Is it just me or does season 2 seem like a completely different show? I just binge-watched the first season and found it to be serious, grey, deep and very character driven.
Just started season 2 and it feels like something that got disneyfied and dumbed down.
I watched it straight through when I was working from home and had nothing else to do for a few days. I watched it again just last month thinking maybe I missed something like first time.
I don't think I did.
It was just as plodding and poorly written the second time around. Not only did I not care about any of the characters or their struggles, I actively disliked almost all of them by the end. They were an assortment of shitty television cliches acting out the most boring and uneventful alien invasion imaginable.
I don't doubt that there's probably a purpose to some of the more perplexing bits from last season, but I wasn't pulled into last season enough to care.
All that said, I'm probably going to watch it anyway.
Thinking back on episode one it seems like there is a lot more action and plot movement.
Focusing on Aneesha's family for the opener was a weird choice. And Mitsuki's character felt like it has been elevated and that whole process felt rushed. She was not a main character before, important, interesting, but not a show leader. Instead we open with her charging at danger with a molotov. Just weird all around for me.
I was disappointed. I watched Last of Us and that was a good antidote. Solid show. Maybe I'll try season 1 again.
I like Invasion but it’s always felt like popcorn entertainment, silly contrivances that advance the plot, characters that do things out of character, a decent amount of action but nothing particularly deep and hardly “prestige” TV like The Last Of Us.
So - for me - the first episode felt pretty on-brand.
I just binged this show over the weekend including the new season 2 episode. I keep watching because I think it’s gonna get interesting but it honestly hasn’t yet. It’s first and foremost written like a bad network drama, trying to be something like “this is us” and then some expensive cameras and a few generic sci-fi plot points are mixed in. I’m a big sci-fi fan and this is a major letdown from that perspective. I think most of the dramatic elements also are a letdown because the characters are constantly making the absolute worst decisions possible at all times and none of those decisions make any sense in the context of their characters. The amount of frustration that family it focuses on generates is palpable. Every single person in that family is a straight up idiot. The wife for enabling her shitty husband, acting like his lapdog, and for constantly making poor decisions after the invasion (season 1 she is more preoccupied with her failing love life than watching her kids or staying alive), I don’t even have to explain why the dad is a POS, and the kids seem to have been taught absolutely nothing their entire lifetimes. Idc if there’s an alien invasion, no one is so sheltered they will make a bunch of a noise when a scary alien monster is in the next room.
I could rant about each of the storylines but I’ll spare that unless someone wants discuss. Overall season 1 had major pacing and story issues but ones I kinda thought could be corrected in subsequent seasons. While this season 2 opener felt like it was from a different show, I’m happy about that and hope it will find its footing. Lots of great sci-fi doesn’t happen till season 2 or 3 of shows so I’m sticking it out for now.
Tl:dr, the show is a disappointment and the writing is almost always awful. Hoping season 2 improves because sometimes sci-fi shows take time to develop and find their footing.