyes on him he was in over his head. Leave it to David Vincent to come in and show him how things are done in interplanetary warfare -- "You said bring a gun. This one's loaded with buckshot!" And then enter Charles Drake and the breathtakingly beautiful Anne Francis. One thing "The Invaders" did extremely well was present us with likable, ordinary characters that we grow to care about, even love, and then brutally rip them away from us, gun them down with death rays, crash them in rolling cars or throw them onto exploding bombs. At the end of the episode, we are left exhausted, like our best friend has been torn away from us. When I saw this epsiode as a kid, I was a big fan of Anne Francis as Honey West. When she walks away and the alien takes aim with his gun to blast her into oblivion, I shouted at the TV, "No!! You can't do that to Honey West!!" Imagine my relief when she survived the episode! I just wish the same could have been said for my other beloved "Invaders" guest stars Burgess Meredith, Ralph Bellamy or Suzanne Pleshette, all of whom I mourned as if they really had died. Hey, I was 7.

Review by Gerald Fitzgerald, submitted 2002-09-20

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