Manimal magnetism

Like our president, four TV shows are trying to scare us with tales of human hybrids. But what, exactly, are we so afraid of?

By Laura Miller

Read more: George W. Bush, Laura Miller, Arts & Entertainment, Arts & Entertainment TV Features, Battlestar Galactica

Feb. 10, 2006 | It's getting to be a tradition, the sci-fi moment in George W. Bush's State of the Union address. In 2004, the president advocated renewed efforts to explore the planet Mars. This year he called for government regulations to prohibit the creation of "human-animal hybrids." Now, it could be that Bush stumbled across an article like this one in National Geographic, describing successful efforts by scientists to create pigs with human blood flowing through their veins and fuse human cells with rabbit eggs, or Stanford University's potential project to "create mice with human brains." On the other hand, maybe the president's just been watching a lot of TV.

Last fall, the networks introduced a handful of new series with science-fiction elements, seen, inexplicably, by some observers as attempts to capitalize on the success of "Lost." It's true that a lot of the action in "Surface" -- in which a marine biologist, a working-class guy and a Spielbergesque kid search for the truth about a new species of sea monster -- takes place on or near the water. But "Surface," like "Threshold" (now canceled) and the Floridian gothic "Invasion," owes more to "The X-Files" than to the castaway adventuring of "Lost." All three shows feature covert government operations (in "Threshold" the heroes actually work for the government, which means they're in on the conspiracy). "Threshold" and "Invasion" both involve some kind of attack by aliens, and in "Surface," we recently learned that the sea monsters are the result of secretive corporate-sponsored genetic engineering.

But the hard kernel of anxiety in all of these shows is the same thing that's been freaking out George W. Bush: human hybrids. In "Threshold," the aliens employed an enormous, levitating, shape-changing snowflake thingy to hypnotize the crew of a freighter ship while emitting a sound capable of altering the genetic makeup of anyone who hears it. Now those "infected" by this improbable means roam the nation, trying to send the tone out via cellphone networks and causing traffic to jam up in the same pinwheel design that serves as the show's logo. Besides wanting to spread the tone and mess with your commute, the hybrids seem to have a generally homicidal attitude, superstrength and a tendency to light up like a pinball machine when shot. Their cells, when studied by Threshold team member and former NASA microbiologist Dr. Nigel Fenway, are revealed to contain triple-helix DNA. (For those who failed high-school biology, the DNA of all earth's living things is a mere double helix.)

In "Surface," a pubescent boy named Miles hatches a mysterious egg sac in his home aquarium. What comes out is an adorable (I swear) turtle/lizard creature he names Nim. Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, the adult leads incur governmental wrath with a renegade underwater research project and manage to videotape full-grown specimens nursing acres of egg sacs on the ocean floor. Even the giant versions of these sea monsters are kinda cute, with round heads and big, puppyish paws, but except for Nim, now thoroughly bonded with Miles, they're aggressive man-eaters. A school of the young critters attacks Miles, and the bites they give him cause a mysterious fever that almost takes his life before he's miraculously healed by Nim. But now Miles has the same weird effect on electrical appliances that Nim does, his pupils change shape and he turns uncharacteristically violent when hassled by the school bully. Pretty soon, a mob of suburbanites waving pitchforks gathers outside his family's McMansion.

"Invasion" has the murkiest hybrid premise of all. During a hurricane, lights fall from the sky into the waters outside a small Floridian town. Certain residents come to consciousness after the storm, lying naked in the reeds or water, with no memory of the previous night. They form a support group at the local church but never seem to get around to comparing detailed notes. Do they realize that they're all unduly fascinated by running water, and that some of them can actually stay underwater for an hour or more without needing to breathe? Tom, the town's sinister sheriff -- married to Mariel, the hero's ex-wife -- seems to know more than he's saying, and the Army is up to something in the remote reaches of the swamps.

What makes "Invasion" the strongest of the three shows is the way it uses the alien infiltration as a metaphor for the uneasiness of the post-nuclear family. Tom has not only taken Mariel away from her former husband and kids, he's actually slowly changing her into another, alien being. The series' hero, studly park ranger Russell, and his crankish brother-in-law discover the corpses of people who are supposed to be still alive, and they also find the remains of bizarre, squid-like creatures fused to human bodies. But if the aliens have entirely replaced Mariel's body with one of their own, she isn't really aware of it; like the infected in "Threshold" (if not as quickly), she starts out thinking she's her old self and only gradually feels the pull of another identity.

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