The Invaders 2.02

The Saucer

David Vincent travels to the desert southwest of the United States to investigate a sighting of a flying saucer. John Carter is the man who claims to have seen a flying saucer. He meets David out in the desert and together they stake out the site where John saw the flying saucer.

They spot the saucer and see it land. Men emerge from the saucer and meet with more men who arrive in a truck. They leave one man behind. Two more men descend from the saucer. David and John shoot and kill two of the three saucer men. The third crewman from the saucer takes off on foot.

David and John enter the saucer. John takes pictures of the interior of the saucer. David sends John back to town, with a circuit board from the saucer's control room as proof of what they have found out in the desert. John brings back Congressman Joe Bonning and Police Chief Sam Thorne.

Robert Morrison and Annie Rhodes crash land a small airplane near the site where the saucer landed. They get out and find the saucer. Robert is fascinated by it. Annie just wants to get out of there because she knows they are wanted by the police for stealing the plans to a valuable computer.

Annie tries leaving. She sees John Carter return but the car he is in with the police chief and the congressman crashes. The police chief is already dead by then, killed by the alien who took off on foot earlier in the episode. They picked up the alien along the way, unaware of who he was. The alien is killed in the car crash. Joe and John survive the crash but not for long as more aliens show up in a truck. They destroy the car, while Joe and John are still in it.

The aliens take Annie hostage and head back to the saucer. A shootout between the humans (David, Robert) and the aliens results in three of the aliens getting killed and Annie getting injured. The remaining two aliens escape in the saucer. David and Robert get Annie help but they have no evidence to prove what they just saw.

Thoughts

John Carter? This has to be an homage to the main character from the Martian Tales series of novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

My guess would be that this episode took place in California but I don't recall them ever specifying a location. I have placed it in the Desert Southwest, on The Invaders page.

This was a fun episode but it was also a little wacky. There was a little too much packed into this one hour but I enjoyed watching it.

Most of this episode looks like it was shot at Vasquez Rocks. I think there might have been an episode from the first season that was also filmed at Vasquez Rocks but I'm not certain about that. Most recently I saw this location in episodes of Star Trek (1966), 1.27 The Alternative Factor, and The Outer Limits (1963), 1.14 The Zanti Misfits.

Anne Francis played the part of Annie Rhodes. This is the only episode of this show in which she appeared. She was in one episode of Wonder Woman, 1.03 Beauty on Parade. She also appeared in episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955), The Twilight Zone (1959), Kraft Suspense Theatre, and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.

Charles Drake played the part of Robert Morrison. This is the only episode of this show in which he appeared. He appeared in one episode of Star Trek (1966). He had small parts in The Maltese Falcon (1941) and The Swimmer (1968).

Dabney Coleman played the part of John Carter. This is the second of two episodes of this show in which he appeared. The first one was 1.10 The Innocent. I saw him very recently in an episode of The Outer Limits (1963), 1.22 Specimen: Unknown.

This is the third of three episodes that was written by Daniel B. Ullman. The first two were, 1.04 The Leeches and 1.16 Wall of Crystal. He also wrote an episode of The Outer Limits (1963).

This is the first of three episodes of this show that was directed by Jesse Hibbs.