8.0/1091 votes#1 - Subject 117
Season 1 Episode 1 - Aired 9/9/1998
"On the seventh dawn of the seventh day A twice blessed man will roam the fields Doomed to shadows with his brethren Or savior to all who walk the ground". My name is Cade Foster (Kincaid Lawrence Foster). Picture the life you wish you had. I had it. A beautiful wife, a great career, money, friends, all of it. And then just as quickly, it was gone. I used to be a thief. I was considered by the cops to be the best break and entry man in Cook County in my day. They couldn't touch me. But I realized that was a fool's life when I met Hannah, so I did an about face and went legit, and left it all behind. Maybe I finally stumbled onto what I could never find behind all those broken safes: a real life, a reason for being... And then it all began to unravel. My bank accounts were drained overnight. I started having vivid and gruesome hallucinations that would hit me outta nowhere. I was fired from my job at a security firm when they found out about my colorful past on the other side of t
Director: Brenton Spencer
Writer: Chris Brancato
7.7/1077 votes#2 - Crazy Eddie
Season 1 Episode 2 - Aired 9/16/1998
On the run for the past 22 days. Borrowed five grand from my Uncle Harry. Used cover identities to stay one step ahead of the law. Anonymously contacted the FBI, CIA and the Defense Department about the alien experiment that killed my wife. As expected, I got no response. Headed to Potomac, Maryland, in search of a man known as "Crazy" Eddie Nambulous. He's the publisher of The Paranoid Times. It's on the Web. The masthead says "Believe the Unbelievable." If anyone ever needed a believer, it's me. Eddie was skeptical of my story that Hannah was cloned and I was part of an alien experiment. He dismissed the aliens as yesterday's news. Claimed the government was behind secret cloning experiments. He told me his friend Dean Hormeth had stolen some evidence from a cloning lab that would reveal the ‘conspiracy of the century.'
Director: Jorge Montesi
Writer: Chris Brancato
7.8/1060 votes#3 - Mata Hari
Season 1 Episode 3 - Aired 9/23/1998
Quatrain 6, Century 8. "Where ivory towers meet the eastern sea Young trees of knowledge will fall crushed by the thorny vine of a red rose." If Crazy Eddie's right, Nostradamus' idea of an ivory tower is here at the National Institute of Applied Mathematics in Boston, Massachussetts. A young Einstein named Ted Eichmann dropped dead with bubbles in his blood, like he's a can of soda someone shook too fast. Word on campus had it he was working on a government project. The program needed a new boy wonder. Looks like I finally made it to college. Mom would've been proud. Crazy Eddie wired me up with a microphone and earpiece so I could play genius to all the real geniuses. I fooled them with Eddie's help and made the grade. They told me we were working on a "communications satellite system." I didn't buy it. With the level of secrecy surrounding the project, I was betting this project was far more dangerous than anyone was letting on.
Director: Brenton Spencer
Writer: Scott Smith Miller
7.8/1058 votes#4 - Hypnotic
Season 1 Episode 4 - Aired 9/30/1998
Quatrain 45. Century 3. "The trickster seeds the mind with paralyzing terror Bearing false witness to the bitter truth at hand." I've seen the bitter truth. The aliens are here, among us, laying the ground work for a massive invasion to come. Crazy Eddie believed this Nostradamus quatrain suggested alien interference in a most unlikely place, an alien abduction therapy group. I went to meet Dr. Rita Hagen, a nationally known expert on "alien abductions," thanks to the huge success of her best-selling book Sexual Contact: True Stories of Alien Contact. Were the patients at Hagen's clinic really abducted? Or was somebody trying to cover up the bitter truth? That's why I journeyed to Hagen's group, in the '65 Mercury I bought for 300 bucks at a junkyard. After 43 days on the run, I could've used a good shrink.
Director: René Bonnière
Writer: Paul Brown
7.7/1056 votes#5 - Elixir
Season 1 Episode 5 - Aired 10/7/1998
Quatrain 13. "The younger woman shall surmount the old before the lusty hearts of many men. The precious drops quench the thirst of time before the ugly truth shall take its toll". Crazy Eddie tied this quatrain into the bizarre events of May 16 in Kalkaska, Michigan. Customers say a beautiful young woman goes from 22 to 102 while doing the shimmy-shake at a local bar. She was later identified as Miss Margaret Grant, resident of a local retirement home in town. Decided to start there. Eddie said records indicated that this woman had a nephew in Anchorage, Alaska. It was time to say goodbye to Cade Foster, and hello to Ben Grant. The home's administrator, Sarah, was quick to write off the stories of Margaret's death to the local drunks in the bar. I made myself acquainted with Margaret's friends, Patricia and Leonard, to see if they had any insight into the recent death.
