Pre-59th Anniversary Viewing
The Invaders
"The Spores"
Originally aired October 17, 1967
Frndly said:
David races an invader in a frantic search for a suitcase. Contents: alien spores sent to earth for experimental propagation.
The QM Narrator said:
Shortly before dawn, a spaceship landed near Phillipsburg, Colorado, bringing to Earth a strange and ominous cargo: two dozen spores. After exposure to the Earth's atmosphere, each will develop and grow into a perfectly formed alien. On the success of this experiment rests the possibility of future shipments numbering hundreds, perhaps thousands of alien invaders, and possibly the future of the human race.
They are transporting the spores in a flower van when they come upon a police roadblock for a closed road and turn around, only to be pursued by Sgt. Ernie Goldhaver (John Randolph). They come upon an obstacle and run their car off the road, overturning it but not blowing it up. One of
them...
...takes the case of spores out before the sergeant arrives to witness two more of
them crawling out the back and going up in red glows.
The surviving alien, calling himself Tom Jessup, is taken in to be questioned by Lt. John Mattson...
Jessup contradicts Ernie's account, claiming to have been walking on the road when the accident happened and not to have seen the disintegrations. Mattson talks privately to Ernie about how the report will look given that Goldhaver was recently suspended for drinking.
The QM Narrator said:
Several hours ago, a radio newscast carried a strange report: a deputy sheriff in Phillipsburg reported an accident in which the passengers vanished in a burst of flame. A policeman's delusion, or evidence of invaders? David Vincent travels to Phillipsburg to discover which.
Mattson tells David that the alleged disintegrations were just optical illusions. David takes an interest in hearing of another witness, Jessup, who's just gone back after the hidden case. Visiting the scene of the accident, David sees Jessup walking with the case--claiming to be a seed salesman--and offers him a lift. They stop at a local eatery for Jessup to use a phone just as a trio of rowdy youths--JD-looking Hal (James Gammon), his more straightlaced brother Roy (Kevin Coughlin), and barefoot blonde Mavis (Judee Morton)--screech up in their jalopy. When David tries to snatch the case during the phone call, Jessup catches him and a brawl ensues between their obvious stunt doubles, during which the kids grab the case and hightail out. Jessup takes a reeling David's keys and goes after them.
The trio shakes Jessup and hole up in Hal and Roy's family garage, where Hal finds that he can't even open the case with a power drill. At the station, Mattson blows off David's attempt to report Jessup's car theft; but Ernie offers David a lift, curious himself about what's up with the case. The kids go back to the diner to return it, but as Roy's walking in with the case, Jessup, having called in a couple of
them backups, pulls up and roughs up Hal looking for the case. Roy stashes it in a white convertible before they see him and go in to give him the same treatment. He tells them where he put the case, but the car's owners, Jack and Sally Palay (Mark Miller and Patricia Smith), are just pulling out.
Jessup goes back inside to deal with Roy.
Roy is found dead of what David predicts will be a cerebral hemorrhage, and Ernie learns that Jessup's already had an APB put out for the convertible. The Palays, fighting after Jack lost all their money in Vegas, stop at a cheap motel, where Jack discovers the case and, hoping to turn it in for a reward, pries it open to find its pulsating titular contents. On the way back to the station, David starts to fill in a skeptical Eddie about
their M.O. When they find Jessup conferring with Mattson, David tries to warn Eddie that the lieutenant may be one of
them, which is taking things too far for the sergeant...though he takes the first opportunity to check on Mattson's background and learns that Mattson died a year prior.
An eavesdropping Mattson attempts to deal with Ernie, but in the ensuing struggle ends up shot and disintegrated.
