Season 1 (1967)
| No. | Title | Original airdate |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Beachhead" | 10 January 1967 (1967-01-10) |
| Driving home late one night from a business trip, a tired David Vincent takes a nap at a deserted country spot and is awakened by a landing spacecraft. Nobody believes him, not his business partner Alan Landers (James Daly) nor Police Lieutenant Ben Holman (J. D. Cannon), especially when two honeymooners claim they were there and saw nothing. When Vincent returns the next day to question them further, a fight breaks out, during which the man starts to glow red. Vincent is knocked out and awakens in a hospital. Later, when he is resting at home, someone starts a fire in his apartment from which he barely escapes. He travels to the couple's isolated dying hometown and discovers a secret base. Unfortunately, he suspects local Sheriff Lou Carver instead of Kathy Adams (Diane Baker), who claims to be one of the town's few remaining residents. As a result, when Vincent convinces Landers to come see what he has found, his friend is lured into a fatal ambush instead by innocent-looking Aunt Sara (Ellen Corby). The American Season One DVD release also has an extended, unaired version of the pilot episode. | ||
| 2 | "The Experiment" | 17 January 1967 (1967-01-17) |
| Eminent astrophysicist Professor Curtis Lindstrom (Laurence Naismith) claims in the newspapers to have documentary proof that Earth is being secretly invaded, which he will reveal at an upcoming conference. Unsure of Vincent's intentions, Lindstrom still takes his advice after avoiding one attempt on his life and goes into hiding, telling only his son Lloyd (Roddy McDowell) his location. However, Lloyd has been brainwashed by the aliens. Lindstrom is killed and his evidence destroyed. Vincent is captured and subjected to brainwashing himself. However, because he had knocked Lloyd out beforehand, Lloyd is unable to take the pills that keep him under the aliens' control. He rescues Vincent, though he himself is killed. | ||
| 3 | "The Mutation" | 24 January 1967 (1967-01-24) |
| Vincent arrives in the American southwest just as the U.S. Air Force is winding down an unsuccessful investigation of a reported UFO landing. Reporter Mark Evans (Edward Andrews) introduces him to stripper Vikki (Suzanne Pleshette), who claims to have seen where it set down. It is a trap; both Vikki and Evans are Invaders. However, Vikki is a mutation: she can experience emotions. Attracted to Vincent, she warns him just in time. Her divided loyalties cause her to serve first one side, then the other. In the end, she chooses Vincent, at the cost of her own life. This is the first episode to show what happens when the aliens die. | ||
| 4 | "The Leeches" | 31 January 1967 (1967-01-31) |
| After a series of kidnappings of top scientists and inventors, Warren Doneghan (Arthur Hill), the president of an electronics company, is convinced he is next. Believing that aliens are responsible, he contacts Vincent. Vincent persuades him to allow himself to be taken. A hidden homing device leads Vincent and Tom Wiley (Mark Richman), Doneghan's skeptical chief of security, to the Invader base, barely in time to save Doneghan from having his knowledge extracted from his brain. Wiley is killed, but Doneghan survives; Vincent gains his first ally. | ||
| 5 | "Genesis" | 7 January 1967 (1967-01-07) |
| A motorcycle cop (Phillip Pine) pulls over a station wagon. When he insists on seeing what is in the curtained off back, the sight is too much for his mind; though he manages to evade an attempt to kill him, he becomes catatonic. At the hospital, the man's friend and fellow policeman, Lieutenant Greg Lucather (John Larch), ignores Vincent's warning that the Invaders will try again. However, when he later shoots and kills an alien trying to silence Vincent, he becomes less skeptical. The station wagon is traced to the Newport Sea Lab. Vincent eventually discovers that a new wing is being used to try to restore an ill, but very important Invader (whose loss would set the invasion back months or years) to human form. Vincent and Lucather foil the scheme and the Invader dies, but a fire destroys all the evidence. | ||
| 6 | "Vikor" | 14 February 1967 (1967-02-14) |
