We have a race of aliens capable of traveling across space to reach Earth and yet they don't carry communicators with them, and have to rely on telephones. Even worse, the alien has to borrow a dime to call his boss to tell him that the saucer has been commandeered by David Vincent. It would seem logical for every alien to carry a weapon and a communication device. They all seem to have the little killing disc that causes strokes, so why not these two items as well? They are remarkably incompetent for a race of beings able to navigate space.
At one point, the alien uses a remote control to use a spy device that allows him to see the humans hanging around the saucer. It would seem plausible that he would also have the ability to fire its weapons and vaporize all of them, thus solving his problem.
A smart alien would have blasted all the humans as soon as Drake started down the ladder of the saucer, again, problem solved. It would also seem plausible for the aliens, once they took off, to use the weapons of the saucer to sweep the area with bursts of killing energy, killing everything, including the three humans, another solution to his problem. For such an advanced race, they seem ill prepared to kill one man, whose identity they know. I have to give the writers kudos for having the alien blast the bush that Annie was hiding behind. A bush is no kind of shield against any weapon, whether it be a gun or an alien death ray.
The inside of the saucer is remarkably barren. There are no sleeping quarters, or hibernation chambers, or food stores, just a control room, and some other small empty chamber. So how do the aliens survive during the long journey to Earth, especially since they supposedly come from another galaxy (more about that later). The nearest galaxy is Andromeda at a distance of two and a half million light years, so trips would take a very long time, regardless of the technology used to travel in space.
The ray guns are cool, and the effect of having the burst of energy vaporize objects is even cooler, except that they are not plausible. An energy weapon would fire a steady beam like a LASER, not little pulses of energy which require careful aiming. A LASER would just require the beam be turned on and swept across the target area destroying everything in its path.
The usefulness of an energy weapon is lost if it fires energy projectiles requiring aiming and repetitive shots. Again, remarkably incompetent aliens.
Now for the science errors. The light year is a unit of distance, not time. A light year is the distance light travels in one year, a distance of about six trillion miles, that's right, TRILLION, space is BIG! Also, I believe they are using galaxy incorrectly, they should be saying planet, or star system. Galaxies are collections of billions of stars; aliens would never find our insignificant planet from a neighboring galaxy. In fact, given the number of stars and planets in a galaxy, it would seem more likely they could find an inhabitable planet in their own galaxy. Both of these errors point to the need for a science advisor.
Also, there is no logical reason for the aliens to land on such a predictable schedule except to serve the purpose of the plot. In other words, it is contrived, and unrealistic. If the landings were predictable, one has to wonder why Carter didn't take the Sheriff to the landing location at a time when he knew the saucer would be landing. Why didn't the Sheriff drive his own police car to the landing site. It would be no big deal for him to follow along, or more logically, for everyone to ride in his car.
What happened to the child that accompanied the alien near the beginning of the show? Was he an alien, and where was he later in the show? Once all the aliens were dead, or had left the planet, why didn't anyone find the alien control panel in the trucking company office?
There is a lot of sloppy, lazy writing on this show that leads to illogical, unrealistic situations and leaves a lot of loose ends. Yes, I realize this is science fiction and the idea of aliens invading is unrealistic, but that does not mean the writers could not have used more care to keep the rest of the show consistent and realistic.
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