A visit to Hannah Foster's grave leads to Cade's capture and some answers about the Gua invasion.
(First aired in the United States on August 13, 1999)
Written by Chris Brancato
Directed by George Mendeluk
GUEST STARS
John Novak -- Fred Ludlow
Aaron Pearl -- Mike Olanski
Duncan Fraser -- The Lieutenant
Stephen Spencer -- Officer Gavin
WHAT HAPPENED
Late one night,
Cade Foster rides a boxcar into Chicago. Memories of his dead wife Hannah flash through his mind.
As he gets off the train, he draws the attention of two train workers, who pursue him. Cade gives them the slip with the help of a "carelessly" dropped hat.
As he heads away from the train yard, he passes a wanted poster with his face on it . . . (more
spoilers)
ANALYSIS
"The Box" is one of those formula-breaking episodes that keeps First Wave such a promising series.
Most of the show's usual gimmicks are absent. There are no gratuitously sexy women, the Gua don't have Yet Another Brilliant Scheme Which Cade Foster Will Trash in an Hour -- even Nostradamus doesn't have a quatrain on tap this week.
More importantly, series creator Chris Brancato actually provided some answers and some closure to an important plot thread.
David Janssen must be envious -- his character only caught up with the one-armed man in the final episode of The Fugitive, while Cade gets revenge for his wife after only 15 episodes.
It's an important victory, but as Cade himself points out, it's something of a hollow one. The Gua are still out there, and his revenge simply removes his most personal reason for opposing them.
What makes Cade run now?
It's a problem he's still grappling with several episodes into the second season. He's received some encouragement -- especially from meeting his future followers in "
The Aftertime -- but he seems adrift, searching for a higher purpose.
Part of the problem is that while Cade knows what he's fighting against, he doesn't seem to be entirely sure what he's fighting for. As Quinn points out in "
Susperience", Cade thinks most people are foolish and stupid, which makes it hard to defend them with any enthusiasm.
The rest of the problem is that most of the episodes since "The Box" have been run-of-the-mill shows. They're "problem of the week" episodes, entertaining but not likely to lead to profound character shifts.
You can't have an off-format show like "The Box" every week -- if you did, you wouldn't have a format. But the offbeat shows are the ones where the most interesting developments tend to happen, so hopefully we're due for another one soon.
WHAT WE LEARN
Hannah Foster was born on July 29, 1969, and died on April 6, 1998.
Cade visited Hannah's grave on their wedding anniversary -- September 25.
Cade committed 37 jewelry thefts and 3 bank jobs before being caught in 1987 and doing 6 months in jail.
It took 57 agents to ruin Cade Foster's life as part of Experiment AHX2323.
The Gua chose to invade Earth for its natural resources and potential slave labor.
DANGLING PLOT THREADS
Were the five strangling cases Detective Olanski wanted to close just a coincidence?
TUNE IN NEXT WEEK
The Sci Fi Channel returns briefly to the second season with a five-hour marathon of "
Target 117", "Deepthroat", "The Apostles", "Suspirience" and "The Channel". The week after that, it's back to the first season with "The Undesirables", wherein Cade meets a physicist who may know how the Gua found Earth in the first place.
What do you think? Send comments to the
author or editor.
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