Director: Brenton Spencer
Writer: Chris Brancato
8.1/1056 votes#6 - Speaking in Tongues
Season 1 Episode 6 - Aired 10/14/1998
Quatrain 11. Century 2. "The Starborn one will fly into the hearts of many". A reading from the alien testament: "The Almighty Force looked down from above. They surveyed the galaxy, and what they found was Earth. And the Almighty Force said, ‘Behold, the children of men...they are impure. They are imperfect. They are weak. We must establish our Kingdom on Earth. The children of men will welcome us with arms open wide.' So the Almighty Force cast one of their own in the image of man. So the divine shepherd did come down from the stars to lead the lambs to the Aftertime..." And he was called Elton Beleye. Word was out this rock star preacher claimed extra-terrestrial ancestry. Said he wanted to lead the hearts and minds of humanity towards an alien eternity. Sounded like hell on Earth to me. This is my reality. They are studying us. Testing us. Waiting to strike. But I'm not gonna clear my name without proof they're here, living among us. A blood test, a DNA sample...something.
Director: Graeme Lynch
Writer: Jeff King
7.2/1055 votes#7 - Lungfish
Season 1 Episode 7 - Aired 10/21/1998
Quatrain 32, Century 9: "The fish that travels land and sea will be cast up on shore by a great wave And pestilence from the sky will drive multitudes into the ocean". I seek them. I hunt them. I will stop them. Since my crusade began, I've destroyed an alien cloning lab, ruined their disinformation campaign to discredit alien existence, and taken down a cult that sought an alien salvation. But the trail was growing cold. For three weeks, Crazy Eddie had been studying Nostradamus quatrains to lead us to the aliens. The only lead he found was a newspaper clip about a farm in Indiana claiming to have a large mouth bass that breathed on land. It seemed to fit with the quatrain. Eddie thought I was wasting my time going after a fish, but I had him make up some snappy credentials for me as a tabloid reporter for the World Standard News anyway. I thought it was time to go fishing.
Director: Brenton Spencer
Writer: Daniel Cerone
8.1/1060 votes#8 - Book of Shadows
Season 1 Episode 8 - Aired 10/28/1998
Quatrain 42, Century 6. "The dark craft shall slay the dragons, conjured by the humble raven. Justice shall be blind to history, until windswept leaves return to the barren tree". This Nostradamus quatrain brought me to Salem, Oregon, where high school cheerleader, Diana Black, was charged with multiple first-degree murders. She killed three prominent Salem citizens with poisoned cookies, a helluva fundraiser for the cheerleading squad. Diana claimed to be a witch... I came to see if her dark powers were of the alien variety. The defense needed an investigator, so Crazy Eddie created the credentials, and guess who got the job? It was time to see what was brewing!
Director: Michael Robison
Writer: Dan E. Fesman
8.0/1049 votes#9 - Joshua
Season 1 Episode 9 - Aired 11/4/1998
There's no quatrain for this journal entry. I guess Nostradamus didn't see every little mess I'd walk into. Too bad. I could've used the warning. I got spotted by a cop in Cascade County, Montana, while checking out a lead on possible alien activity. A deputy pegged me as a fugitive while I was eating my steak and eggs. I got away and made it to the woods, but the manhunt was on. A dozen sheriff's deputies, a couple bloodhounds, and a surveillance chopper breathing down my neck. I called Eddie on the cell phone. He told me to head west and he'd meet me. If I made it! Eddie tipped me to tear up the underbrush to muck up the scent trail and confuse the dogs. It gave me enough time to make it to the river and evade the dogs. I thought I had shaken my pursuers. The leg chains thrown at my feet said different. I was caught. He had the uniform of a U.S. Marshall, but I knew otherwise. I recognized him as the alien hitman (or Acolyte) who took out Elton Beleye a little ways back.