| A telephone lineman sees a "man" glowing or burning in a transparent tube (needed periodically by the aliens to maintain their human forms) at Vikor Enterprises. Before he can be silenced, his story gets in the newspapers, bringing Vincent to investigate. He discovers that the company's embittered president, George Vikor (Jack Lord), has made a deal with Invader Mr. Nexus (Alfred Ryder); in exchange for mass producing the regeneration chambers, he and his beloved but neglected wife Sherri (Diana Hyland) are to be masters, not slaves, in the new world order. When Sherri refuses to go along and instead helps Vincent, Vikor chooses the power he craves over her. However, Vincent manages to deceive Nexus into believing that Vikor is actually a government agent. The Invaders kill Vikor and remove all traces of their work at the plant. | ||
| 7 | "Nightmare" | 21 February 1967 (1967-02-21) |
| When Kansas schoolteacher Ellen Woods (Kathleen Widdoes) visits one of her students, she stumbles upon an alien machine in a barn. She flees, pursued by a swarm of locusts controlled by the device, and tells the press, but later recants. Vincent encounters small town hostility to strangers stirring up trouble, particularly from Ellen's fiance Ed Gidney (James T. Callahan), in addition to Invaders in key positions of authority. However, he stumbles upon a hidden broadcasting station and surmises that it is designed to provoke normally harmless insects into attacking humanity. High school principal Oliver Ames (Robert Emhardt) and Miss Havergill (Jeanette Nolan) forcibly take Ellen back to the barn for elimination, but Vincent and Ed rescue her. The aliens destroy their installation and leave. | ||
| 8 | "Doomsday Minus One" | 28 February 1967 (1967-02-28) |
| Vincent is summoned by Charlie Spence and Major Rick Graves (William Windom), head of security at a U.S. Army base in the Utah desert. Vincent discovers that General Theodore Beaumont (Andrew Duggan), the base commander and Graves' close friend, is in league with the Invaders, led by Carl Wyeth (Robert Osterloh). The aliens plan to detonate an antimatter bomb at the same time and place as a scheduled nuclear test detonation, and cause millions of deaths. When confronted by Vincent and Graves, Beaumont reveals that he intends to use the explosion to expose the Invaders. However, when Vincent proves to him that the Invaders have been one step ahead of him all the time, they join forces. Beaumont foils the scheme by driving the bomb away, blowing himself and Wyeth up. | ||
| 9 | "Quantity: Unknown" | 7 March 1967 (1967-03-07) |
| The wreckage of a small airplane yields no bodies, only a strangely light closed metal cylinder. The Invaders try to hijack it while it is en route to a laboratory for analysis. The newspaper story brings Vincent. He persuades A. J. Richards (Milton Selzer), the head of the lab, to set up a trap with a fake duplicate, but no one takes the bait. Security guard Harry Swain (James Whitmore) knows about the Invaders - his wife and daughter were murdered by them - and nearly kills Vincent, convinced that he is one himself. When Vincent proves otherwise, they decide to steal the cylinder to forestall the enemy. Sympathetic researcher Diane Oberly (Susan Strasberg) fails to dissuade Vincent from taking it. When he becomes separated from Swain, Vincent takes the cylinder to Swain's military contact, Colonel Frank Griffith (William Talman), only to discover that both Griffith and Swain are Invaders using him to retrieve their invasion plans. However, Vincent has had his suspicions and manages to kill them both. | ||
| 10 | "The Innocent" | 14 March 1967 (1967-03-14) |
| U.S. Air Force Captain Mitchell Ross (Dabney Coleman) gets into a shootout and kills a soldier acting suspiciously, but is disturbed when there is no body. Aware of Vincent's claims, Ross invites him to testify before an investigating commission with him. Vincent agrees, but has another matter to deal with first. Maine fisherman Nat Greely (William Smithers) has had his own encounter with the aliens and come away with one of their disc weapons. However, when his wife and son are threatened, he reluctantly leads Vincent into a trap. Instead of killing Vincent, Magnus (Michael Rennie), the Invader leader, uses a device to try to brainwash him into believing they have decided to try a peaceful approach instead. When Vincent realizes they are lying, Magnus forces him to telephone Ross and claim that his story was just a hoax. Vincent and Greely escape a staged car accident, but Vincent is unable to convince Ross he was acting under duress, and the commission is disbanded. | ||
