"Melody"
Air Date: October 1, 1999

In this episode Vancouver doubles as Detroit Rock City which is posing as Seattle complete with frequent coffee drinking and angry, alternative rock bands. My head hurts just thinking about it.

Investigating the indie music scene of the motor city, Cade Foster (Sebastian Spence) stumbles upon the band Sonic War whose live music set incited a mob of their fans to attack two police officers who'd tried to break up the illegal gathering. Singer, guitarist and band leader Kat Keith (Jennifer Copping) has lived a hard life and it's supposed to show in the music she writes and the band plays. Of course to my ears it sounds a little less Nirvana-esque than should account for the mosh pit, but then again, I'm old enough to remember when "alternative" was just called "college radio", so what do I know?

The band's manager, Preston Barry (Peter Wilds who seems to be overcompensating for a speech impediment with some weird lip action) is of the "the only bad press is no press" school and is backed up by Billy (Tyler Labine), the drummer. Kat's initial misgivings, even when coupled with bassist Jeremy's (Dean McNeill) doubts are smoothed over by Preston with dreams of breaking out and becoming a success. When Foster comes in posing as a record exec who is scouting the band for a possible record deal Kat is angry to learn that Preston turned him down without even asking her opinion. But of course she is later mollified with tales of losing artistic control and becoming just another corporate rock band that sounds like all the others.

Meanwhile Cade witnesses a Sonic War fan reacting violently to a bootleg tape, he is on the right track. After being chased out of another of the band's concert by the angry mob, Foster snoops around and finds out from Jeremy that Kat's guitar was a present from Preston.

With the knowledge that a demo tape that is to be sent to radio stations for massive airplay will be recorded at the next Sonic War concert, Foster tries to throw a monkey wrench into the works by searching the practice recording studio for Kat's guitar. He is discovered by Billy who reveals himself to be Gua.

Of course Foster sneaks into the concert and tries to warn Kat that her guitar may be the cause of the violence. She seems unwilling to believe him, but when the crowd goes wild, she pulls a Pete Townshend and destroys the thing. The violence doesn't stop though. It turns out that the synth mixes Barry (another Gua, of course) has been adding to their live sound contain the trigger. Cade and Preston struggle with the Gua being destroyed by the violence he created.

-- Linda M. Najera

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