ID:Invaded Episode 1 and 2 – the most interesting show of the season

ID: Invaded started off with one of the most interesting scenes I have seen in awhile.

As a person who had absolutely zero information what the show was about, the opening sequence of the show left me completely unknowing of the situation. Regardless of this disadvantage, the show was immediately able to hook me with the visuals.

Just like how the main guy is left without his memories, we are too, left without any notice of what is happening. There were almost no explanation on the surroundings  nor the reason for him being here. For awhile, the viewers and the main characters are stuck without any prior knowledge, causing us to direct all of the attention to exploring the world that has been left with us. I think this was a really exciting way for the show to start off, especially because the presentation of the world visually through the artwork and camera work that really flowed well together. The way that he caught the shoe after kicking it off the wall, or stretching it out to grab another part of the house were cool to see visually. 

Many talked about how the first few minutes were awesome while the rest of the show was left with bore. Although I agree that the first few minutes were definitely the highlights of the show, I don’t necessarily think that the rest of the show was boring or confusing. Many seemed to be complaining about the fact that the show is very dialogue heavy within the police investigation room. While I agree and understand this, because of the confusion from the start of the episode along with how interested I was at the show conceptually, the expositions were something that I welcomed. Granted, this may be because I went in to this show completely blind and had no clue what was happening in the first five minutes other than “this looks hella cool” but I believe that going with the “show don’t tell” would have just left me more confused that I needed to be. Although I do like it when shows don’t treat their viewers as they are stupid, what I like more is when a show knows when to be artful and when to bring it down a little. In fact, in this show, I think they choose the right time to bring in the dialogue. Right as I got used to the world a little and saw the bloody girl lying on the floor (which left me with more confusion as I’m not a genius detective), the show gave the viewers explanation. So I felt it was more like my curiosities were being relieved rather than interrupted. And just finding out that this is a mind of some serial killer just got me really interested.

This worlds that they showed alone in the first 2 episodes were extremely interesting. I would go so far to say that this interesting concept is what makes up the show as a whole. Throughout the episodes, they showed two different worlds with the split up bodies and the drills, both reflecting the state of the criminal that they were chasing. The whole setting over all was just really interesting. The futuristic set-up of the office looked fine. Since it is a world where you can materialize the minds of criminals through advanced scientific advancements I don’t hate how they designed it like a normal sci-fi control room. Though I would have liked it if they made it more closely related to the materialization concept or something. But hey, I can’t think of anything specific so I don’t blame them. 

The way they dealt with the crime flowed very smoothly in and out of the dream world and the outside world. The way how the police room was jargon heavy and tense while the dream world was somewhat tense was a good contrast that got more wanting to be invested in the show a little more 

But it wasn’t as though the show was perfect. Although conceptually and visually it was able to hook me in, I found that how they handled the events and the characters in the show (who were mostly unappealing or boring) were all very bothersome. For example, the actions of the police officers really pissed me off as they were extremely amateurish. Starting from the girl character that seems to be more dumb than brave to the vertern who is leaving a rookie officer alone, vulnerable to attack when he clearly knows that the criminal is near by. He also does something “against the regulation” but he faced no punishment at all nor is it even mentioned later. This may be handled in the next episode as we don’t really get a full look at the aftermath of the event, but I’m highly doubtful that the show is going to. It’s not as though it is too big of a deal, but it gets harder for me to fully invest myself emotionally to an event when I don’t know what consequences are happening to those who are arrested or those who go out of regulations. Anyways, I expect that this show will never really look at the aftermaths or recall past criminals when handling such issues very often. 

I’m also curious as to why the guy is actually doing all of this. From the show we know that he murdered someone, but he isn’t given much of a reason to help out the police. Much of the later bit may focus on his reason for doing so like a possible shortening of his sentence, trying to find someone, trying to look in his own mind or something like that. They also didn’t explain why it was his elbow that was missing in that world even though he seemed to wonder about it. But I guess that was just random.

But more than all that, the far the worst part of the first episode was the rookie police girl. I hated the newby girl character. Characters like this are always seen in shows like this. I really don’t want her to be annoyingly push her idea of “justice” when the show can look into the interesting concepts that it has at hand. But the way she was captured immediately didn’t really made me care whatever happened to her. I’m going to be pissed later on if she starts fighting the main guy because he “was a criminal” or something like that. Although this type of thing is probably inevitable if the righteous girl is one of the central characters of the show. Hopefully they can make her more than just a righteous Mary Sue character before something like this happens.

Although there are such flaws the concept itself is interesting enough to make me continue watching the show. So I suggest those of you who like these sci-fi type of shows and this concept sounds interesting to you, you should check this show out.