In the pilot, “Beachhead,” architect David Vincent pulls over exhausted, while driving home late at night from a business conference. Instead of shut-eye, he gets an eyeful of a flying saucer landing. He tries to alert the authorities, but they do their best to discredit him. His partner Alan Landers similarly tries to assure him it was all in his pretty little head. Of course, Vincent has seen too much to forget, so he sets out in search of the witness who contradicted him. In the suspiciously empty town of Kinney, he finds a decommissioned power plant retrofitted for nefarious purposes and Kathy Adams, a widow, whose late husband may have learned too much.
Frankly, all the gaslighting of the first act gets a little boring. However, the scenes in the ghostly looking Kinney are surprisingly cinematic (and impressively helmed by Joseph Sargent). In addition to tapping into the Cold War paranoia of classics like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Invaders from Mars (which Cohen himself identified as influences), rooted in the loss of individuality and free will, Beachhead also appeals to the mounting anxiety over the vanishing small-town way of life. Here, the insidious aliens represent urbanization as well as Communism.
As Vincent, Roy Thinnes had already perfected the dogged earnestness that would make the lonely crusader a minor genre icon, but he sounds awkwardly overwrought when making his case to others. However, Diane Baker really stands out for her subtly turned guest appearance as Adams.
