First Wave | |
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Genre | |
Created by | Chris Brancato |
Starring | |
Composer(s) | Claude Foisy |
Country of origin | Canada |
Original language(s) | English |
No. of seasons | 3 |
No. of episodes | 66 (list of episodes) |
Production | |
Executive producer(s) |
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Location(s) | Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada |
Cinematography | Henry Chan |
Running time | 43 minutes |
Production company(s) |
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Distributor | Sci-Fi Channel |
Release | |
Original network | |
Picture format | 4:3 SDTV |
Original release | September 9, 1998 | – February 7, 2001
First Wave is a Canadian science fiction drama television series, filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, that aired from 1998 to 2001 on the Space Channel in Canada. The show was created by Chris Brancato, who co-wrote an early version of the script for the seminal X-Files episode "Eve".Francis Ford Coppola was executive producer on the show. In an unusual move, the Sci-Fi Channel, which picked up the show in late 1998, later expanded their pickup of the series to a 66-episode order. The show was subsequently cancelled once the 66-episode order was filled at the end of the third season due to disappointing ratings.
Former thief turned security specialist Kincaid Lawrence "Cade" Foster’s life was idyllic, with a beautiful wife, good job and a nice house. Unbeknownst to him, a race of extraterrestrials called the Gua have identified him as subject 117 in an experiment to test human resilience. As part of this experiment, his life is systematically ruined, including the murder of his wife, for which he is framed. He is the only one of the 117 subjects to solve the riddles of the experiment and escape arrest to live as a fugitive. The Gua are among humans in the form of hybridised genetic clones and plan to enslave humanity—the first of three “waves” intent on conquering and finally destroying the human race. Constantly pursued by the police, and a strange government agency called the Illuminati, Foster discovers previously unknown quatrains of Nostradamus, which tell of three waves that will destroy the planet unless the “twice-blessed man” can stop them. For this reason, Foster investigates strange occurrences that may have ties to the Nostradamus quatrains, hoping to find what he needs to stop the Gua.
"Crazy" Eddie Nambulous is a computer hacker who helps Cade Foster and works on a web tabloid Paranoid Times. He uses Cade’s journal to tell people that the "aliens are here, walking among us, laying the groundwork for an impending invasion." After scanning the prophecies of Nostradamus into his computer, he analyzes and cross-references the quatrains with bizarre current events to which they may be connected. Foster and Eddie use these quatrains to understand the Gua invasion and search for any and all tools that may aid them in stopping the invasion in its First Wave.