New on DVD

The first great blast of conspiracy TV throws a traveling architect, David Vincent (Roy Thinnes), into a nightmare when he witnesses a flying saucer and stumbles across evidence of an alien invasion (the giveaway: a stiff pinkie finger). Which, of course, no one will believe. Created by Larry Cohen for Quinn Martin Productions, it borrows the structure from the company's own "The Fugitive" -- the man searching for the truth while on the run -- and throws in a UFO conspiracy and a paranoid sensibility out of the original "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." You see, they really are out to get him, and they play rough; in the second episode, they blow up an entire airplane in flight to kill another pesky witness. Handsome leading man Thinnes hardens to a steely determination by the end of the pilot, driven to find the truth as the narrator intones: "Perhaps, for David Vincent, it will never end." It did, sadly, after two seasons, but it has lived on as a beloved cult show. For all the '60s conventions and slow storytelling, it has held up nicely and, at its best, still strikes an eerie tone of alienation.

Thinnes (looking very old-school in his bow tie) provides new video introductions to each episode, including the extended version of the pilot, "Beachhead." Recently rediscovered in a vault, this version runs 60 minutes without commercials, more than 10 minutes longer than the broadcast version, and features a slightly different ending marked by a stronger sense of paranoia and isolation. Thinnes is far more informative in a laid-back, 27-minute interview (still in the same bow tie), and series creator Cohen outlines the origins and development of the show in his commentary on the episode "The Innocent" (co-starring Michael Rennie, of "The Day the Earth Stood Still" fame, and referencing both "The Manchurian Candidate" and "North by Northwest"). Five discs in a standard case with two hinged trays contain 17 episodes.