Mrs. Palay is stopped in the car by motorcycle officer Jerry Burns (Noam Pitlik) until Jessup arrives. When she lets on that she's looking for compensation, Jessup offers her $500, and learns that she's seen what's inside the case. She takes him back to motel, where they learn that Jack threw the case out. Cut to a rock quarry where a trio of young boys has found the treasure and is carrying it away. The boys--Earl Garber (Joel Davison), Archie (Stephen Liss), and Mike (Brian Nash)--take the seeds to the Garbers' hothouse, where they soon find that their treasure has sprouted into writhing slugs. Earl and Archie horse around, trying to force Mike to eat one, and Mike leaves, following which Archie plants one of the slugs in a box of dirt. Mike heads to the station to report the find to Mattson, but Jessup and company are there asking an officer named Frank (known to us as Officer Vince Howard) about Mattson's disappearance. When Jessup learns of the find, he offers Mike a ride.
Meanwhile, David and Ernie have gone to the hotel to learn of the case's last know whereabouts from the Palays. They proceed to the Gerbers' and question Earls' sister, Liz (Christie Matchett), who saw them taking the case to the "hophouse". Jessup arrives at the hothouse just as Earl and Archie are panicking because the spores have grown into larger creatures that look sort of like pudgy starfish covered in plastic wrap. David and Ernie pull up and send the boys running, following which a firefight ensues between Ernie and
them, who use the hothouse for cover. Learning of the stash that Ernie keeps in his glove compartment, David fills the bottle with gasoline from the car to fashion a Molotov cocktail that he tosses into the hothouse, sending it up in flames. The backup
them both end up being shot and disintegrated, while Jessup and the spores go up in the flames.
In the Epilog, David encourages Ernie not to jeopardize his upcoming pension by filing a report, offering to return in a year to enlist Ernie's help in his crusade.
The QM Narrator said:
The destruction of the alien spores becomes a major victory for David Vincent, in a continuing, relentless war in which victories are few.
The Invaders
"Dark Outpost"
Originally aired October 24, 1967
Frndly said:
The invaders subject David and student geologists to a frightening brainwashing technique.
The episode opens with an ambulance picking up a young man named Thatcher (Sam Edwards) who collapsed in the street after making a phone call, and mutters about having to get to Cavanagh's. On the ubiquitous desert road, the ambulance is pulled over by men claiming to be agents from the Public Health Service, led by a character named Carr (William Wintersole). When the ambulance driver (Bard Stevens) tries to verify their cholera story,
they get out their FINDs, dealing with both of the attendants; then take Thatcher while Carr orders the other to wreck the ambulance.
The QM Narrator said:
An ambulance wrecked on a California highway, its two attendants dead. Cause of death in both cases, cerebral hemorrhage. To the world, a bizarre coincidence. To David Vincent, much more.
The woman who called the ambulance, Mrs. James (Susan Davis), tells David that it looked like Thatcher had chickenpox. David finds that Cavanaugh's is a moving van line and snoops around to find Thatcher with bad pox being kept in a locker. David hides in one of the lockers, which are loaded into a van and taken to what turns out to be a saucer, which David is snooping around when it takes off, throwing him to the deck.
Once he recovers, David gets out to find himself in a rocky desert. He hikes around and comes upon
a young woman in red goggles who screams. (
Where the Professor appears, can she be far behind..?) She's Eileen Brown, one of a geology class led by Dr. John Devin (William Sargent), which also includes Vern Corbett (Andrew Prine), Hal (Tim McIntire), Steve (Tom Lowell), and Nicole (Kelly Jean Peters). The skeptical group drives David to the site so they can show them his flying saucer, which is naturally nowhere to be found; while a uniformed Carr watches with binoculars.
The doctor confers with the others, trying to figure David out. He then accompanies David to find landing pod marks and tire tracks. David and Devin follow the tracks to a restricted military camp, where David wrassles with a gate guard over his rifle so he can make the guard go up in a red glow--Now he's just showing off. D&D sneak around inside to find a group of uniformed
them, who are experimenting on the people in the lockers.
While the familar-looking leader's preoccupied, David grabs a spinning disc from his console. When it's found to be missing,
they find Devin and FIND him. David runs back to the others, who get hostile when David tells them Devin was killed by David's flying saucer people. Then a pair of Jeeps drive up and a sergeant (future Officer Jerry Walters William Stevens) escorts the group in their truck back to Camp Crowley. David tries to hide the disk in the truck's removed air filter, but as the filter's being put back in, it drops out and is found and picked up by an unknowing Eileen.
