As it starts to become clear to the world that something more than a simple terrorist attack or accident is happening, our various protagonists must face the enormity of this possibility and what it means for them

I keep waiting for something to actually happen in Invasion, a show which has been so laboriously slow and uneventful in its opening four episodes that I honestly find myself asking what the point is. This episode, we open on Trevante, wandering alone in the desert and then finding a familiar place and wandering around that a bit too. Fully six or seven minutes pass with nothing in particular actually transpiring, almost like a metaphor for the series to date.

But then we have the opening credits roll and things do start to occur. Ish.

In the UK, the Worst School Trip ever continues. With their teacher dead, and having deposed Monty as their ‘leader’, the kids sort of loosely wander together in the middle of nowhere until they happen upon an abandoned food truck. It’s basically all an excuse to hammer home what up until now has been a hinted at – though obvious – plot point, that Monty really doesn’t want to go home if he can help it. I’ll give the show points for how it plays this one out, with Casper and Monty having another conversation which may or may not be more honest than the last. At the very least, the show avoids the obvious in how it deals with this.

In Japan, Mitsuki goes back to her old workplace – again – to confront her ex-boss Hashimoto. Again. Well, I guess it worked out so well for her every other time. Except in this instance there is a change. Having brought forth her findings on the mysterious sound emanating from the shuttle after it was hit, she and her former boss have a surprisingly frank exchange of ideas and thoughts. It slightly loses impact for essentially copying the general flow and outcome of the conversation from last episode’s encounter with her lover’s father, but it’s still a nice bit of human drama.

As for Aneesha, she and her family find themselves trying to repay the kindness of the family which took them in, which results in Aneesha volunteering to go and get supplies in the face of more of Ahmed being the Absolute Worst Husband Ever. But when she ventures out, she gets herself involved in a whole other set of events she couldn’t have predicted or expected.

A global address from the US President (who else) may be a crushingly obvious trope in the genre Invasion claims to inhabit, but it does at least serve the purpose of starting the wheels finally in motion. The world now knows that this is a global event, from outwith its experience or dominion, and maybe now we can start getting to grips with the actual eponymous invasion itself.

Verdict: Showing signs of improvement – albeit slowly – judgement withheld for now as to where it might end up. 6/10

Greg D. Smith