"The Invaders" are back. And so is Roy Thinnes.
Actually, to be more accurate, "The Invaders" are still here. And Thinnes' character from the 1967-68 series, David Vincent, is still tracking them.That original series postulated that aliens were among us. And that having taken on human form, they were plotting to supplant us and take over the Earth.
Vincent discovered the truth and set out on a lonely quest to make others believe what was happening.
Fox's two-part, four-hour "Invaders" miniseries takes up the story 27 years later. Vincent is but a peripheral character this time around. The action centers on a convicted killer (Scott Bakula) who learns from Vincent that he was programmed to commit the crime by the aliens.
Not to mention the fact that his ex-wife (Delane Matthews) has gone and married an extra-terrestrial (Richard Thomas).
And there are still lots of aliens out there, eating meat and sucking up all the carbon monoxide they can - either by chain smoking or cozying up to a tail pipe. They're hoping Earthlings will ruin their planet altogether so as to be more hospitable for alien life.
The problem with this "Invaders" miniseries, however, is that it's waaaay too long. There may be a pretty good two-hour movie hiding in the midst of this four-hour miniseries, but it's hard to tell.
Part 1 (Sunday, 7 p.m., Ch. 13) is so episodic and disjointed it's downright boring for the first 90 minutes. Things pick up toward the end, and there's a pretty good cliffhanger in the final moments.
But the promise of that cliffhanger is lost in Part 2 (Tuesday at 7 p.m.), which slows the action back down a bit and never really comes together.
Making a sequel to "The Invaders" was a pretty good idea. Making this sequel wasn't so intelligent, however.