Confined to a shabby barracks building, the group gives David a listen; and a little drama hatches about Eileen having cheated on Vern with Hal the night before. David vaguely clues them in about having swiped something from the aliens. Then they're visited by the alien commander, now posing as Colonel Harris (
someone got a demotion), who claims that Devin is alive and demands they return the crystal. The colonel takes great interest when Hal addresses Vincent by name while he's not looking. David steps forward, but Vern and Steve riff on
Spartacus to protect him. Harris leaves and uses a device planted in the barracks to feed hypnosis-style commands to the group, telling them what they'll see. They're subsequently visited by what appears to be Devin, who paints David as a liar and wants the crystal turned over. When David doesn't cooperate, Harris enters and threatens to execute the others one by one until he complies. Hal is arbitrarily chosen as the first, and when Steve tries to intervene, he's taken instead. The others watch through a window as he's taken out to either a gallows or a field, depending on who's watching, where he's shown to be either hung or shot.
When Harris returns, David tells him where he hid the crystal, but it's not found. After the group compares notes to learn that they all saw different forms of execution, they find the device in the ceiling and Devin tries to stop David as he throws and smashes it. Then "Devin" resumes his untrue form as one of Harris's officers and leaves. David discovers that Eileen has the crystal before Harris returns with soldiers. David barters that the others be let go...while Eileen still has the crystal. David stalls Harris while pretending to show him where he hid the crystal. Outside, Eileen distracts the guards and the guys jump them, making one of
them disintegrate. Vern goes back in with an automatic rifle and, being a former army man, mows
them down, producing multiple red glows. The group escapes in the truck.
In the Epilog, a major (Walter Reed) inspects the abandoned camp, finding no evidence of its recent occupants despite everyone in the geology group having given depositions.
The QM Narrator said:
The Army report will be thorough and painstaking, but without proof, its conclusions will be negative. And David Vincent resumes his war against the high command of another army--the army of alien invaders.
I don't know why, but I actually remember that.
I just thought it'd be one of those kooky bits of business.
"Does that mean we won't be able to buy those nice sweaters anymore?"
"That's angora."
"Oh. Never mind.
"
Angowa,
angowa...what's da diffawence?"
There you go. You can't put one over on Howard K Smith.
Insert Abe Lincoln quote.
This is the kind of role model who may have inspired me to play professional sports.
That's terrible, but hilarious. I'm picturing it as a Warner Bros cartoon.
Maybe I should've left in the line asserting that the match was a precursor to mixed martial arts.
I feel like I slipped into an alternate universe.
The Doobies' version, which surprisingly didn't do much better, will be coming. In the meantime, Carly has been caught up in Michael McDonald-mania!
I don't remember this one. It doesn't even really sound like the Ohio Players.
Yeah, it hasn't caught on with me.
I have mixed feelings about Peter Frampton, but this definitely has strong nostalgic value.
A memorable soft rock number of the era.
She must have guest starred on something else, I suppose.
I think it was her brother, and it seems that he's popped up on
Shazam!
I wonder what Oscar is.
"Level 1 is higher now, right?"
I remember half the girls in junior high walking around with paperback copies of Carrie in their book stacks, but I'm sure if that was before the movie or because of the movie.
As I recall, that phenomenon continued.
Yeahhh....
You need a couple more of those.
That was funny. They were all pretty good, actually.
I don't think that Chevy or Kevin Nealon managed to effectively capture Spock's mannerisms.
I guess they're still in England. Maybe they intermarried with the Royal Family. That would explain a lot.
Harsh.
Something tells me that started with his mini series in the 80s. Suddenly he was narrating like he thought he was Hemingway. And I always wondered who he was narrating
to.
The first iteration I came upon was in
X-Men 162, an issue of the Brood storyline; and having looked it up, that was just a month after the first issue of the mini-series, which I didn't get at the time. I could've sworn, though, that I came upon an earlier iteration of that schtick somewhere in the series. Maybe it was added material in the
Classic X-Men reprints or something.
Chevy'd.
