Watching "Invasion" on ABC

It seems to the time for scary science fictions shows. Did the TV Producers all just get a bunch of big movie quality special effects computers? Who told them this was the year of the sci-fi suspense thriller? Or is this some kind of alien plot?

So far, they all seem to be of the Alien Invasion genre.

Invasion seems to be an update of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers. NBC's Surface is about some kind of sea monsters from space. CBS has Threshold, in which an alien craft if found at sea and is being investigated by a special team of specialists, including Brent Spiner, from Star Trek TNG. I missed the first hour of the the two hour premiere, so I'm not sure if I can tell much about it. The website home page links to a pretty cool screensaver though.

What's really eerie is how similar the shows seem to be. They all have babes, geeks and scientists. Two have rednecks. They're all the kind where you don't really get to see the Aliens up close, at least in the first episodes. I get the feeling that they were driven by the need to match what the competition is doing. I can't think of any other explanation for the coincidental appearance of all three at one. Are they imitations of some hit film I haven't seen?

They've all been done in the movies, but I'll probably watch them all for a few weeks if I don't get tired sooner. We'll see which characters I care about after a month.