Season 1 • Broadcast Order #10

The Story:

Captain Ross, who just gunned an invader—disguised as a soldier—down, in a state of self-defense, contacts David Vincent in order to find a witness (Nat Greely) which will be able to prove the existence of the invaders (thanks to a metallic disk). Vincent, looking for Greely, is kidnapped by the invaders and taken by force by their leader, Magnus, inside a flying saucer. He quickly looses consciousness and wakes up in an ideal world where all his dreams become true (he find again a steady social position, his architect-friend Billy Stearns, injured in the leg, doesn't limp and achieves technical breakthroughs, and his girlfriend Helen, gone in England, waits for him in her car). Suddenly Vincent rejects this much too perfect life that is easily given and recovers consciousness in the same flying saucer (surrounded, among other things, by Sergeant Ruddell, Captain Ross' right-hand man), where he just underwent a brainwashing. Vincent and Greely are getting drunk on purpose and launched in a no-brake car on a downward road to make believe of an accident. They escape at the last minute but their proof is swept out forever.

Comments:

A seminal episode because it makes references to a full sequence of Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest, during the ordered drunken binge by Magnus (Michael Rennie who plays the character of Philip Vandamm, originally performed by James Mason) and the phoney car accident where David Vincent (Roy Thinnes), as Roger Thornhill (played by Cary Grant), drives a car under the influence of drink on a steep road. A weird episode which deals with the theme of dream/illusion throughout the frustrations of Vincent, who has left his architect job, sees the achievement of all his secrets desirs of social advancement via the invaders (we notice the detail of the fiancé, long since gone in England, who wish to persuade Vincent to give up his emotions and then turns hysterical and shouts to alert: "Magnus! Magnus! Magnus!" as the character of Becky Driscoll, played by Dana Winter, at the end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers). The invaders uses a technique of Machiavellian subversion by scrutinizing the psyche of David Vincent which leads to another theme, the one of the pretence. Vincent is manipulated from the inside but his human qualities (his integrity, his iron will, his clear-mindedness, his fighting spirit) triumphs over the unseen, chimerical, millenarian, corrupting, artificial, technological powers of the invaders. Vincent, modern-day Cassandra, fails one more time in his attempt to spread the truth. In spite of the name of the writer John W. Block appears during the onscreen credits, this is Larry Cohen who is the author of the first draft. You will notice two very strong hallucinatory sequences that are directed brilliantly by Sutton Roley—who will sign the same type of tense German Expressionnist style as later for The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Mission: Impossible—: the one of the nightmare followed by the waking up after the brainwashing inside the UFO, which make you think of the oppressive and claustrophobic mood of the crowd in Don Siegel's Invasion of Body Snatchers and also George Romero's The Night of the Living-Dead, by the use of the distortions of the wide angle lens and full low angle shots; and, at last, the drunk sequence where Vincent strolls inside Magnus' mansion. Dominic Frontiere lets you hear a beautiful dreamlike music which emphasize Vincent's feeling of dizziness (nevertheless, and thanks to John Elizalde, you recognize portions of scores from The Experiment—the unbalanced theme of Lloyd Lindstrom—, The Mutation—the hectic theme of Vikki—and even, one musical clip from the science fiction anthology The Outer Limits' episode Tourist Attraction during the Hitchcockian car sequence of Act IV). The theme of the brainwashing, which is developed from the first episodes: The Experiment and The Leeches (it is rather an extraction of knowledge), and will be exploited in Condition: Red and The Possessed, and the theme of simulacrum in the very disturbing Dark Outpost. This episode and the series in general can give rise to various ideological interpretations. Furthermore, the concept of the show leans towards the framework of a Film Noir and espionage—season 1 associate producer Anthony Spinner used to supervise the fourth and most downbeat season of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and moreover, season 2 writer Laurence Heath used to be one of the most prolific craftsman on Mission: Impossible and even produced a great deal of psychological shocker plots—rather than science fiction (this genre is used as a backdrop), and combined with the psychological study of tormented characters. The Swiftian allegorical form of the narratives serve an absolute criticism of the two dominant empires of the 1960's era (American wild cat capitalism and Russian communism make one in their will to break the individual, and the invaders are only the rough representation). The invaders are depicted as a homogeneous and collectivist civilization maintained by a strong hierarchy (as bees from a hive) and composed on one hand of blue collar (here, green collar) worker-soldiers (authentic men-tools, devoid of psyche and biologically-dedicated) which manufacture machines and weapons in hidden factories, located in odd and barren places (desert, farm, coal mine, closed down buildings and premises, etc...) and on the other hand, henchmen and ruling executives (fanatical, cynical, and ruthless) that infiltrate society and the power (industry, army, police, mass media, institutions) at every levels. This is the prototype of a Mafia organization that is concealed as a corporation (whose purpose is not the immediate profit but the conquest of the monopoly: planet Earth) which systematically use means of coercion (blackmail, bribery, brain conditioning, hypnosis) or the disguising of assassinations (artificially-created heart attacks and cerebral hemorrhages) to achieve their ends (the episode titled The Organization and the use of silencer pistols during season 2 confirm that theory). Besides, we notice a permanent feature in the Vincent character which is the loss of awareness: knocked unconscious in Beachhead, The Mutation, The Ivy Curtain and The Spores, mentally-tortured with the help of a machine in The Experiment and The Pit, drugged with some tea in Storm, hypnotized in The Believers, electrocuted then resurrected in The Ransom, and finally, forced to sleep in The Pit and The Miracle. Actor Michael Rennie is well-known with one part of an alien being: the famous Klaatu from Robert Wise's The Day The Earth Stood Still. The choice of the name Magnus (meaning "great" in Latin—perhaps as Alexander the Great) highlights very well the will of conquest of the character and its species (the imperialistic analogy is blatant, i.e., from the Roman legions to the American pioneers); subsequent leader characters will have Latin names as Nexus (Alfred Ryder) in Vikor and Taugus (Ed Asner) in Wall of Crystal. His alien leader type of character comes back in the season 2 Summit Meeting, Part I & II. The second-rate actor Frank Marth (that we watch again in Task Force) encapsulates (as Alfred Ryder, by the way) the true essence of the invaders owing to his cold, rigid, hyper-rationalistic, gregarious and official presence. William Smithers and Katherine Justice are back in The Possessed; Patricia Smith plays a small part in The Spores; Dabney Coleman, that is already seen (as well as Robert Doyle) in the science fiction anthology The Outer Limits (in The Mice, Specimen: Unknown and Wolf 359) appears for the last time in the following episode: The Saucer.