Invasion’s Season 3 trailer teases apex alien threat

If you’re a subscriber to Apple TV+, you probably know its current season of shows inside and out. For the most part, new offerings tend to be sequestered by shows because once one drops, there’s often little time left before another is unboxed for public viewing. In that light, chances are you may not have seen Invasion, an often overlooked show, to some degree hidden by the other tentpoles of the streaming service Silo and Foundation. With a smaller core audience that has had a love/hate relationship with the show — early reviews skewing on the negative side for a slow-burn first season — it still has been an Apple TV+ standout when it comes to cinematography, with a creative team itching to make big, provocative moves but not always with the best execution.

Regardless, Apple TV+ has given fans the trailer for Invasion’s upcoming third season, and with it, the series is teeing itself up for taking on its most ambitious outing yet.

The series is helmed by writer David Weil, who is best known for the Netflix series Hunters, and producer Simon Kinberg, who has been credited with a number of the X-Men films, including as producer and screenwriter of the Oscar-nominated The Martian. The story, as set out from the get-go, is a unique approach to the alien invasion trope, given to us through the eyes of regular citizens around the world. Invasion has woven English, Japanese, and Pashto into its storytelling, which humanizes the global impact of an extraterrestrial threat.

Season 1 chronicled how it all began, exploring how people reacted to initial contact and, in some cases, learning to live with a foreign species. Some of those extraterrestrials featured in the first installment, but for the most part, the aliens were side plots to the personal struggles and conflicts the cast would endure, which, in turn, turned off a significant portion of viewers who tuned in expecting all-out alien-on-human carnage.

Season 2 took a turn, upping the action quotient and the stakes, as the survivors of season 1 were mostly at the ends of their arcs, and the new world and its conflicts moved on without them. Humanity was slowly pushed into small safe zones controlled by a force field that killed anyone caught on the outside. With nowhere to run, the story centered on the fight to not just survive but make the impossible, impossibly difficult choices necessary to live for another day. The pacing didn’t speed up, but there was more of a sense of urgency, as the larger narrative moved into overdrive and prepared the stage for season 3.

Invasion Season 3 Trailer: Aliens & Crew United for Big-Mission Season

Season 3 begins two years after the end of the last season, and the aliens have evolved into something “monstrous” and quickly more apocalyptic, according to the official synopsis. We will now see the storylines from the previous seasons and their characters converge for the first time, with all of our main players coming together on a dangerous mission with the singular goal of accessing the alien mothership.

It’s a significant sea change for the series, which has historically centered on these stories taking place on different continents and how a few core people were connecting in each of these arcs. Season 3, however, presents the possibility of all of those storylines and casts intersecting for the biggest threat to Earth yet. On the other side, the Aliens have reached their “apex” form, represented by creeping tendrils hell-bent on subjugating the world, and it will take all of the main cast’s fortitude and acumen to stand a chance.

In terms of the cast, returning are Golshifteh Farahani as Aneesha Malik, Shioli Kutsuna as Mitsuko Yamato, Shamier Anderson as Trevante Cole, India Brown as Jamila Hudson, Shane Zaza as polarizing tech entrepreneur Nikhil Kapur, and Enver Gjokaj as Clark Evans. A new series regular was added to the roster, with Erika Alexander taking the role.

Narratively speaking, the big shift in season 3, which reunites the core cast, means we will be able to get long-awaited resolution to various character arcs and storylines, while the scaling up of action and finally facing down the aliens en masse is the most promising aspect to the new season for fans who have been waiting for something on that scale since the pilot. This is the chance for Invasion to unite its strengths in more spectacular ways while also maintaining the intimate character work and grounding.

Will Invasion win over the haters? We’ll have to wait and see, but the direction of the trailer and the creative choices in this season at the very least promise a much more focused, calculated series. The chances are it’s ready to finally merge its impressive core with the big-picture ideas that put the Invasion in Invasion in the first place.