Director: Jorge Montesi
Writer: Daniel Cerone
7.5/1050 votes#10 - Marker 262
Season 1 Episode 10 - Aired 11/11/1998
"Their doom was sealed at the gate, steel chariots vanished in still clear nigh. Glorious terrain left undefended, 'till the river changes course". What did this Nostradamus quatrain have to do with Ash Grove, Missouri, a small Midwestern town that billed itself as "Hot Rod Heaven?" Crazy Eddie heard the news of the mysterious disappearance of one Jason Coleman, drag-racer and car mechanic, who vanished as he crossed the finish line. Was the disappearance of Jason Coleman and his Corvette part of an alien experiment? With some bogus credentials from the Transportation Safety Board, I was gonna find out. Gentlemen, start your engines.
Director: Shawn Levy
Writer: Chris Brancato
7.2/1050 votes#11 - Motel California
Season 1 Episode 11 - Aired 11/18/1998
Investigating a small California inn, Cade becomes one of the subjects of an alien experiment that makes the guests' dreams come alive so that they can no longer tell what is real and what is merely a beguiling illusion.
Director: Gilbert M. Shilton
Writer: Jean Gennis, Phyllis Murphy
7.6/1050 votes#12 - Breeding Ground
Season 1 Episode 12 - Aired 11/25/1998
Cade poses as a track coach to investigate reports of superhuman abilities in some of the students at a private school in New England.
Director: Mike Rohl
Writer: Adam Grossman
7.4/1051 votes#13 - Blue Agave
Season 1 Episode 13 - Aired 12/2/1998
Contacting his late wife's best friend for help, Cade discovers that she and other members of an exclusive club are the subjects of an alien experiment that uses a parasitic blue worm to read people's memories.
Director: Brad Turner
Writer: Louis Venosta
7.6/1049 votes#14 - Cul-De-Sac
Season 1 Episode 14 - Aired 12/9/1998
Following up on a report by a teenage boy about a sexy alien woman who is impervious to bullets, Cade discovers that she is manipulating the men in the community to do her bidding by means of a pheromone ingredient in her perfume.
Director: Tibor Takács
Writer: Bruce Zimmerman
8.0/1050 votes#15 - The Box
Season 1 Episode 15 - Aired 12/16/1998
Going back home to visit his wife's grave, Cade is captured by police officers and interrogated, but he manages to turn the tables on them and find out important information about the alien agenda.
Director: George Mendeluk
Writer: Chris Brancato
7.6/1047 votes#16 - Undesirables
Season 1 Episode 16 - Aired 12/23/1998
"One man seeks a leap to the distant stars. Through a rift on the Northwest Sea. A forbidden love finds a safe shore. And removes battle lines between foes". Eddie and I buried the Nostradamus book. Sealed it in a cooler, put it in a kevlar case, covered it with clay, and then dried the clay with a fire. That book has led us to all manner of Gua activity over these past few months – it's become invaluable to the crusade. But the aliens have targeted the book and seem intent on claiming it for their own. We're making sure the aliens are never gonna find it. And if Eddie or I ever get nabbed by the Gua, that book is our insurance policy. Consider it buried treasure.
Director: René Bonnière
Writer: Daniel Cerone
8.3/1060 votes#17 - Second Wave
Season 1 Episode 17 - Aired 12/30/1998
Quatrain 34, Century 2. "A vision of destruction appears near the throne / And the struggle to reign supreme begins / An approaching storm unchecked / To test the mettle of all men". The Paranoid Times Web site is set up to warn people of imminent danger we face from the alien race that has infiltrated this planet. People are starting to take notice. One e-mail came from a Sheldon Lamott, who said he had pictures of a UFO floating above Columbia, Maryland, just 20 miles outside Washington, DC. I was skeptical the photos were legit – in my experience, spaceships weren't the Gua's style. But this seemed to relate to a quatrain Eddie found, so I checked it out.
Director: Gilbert M. Shilton
Writer: Chris Brancato, David Wilcox
7.8/1046 votes#18 - Blind Witness
Season 1 Episode 18 - Aired 1/6/1999
Aliens conduct secret experiments in an abandoned hospital. - - - Quatrain 12, Century 5. "Where angels touch grace / One without sight sees the dark enemy / At the right hand of the twice-blessed man / The ally leads him to the summit". I'm fighting against an enemy nobody sees or wants to believe exists. I'm getting to the point where I'm not sure why I was doing this – waging a war that I seemed doomed to lose. I was thinking of giving up the fight. Nostradamus predicted I'd find an ally where angels touch grace. Eddie and I thought that might be a reference to Grace General Hospital in Los Angeles. I needed to find that ally.