| 11 | "The Ivy Curtain" | 21 March 1967 (1967-03-21) |
| When charter pilot Barney Cahill (Jack Warden) is forced to make an emergency landing in a storm, one of his passengers is injured. To Cahill's puzzlement, the "man" is not in pain or bleeding. The passengers take the pilot with them to their destination: Midlands Academy. The head of the institution, Dr. Reynard (Murray Matheson), offers him a great deal of money to forget what he has seen and keep on flying in new pupils. Cahill accepts. David Vincent, following a familiar Invader (David Sheiner) he has encountered by chance, ends up at the same campus, and finds it to be a training center where newcomers to Earth are trained to mimic humans and exploit their emotions. Vincent is spotted, but manages to get away. When he contacts Cahill, the pilot reluctantly agrees to bring his next batch of passengers to Vincent and waiting police. However, Cahill's much younger wife Stacy (Susan Oliver), eager for the money, warns the Invaders, unaware of their true nature. The aliens intercept and kill the policemen. Vincent warns Cahill by radio that the airport is now under their control; Cahill, realizing he has been betrayed by his own wife, crashes his airplane into Midlands Academy. | ||
| 12 | "The Betrayed" | 28 March 1967 (1967-03-28) |
| Suspecting alien activity in Houston, Vincent goes to work for Simon Carver (Ed Begley), owner of Carver Oil Fields. He and Carver's daughter Susan (Laura Devon) fall in love. After months of nighttime vigil, Vincent witnesses a UFO landing, guided in by a control center hidden inside an oil tanker railroad car. He sneaks in and steals a computer tape, which he takes to electronics expert Neal Taft (Norman Fell) for decoding. Susan is blackmailed by Evelyn Bowers (Nancy Wickwire), who has uncovered Carver's shady business past, into revealing when and where Vincent is to meet secretly with Taft's brother Joey. As a result, Joey is killed. When Vincent confronts her, Susan is guilt-stricken. She provides him with a vital bit of information: Evelyn and the other Invaders are desperate to find out how much Vincent has learned from the tape; something very important is scheduled for that night, something whose failure would set the invasion back a year. Vincent has her telephone Evelyn and tell her he knows nothing. Meanwhile, Taft uses his old NASA contacts to get them to come to the flying saucer landing site. However, the aliens capture Susan and determine she is lying. The mission is aborted, Evelyn is executed for her repeated failures, and the control room is destroyed. Susan dies in Vincent's arms, a victim of the radiation from the self-destruct device. Noted science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon co-wrote the story. | ||
| 13 | "Storm" | 4 April 1967 (1967-04-04) |
| An odd out-of-season hurricane devastates the Florida coast, all except the community of St. Matthew Beach. Two men decide to investigate these anomalies. Meteorological scientist Professor Gantley is killed after he sneaks aboard a fishing boat, which had been sighted in the eye of the storm, and finds mysterious machinery. Vincent finds out that Gantley had spent a lot of time in the local church. When he goes there, he is injured in a fight with two Invaders. Recuperating in the residence of Father Joe Correlli (Joseph Campanella), Vincent narrowly avoids being driven insane by a drug secretly administered by housekeeper Lisa (Barbara Luna). Vincent and Correlli discover that equipment hidden in the church and on the boat are being used to generate unnatural hurricanes. When they foil the scheme, one of the aliens commits suicide to destroy the equipment. Correlli cannot bring himself to shoot Lisa, so she and a confederate escape. | ||
| 14 | "Panic" | 11 April 1967 (1967-04-11) |
