Apple has unleashed the first trailer for its upcoming series Invasion. The show stars Sam Neill (Jurassic Park, Peaky Blinders) in the lead role, with Oscar and Emmy nominee Simon Kinberg (X-Men: Dark Phoenix, Star Wars Rebels) heading things up behind the scenes. Apple describes the show as a sweeping, character-driven series. As we can see from the trailer, life on Earth is going to be disrupted in a big bad way by some alien invaders. What do they want? At this point, it's unclear. But what is clear is that humanity is in no way ready to deal with the consequences of such a grand event.
The trailer opens with a view of a happy family, going through their morning routine. Things seem normal enough at first. But some ominous voiceover, courtesy of Sam Neill, kicks in that allows an unsettling vibe to creep in, even as we are fed more images of life progressing around the world, seemingly without issue. Slowly but surely, things do start to go wrong and that unsettling vibe deepens. Widespread power outages. Crop circles. Nosebleeds. It all builds to a lot of action and destruction. Pure chaos. It's only at the very end that we get our one and only glimpse at the looming alien threat. We are also presented with the tagline, "Hold on to your humanity."
David Weil (Hunters) is heading up the show alongside Simon Kinberg. The show is written and executive produced by the pair. Jakob Verbruggen (The Alienist, The Fall) is in the director's chair for the series. Verbruggen additionally serves as an executive producer. Audrey Chon (The Twilight Zone), Amy Kaufman (When They See Us), Katie O'Connell Marsh (Narcos, Hannibal) and Elisa Ellis serve as executive producers as well alongside Andrew Baldwin (The Outsider). Baldwin is also on board as a writer.
Set across multiple continents, Invasion centers on an alien invasion, offering different perspectives around the world. The cast includes Shamier Anderson (Bruised, Awake), Golshifteh Farahani (Extraction, Paterson, Body of Lies), Firas Nassar (Fauda) and Shioli Kutsuna (Deadpool 2, The Outsider). For the most part, Apple is keeping things pretty vague with the plot. We are likely to get at least one more trailer between now and the premiere this fall, which may add a bit more context. Or this may be just one of those tales that relies heavily on the audience going in relatively blind.
This is the latest flashy original show produced by Apple in an attempt to gain steam in the streaming game. Competing with heavyweights like Netflix and Disney+, the tech company has produced hits such as The Morning Show and Servant, as well as the breakout comedy Ted Lasso. But the service, as a whole, has yet to truly take off. But streaming is the future and Apple has demonstrated how serious they are about having a footprint in this space. Apple will first debut three episodes from the ten-episode first season. That will be followed by new episodes weekly, every Friday. Invasion arrives October 22 on Apple TV+. Be sure to check out the new trailer for yourself.