Director: Holly Dale
Writer: Daniel Cerone
7.5/1045 votes#19 - Deluge
Season 1 Episode 19 - Aired 1/13/1999
Foster arrives in a town where it has been raining for two years. - - - Quatrain 64, Century 8. "The slayer flees to the shadow of Olympus / Where a mother' s tears wash away ties to Rome / Fear extracts vain sacrifice / Until the raging pyre of the deluge is quenched". The Olympus that Nostradamus foresaw was Olympia, Washington, where convicted mass murderer Glenn Harris had escaped from police custody three weeks earlier. I pegged Harris as the "slayer" from the quatrain, and figured "the shadow" of Olympia laid just to the east... in a small lumber town called Athlone. That's where I hoped a mass murderer would lead me to aliens.
Director: Randy Cheveldave
Writer: Joe Inglese
7.2/1043 votes#20 - Melody
Season 1 Episode 20 - Aired 1/20/1999
Foster poses as a record executive to investigate a band whose music inspires violence. - - - Quatrain 30, Century 4: "Where iron chariots are forged / The sweet youth cries revolt over a bitter melody / The poisoned song taints mind and soul / Spread by air across the land' s tears washes away ties to Rome / Fear extracts vain sacrifice until the raging pyre of the deluge is quenched". Seemed like Nostradamus' "iron chariots" might've been a reference to Detroit, Michigan the Motor City. A mob of teen-agers had made headlines when they assaulted two officers at an underground club. With both cops listed in critical condition, parents blamed a local band called Sonic War for inciting the violence. I knew if the aliens were involved, this was about a lot more than rock-n-roll.
Director: Jorge Montesi
Writer: Daniel Cerone
7.6/1044 votes#21 - The Aftertime
Season 1 Episode 21 - Aired 6/19/1999
A woman travels back in time to change history and save Cade from assassination. - - - Quatrain 81, Century 5: "Dusk will become dawn / And the man twice-bless'd will be resurrected / The follower will beckon him to the great war ahead' s tears washes away ties to Rome / Fear extracts vain sacrifice, until the raging pyre of the deluge is quenched". I had no idea what Nostradamus was talking about till we got a message on our Web site from someone claiming to be Joshua. He asked me to meet him in an abandoned lot in Cleveland, Ohio. Can't say I trusted him, but couldn't turn the meeting down either. I had to hear what Joshua had to say. He told me someone using the handle "Rover" had intercepted a Gua transmission and recorded it on disk. If this was another alien experiment I wasn't playing. I was already walking away when Joshua showed his real hand. It was a warning the Gua would find the tape, and Rover would be killed.
Director: Mark Sobel
Writer: Theresa Rebeck
7.1/1046 votes#22 - The Decision
Season 1 Episode 22 - Aired 6/30/1999
The Gua convene a tribunal to debate whether to launch the second wave. - - - I'm on the road right now, heading west to investigate an e-mail that may be a tip to some alien activity. Eddie's driving the Caddy, I was napping in the trailer but I couldn't sleep. Thought I'd peck out a little journal entry to pass the time. Been thinking about where this war has taken me, how it's changed my life, and how it's changed all of us Thought I was crazy. Then wished I was. Aliens. The Gua. They killed my wife, Hannah. Framed me for her murder. I've taken a personal vow to hunt them, to make them pay. Nostradamus thinks that makes me the "twice bless'd man," humanity's savior to stop the first wave of alien infiltration bent on destroying us all. I guess I believe him, but it's a lot to ask someone to bear that responsibility. I try not to think about it. All I know is that I'm the only one who can expose the Gua, and I'm going to take them down.
Director: Larry Sugar
Writer: Chris Brancato
The Best Episodes of First Wave Season 1
Every episode of First Wave Season 1 ranked from best to worst. Discover the Best Episodes of First Wave Season 1!
First Wave is a Canadian/American science fiction television series, filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, that aired from 1998 to 2001 on the Sci-Fi Channel....
Genres:Action & AdventureSci-Fi & Fantasy
Network:Syfy
Season 1 Ratings Summary
"Subject 117" is the best rated episode of "First Wave" season 1. It scored 8/10 based on 91 votes. Directed by Brenton Spencer and written by Chris Brancato, it aired on 9/9/1998. This episode is rated 0.3 points higher than the second-best, "Crazy Eddie".