| In West Virginia, Nick Baxter (Robert Walker, Jr.) hitches a ride with some truckers. However, when he spots two men in a car waiting by the roadside, he struggles with the semi driver to get out. Soon after, the semi comes to a stop; the driver's partner is horrified to find him frozen ... in the middle of summer. More mysterious deaths by freezing are reported. Vincent tracks the Invader down and captures him. Baxter admits he has contracted a disease from his world that is killing him slowly, but is quick death to any human he touches. They flee on foot from other Invaders into the hills, where they come upon a young woman, Madeline Flagg (Lynn Loring). Her father Gus (R. G. Armstrong) agrees to call the sheriff from the nearest telephone for $10. Vincent ties Baxter up, but when he loses consciousness due to a head injury, Baxter convinces Madeline to free him. She guides him to where he claims witnesses can confirm his innocence. Vincent and Gus rescue her. They see a flying saucer unloading its cargo. When Gus tries to sound a fire alarm, Baxter shoots him, then runs to the departing saucer. However, his reception is not what he had expected: he is vaporized. | ||
| 15 | "Moonshot" | 18 April 1967 (1967-04-18) |
| Two astronauts scheduled to go on the first mission to the Moon are killed at sea by a mysterious red fog generated by a helicopter. Gavin Lewis (Peter Graves), in charge of security, seems to dismiss Vincent's theories, but he has his own suspicions. Lewis himself was once selected for the Moon mission, but something happened one night that he cannot remember and he inexplicably ended up with high blood pressure, disqualifying him. Also, he has a witness to the incident, beachcomber Charlie Coogan (Strother Martin). Vincent questions Coogan, but is too late; the aliens have brainwashed him into forgetting. Nonetheless, Vincent figures out that Commander Hardy Smith (John Ericson), one of the replacement astronauts, is actually an alien saboteur. Though Lewis cannot divulge the information, a secret part of the mission is to determine if certain structures photographed on the Moon are artificial or not. When Vincent gets Hardy's wife Angela (Joanne Linville) to admit the man is not her husband, Stan Arthur (Kent Smith) orders the fake Hardy Smith to report to him. However, the impostor manages to hijack the rocket and destroy it. | ||
| 16 | "Wall of Crystal" | 2 May 1967 (1967-05-02) |
| Two newlyweds cause a car accident involving a truck carrying chemicals. Strange crystals are strewn on the side of the road; as they sublimate, they cause the couple to suffocate to death. Vincent finds one of the crystals buried in the dirt and convinces well-known reporter and radio show host Theodore Booth (Burgess Meredith) to have it analyzed. However, Invader Taugus (Edward Asner) has the researcher killed, kidnaps Vincent's brother (Linden Chiles) and threatens his pregnant sister-in-law (Julie Sommars). Taugus explains to Dr. Robert Vincent that the crystals are intended to convert Earth's atmosphere into something more congenial to them. Vincent rescues his sibling, but both Booth and Taugus are killed in the resulting struggle. | ||
| 17 | "The Condemned" | 9 May 1967 (1967-05-09) |
| Morgan Tate (Ralph Bellamy) leases his communications laboratory to Lewis Dunn (Murray Hamilton). When he discovers who and what Dunn is, he steals some extremely valuable data. Pursued, he hides the folder of information and flees, only to have his truck forced off the road. He manages to get out and hide before the aliens vaporize the vehicle. A little girl sees this and the story makes its way to the newspapers. When Vincent visits the lab, he is attacked by a security guard, who falls off a cliff. Vincent is arrested, and the Invaders claim the man he supposedly killed was Morgan Tate. When a fisherman brings in a decomposed body a few days later, Tate's estranged daughter Carol (Marlyn Mason) is asked to identify it. Vincent escapes custody and finds Tate. Tate gets Vincent released. Meanwhile, Dunn uses Carol to force Tate to give himself up. However, Tate has told Vincent how to get into the building undetected. Vincent gets away with the folder, while Tate and Dunn are killed. The Invaders remove their communications equipment, and eleven highly-placed agents (whose identities were listed in the folder) either resign, disappear or have fatal accidents. |
Read more about this topic: The Invaders, Episodes
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