Watched the beginning of the second season of “Invasion”. This is one of Apple’s most expensive series, is it worth it

The first episode of the second season of Invasion was released on Apple TV+.

In the first season, the company achieved a record amount of $ 200 million for itself at that time. What do you expect from a project with such a budget? High-quality graphics, excellent cast and at least an adequate plot. As practice shows, with the latter, even with such moments, not everything is possible.

And then the revolution was among the losers – the project turned out to be boring and tedious, in other words, a failure. It’s not what you’d expect from a core starter chain that poured a huge amount into the base original content.

Oh, quite unexpectedly for everyone, Apple decided to extend the project for a second season. No one pins hopes on him, but still – was he able to correct the mistake of the original or followed in the same footsteps? Let’s figure it out.

We have already watched the first episode, sharing our impressions.

Have the accents shifted?

One of the main problems of the first season was the focus on the modern agenda. Little was said about the self-alien invasion of Earth, the emphasis was on society as a whole.

What is the series about: There is something strange going on all over the world. The sheriff of a small town spends his last day on the job trying to figure out what happened to a cornfield with crows flying suspiciously around it; a family of Syrian migrants run away from home when it starts to deteriorate before their eyes for no reason; an employee of a Japanese aerospace company to try to figure out what happened to the crew of the crashed shuttle; British schoolchildren survive alone after a mysterious road accident. In general, something strange is really happening, but it is not very clear what exactly.

I’ll start with the sad stuff. Russian voice acting this time is not worth the wait. Anyway, officially. Apple released episodes with Russian subtitles only.

The new season starts almost immediately after the final of the first. This is a continuation of the already well-known events, when a giant spaceship first appeared – the 121st day after the start of the invasion.

As before, we are now continuing several stories all over the planet at once. True, it seems that this time they have become less confusing and more straightforward.

Moreover, viewers used to complain that there were almost no aliens. So here did you hear, and from the very first frames they start with international alien monsters and all the general panic. As if I’m immediately striking a fact – the audience, we heard your criticism.

Characters now understand more about throwing themselves into the thick of things. For example, the same communications expert Mitsuki finds himself on the front lines, fighting in the streets and throwing Molotov cocktails to keep the alien invaders at bay.

But these are only the first minutes of the season. Then we are again thrown into the personal problems of the main characters and at the same time they begin to study extraterrestrial technologies. For example, there is a new use of alien material that was used to control alien technology in the first season.

Do you feel the smell of the first season? My “crucifications” above led exactly to this. There are some changes here that affect the speed of the plot, it no longer stalls so much in place, but is still tied to human destinies and the discussion of everyday life.

Okay, the plot hasn’t changed much, but the atmosphere?

She got deeper. This is where the changes that the authors have invested in the new season come to light.

Now more emphasis is placed on aliens. They began to go out more actively, and the new spaceship itself … is something. Even though it appears sporadically.

In immersion, the novelty is reminiscent of both The Last of Us from HBO and Fall from Apple. The directors worked out all the locations in detail, there are a lot of references and Easter eggs everywhere, even to the same mentioned paintings.

The lion’s share of the budget is clearly gone visually. The picture is juicy, spectacular and, most importantly, natural. But this is so far catastrophically insufficient.

Watch or not? While it’s hard to say

If for some reason you watched the first season of Invasion, then now they have remained the same.

The plot began to move a little more actively, the presence of aliens intensified. However, this is only the first episode, and it is difficult to evaluate anything on it.

What will happen next is now very difficult to say.