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selected from Cult Times #56

The Premise: Cade Foster is Subject 117, the final test patient for a group of aliens (the Gua) who have arrived on Earth. Cade and 116 other ‘specimens’, have been tested to see if the human race offers any resistance to invasion. Cade beats the tests, vowing to halt the first wave of the alien attack with help from a book of Nostradamus quatrains that points him in the direction of alien experiments, and ‘Crazy’ Eddie Nambulous – a conspiracy freak with impressive computer skills.

Background: Long-time genre veteran Chris Brancato termed First Wave ‘sexy Sci-Fi’. With each alien possessing a human ‘husk’ body, they have used attractive appearances to infiltrate the upper echelons of society. Therefore, if you notice a rise in world leaders with 38-inch chests or six-pack stomachs, start getting suspicious. Another major selling point for the series was having Francis Ford Coppola as an executive producer.

First Run: The first season began on Sky 1 in January 1999.

Number of Episodes: The US Sci-Fi Channel has commissioned 66 episodes (ie three seasons). Forty-four have been made so far.

Good Guys: Cade Foster (Sebastian Spence), former-thief-turned-framed-murderer (not the usual resumé for a good guy, but still...); Crazy Eddie (Rob LaBelle), computer and technological genius who maintains the Paranoid Times website, where Cade’s journals can be found.

Bad Guys: Joshua (Roger R Cross),a Gua acolyte (high up in the command structure). He has been known, however, to help Cade from time to time, and despite several chances hasn’t yet killed him. All other Gua are nasty and horrible though.

And Isn’t That... All three of the main leads have appeared in The X-Files, and Cross in Stargate SG-1 too. Many Earth: Final Conflict actors also have roles: William de Vry (Joshua Doors) plays a Gua in The Decision, and Lisa Howard and Paul Johansson are in Season Two. Johansson played Nick Wolfe in Highlander: The Raven, finding out that he was Immortal but his series wasn’t.

Overdone Clichés: Too many Season One episodes see Cade turn up, get in trouble with the Gua or the authorities, shut down an experiment and leave. Too often something cuts Cade off from contact with Eddie at an inopportune moment, and for an ex-thief, Cade breaks, enters and promptly gets caught regularly.

Fashion Statements: Lovely polo-neck tops for Cade Foster; black overcoats for Joshua, and very short skirts and tight tops for female Gua.

Motel California
Cade investigates the death of a dominatrix and finds himself in a motel where he can’t be sure what is real.

The Box
Cade stupidly goes just where the police will be waiting to catch him and winds up in a cell. However, he discovers he has a score to settle with his interrogator in this tense and exciting mainly two-person drama.

Deepthroat
Cade sets out after some photographic evidence of the Gua’s arrival in a carefully-constructed twisting tale that doesn’t go quite where you expect.

Never watch Lungfish. Cade visits a town where he finds a fish that can breathe on land and a Colonel who the fish actually manages to upstage.

Broadcast details (UK) and links

First Wave
Sci-Fi (UK) - Mondays from 8th May, 21.00

Official US site

Paul Spragg

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