With its emphasis on the personal, Invasion aligns itself with many similar television shows.
- Stream on Netflix
AMC's The Walking Dead is one of the longest-running series of its type, using the premise of a zombie apocalypse to create numerous seasons worth of drama and numerous changes since season 1. Part of the reason it has been so successful is that it is just as much about the human melodrama of its story as it is about the zombies.
Like Invasion, it creates characters that the audience can care about, investing in their efforts to continue living as best they can in a world that has utterly fallen apart.
- Stream on Paramount+
The specter of a nuclear apocalypse has been a common refrain in American popular culture, including in Jericho. Though it was a relatively short-lived series, it still managed to address some of the same issues that Invasion does, namely how humans can continue to survive and rebuild a society even when everything that they thought they knew and felt to be stable has fallen into ruin.
It is, more than anything else, a series about the fundamental strength of the human spirit.
- Stream on Hulu
For the most part, The Strain has a bit of a bleak take on the traditional vampire mythology, combining it skillfully with the iconography of the ravenous zombie, thus creating many frightening scenes along the way.
In this case, a motley band of characters has to try to survive and destroy a vampire (known as the Master) who has triggered a vampire takeover of the United States. Of course, the series is also about the relationships among the various human characters who have to deal with their own egos, shortcomings, and trials as they try to avert the end of the human world.
- Stream on HBO Max
As Invasion demonstrates, the idea of aliens invading earth and causing havoc is almost as enduring as the idea of a nuclear or zombie apocalypse. It is, in fact, the central narrative conceit of Falling Skies, which focuses on a band of humans trying to fight back against an alien invasion that was almost overwhelmingly successful.
Unlike most other shows of this type, Falling Skies actually dives deeply into the aliens and their motivations, positing that humans aren’t the only species in the universe that must contend with their demons.
- Stream on Apple TV+
Apple TV+ has leaned into creating a number of series drawing on the conventions of speculative fiction, and Invasion isn’t the only post-apocalyptic series in the streamer’s catalog. Though it doesn’t include aliens, See is still a thoughtful drama, imagining what life would be like after a plague destroys much of humanity and leaves the remainder without the ability to see.
However, it is also very much a story about families and personal loyalties, with characters that must constantly fight to protect what they love.
- Stream on HBO Max
The beauty of series like Invasion is that they can offer poignant commentary while also featuring an exciting and compelling story. A similar dynamic is at work in Snowpiercer, the series based on the movie of the same name.
Like the original movie, the series also explores issues such as class conflict and personal heroism, as a conflict between various social classes begins to take shape on a train that endlessly circles the globe, which has been rendered inhospitable after a global catastrophe.
- Stream on Netflix
Similar to Snowpiercer, The 100 envisions a future in which humanity has almost destroyed its own world (as opposed to Invasion, where the destruction largely comes from outside). In this case, a group of teenagers is sent back to earth from an overcrowded spaceship, in the hopes of resettling earth.
Numerous conflicts ensue as the colonists have to battle with those who survived the apocalypse, even as they must contend with their own internal divisions and conflicts.
- Stream on Hulu
Along with a nuclear attack and zombies, the idea that a massive virus might wipe out humanity has occupied the popular culture imagination (especially in the present day). 12 Monkeys, however, adds potential time travel into the mix, as a group of people in the future attempt to prevent the apocalypse.
And, just as Invasion mixes its thriller components with personal stories of trial and triumph, this series has a romance at its center that takes several seasons to fulfill.
- Stream on HBO Max
Invasion can, at times, be rather difficult to watch, in large part because it is so unflinching in its exploration of how awful human beings can be to one another.
HBO's The Leftovers has a similar vibe, for while the motivating crisis is the sudden disappearance of a substantial amount of the world’s population, the series is really about the fallout of that event, and it showcases the darker side of human nature and a certain amount of existential despair (though it did leave some storylines unresolved).
- Stream On Hulu
The long-running series American Horror Story has dealt with a number of issues, and in the second half of its most recent season, it focuses on aliens. In this case, the invasion in question isn’t about simple destruction; instead, it’s about an alien race determined to breed a race of human/alien hybrids that will be able to live on earth.
It’s a disturbing reminder that human beings aren’t nearly as all-powerful as they sometimes like to believe, though it's still unclear whether it's one of the series' best seasons.
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