"The Box"
Air Date: August 13, 1999

It might be the name Coppola in the credits, or possibly the fact that The X-Files has sucked the past two years so I need to get my conspiracy fix somewhere, on the other hand it could simply be that Cade Foster (actor Sebastian Spence) fills out a t-shirt like nobody's business (Woof!), but more often than not I remember to tune in to First Wave and generally enjoy the hour spent in a world where aliens who call themselves gua walk amongst the human population.

Now one might think Cade Foster is a complete moron for returning to the scene of the crime, but he's supposed to be a human being, and like the rest of us, has vulnerabilities, weaknesses. And while love can make you strong, it can also lay you low, which is why, after evading the gua and the police for months, his need to celebrate his anniversary at his wife's grave is understandable. Perhaps too, the chase has left him weary of the responsibilities of being the twice blessed man who is to be the savior of mankind.

And because this episode is operating in a predictable reality (which is a good thing), it's little wonder that the police are lying in wait and capture our hero. But once back a the station house awaiting the Sheriff's deputies who will transport him to county lockup, Detective De La Hoya, uh, I mean Olanski (Aaron Pearl), takes it a few steps past Law & Order and starts wailing on Foster, whom he thinks is responsible for a string of similar murders in the area. But of course he can't really let go until he disables the security camera in the interrogation room, aka "The Box". And that's when the gloves come off, but not in the way you'd expect.

Okay, so because of the show's premise you'd probably expect it to go the way it does. And just how does it go? Well, the other cop, Detective Ludlow (John Novak), turns out to be gua, but like I pointed out, that doesn't really come as all that much of a surprise to the average viewer. So the camera goes off and so does the alien cop, breaking his human counterpart's neck and stuffing him in a conveniently placed locker. Of course now he starts grilling Foster like a piece of cheese between two slices of Wonder Bread about the Nostradamus book, but being as this is a TV show and the series isn't over our hero must find a way to get the upper hand.

And he does, of course. As he's a clever fellow, Foster uses the gua's vulnerability to plain ordinary table salt (it's like heroin to them) to overtake his captor, reconnects the surveillance camera and makes the alien spill his guts. He finds out more about the testing he underwent in the pilot, who exactly killed his wife, and more about the gua's plans to take over the planet.

There's a daring escape with the help of a sympathetic police officer, a cover-up from well-meaning, but ultimately ignorant humans, and Foster is back on the outside once again, trying to save humanity.

Yes, it's all a bit formulaic, but Spence comports himself well with the dramatic moments in "The Box". I can't say that this episode broke any new ground in genre television, but they took care of most of the plot holes that I considered, entertained me, and kept me from changing the channel for an hour. That last item being something a more well established show hasn't been able to do for a while.

-- Linda M. Najera

First Wave can be seen Fridays on The Sci Fi Channel at 10pm and 2am EST