Invasion Iowa – William Shatner

Invasion Iowa
William Shatner, Brooke Lemke, Desi Lydic
The folks of Riverside, Iowa
10 Episodes 2 DVD
Originally aired Spike TV
Echo Bridge Home Entertainment 2009

Invasion Iowa is a really funny, fun, wacky, bizarre, and cool reality TV sort of show starring William Shatner. The 10 episodes on this 2 DVD set are a hoot. You do not have to be a Star Trek or Shatner fan to enjoy this show; all you need is as good a sense of humor and of the absurd as Invasion Iowa has.

A bunch of Hollywood folks headed by William Shatner land in Riverside, Iowa, future home of James T. Kirk, to make a movie. In fact, the movie is a hoax to get the locals to unknowlingly participate in a reality TV show titled Invasion Iowa.

Invasion Iowa works because it does not put down the good natured folks of Riverside. These are kind people and that is what they come across as. Some of the jokes are based on people’s expectations of how absolutely insane Hollywood people and a major movie star can be. Invasion Iowa also works because the show moves at a pretty good pace.

In the first episode, Shatner and the movie crew show up and hold auditions to cast some of the locals in the movie. Supporting cast and crew are selected, actual clips from the future fake movie are shown, and you get a hint of how the Hollywood people are going to test the patience of the good people of Riverside.

Invasion Iowa notches up the Hollywood absurdity from episode to episode to see how far the show can go with the joke and how far Iowans can be pushed. This includes a star with a Lohan problem and a bad idea for a children’s book, a prima donna executive, and calls from a guy impersonating Sean Connery, Morgan Freeman, and Anthony Hopkins.

A stellar moment in this show is when Shatner decides to do some stand-up comedy to the great dismay of the locals.

The first reveal to those of the town who were part of the movie is very good. It shows how kind the people of Riverside really are reality TV show or not. The final reveal is also quite neat. This is all in episode 9

The last episode of Invasion Iowa is the movie the cast was supposedly making.

This reality TV candid camera style show proves that no matter what, nice people are nice people.

Special features are a commentary track by Shatner for episodes 8 and 9.

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