Quotable Moments

Eddie: Why is it that every time I leave my trailer, something bad happens? Cade: Eddie, we've been together almost a year now, and in that entire time I've never kicked your ass.

NOSTRADAMUS SAYS    More Stories The SPACE.com Guide to First Wave 'First Wave' Going Straight to MP3 TV Review: First Wave - 'The Decision' First Wave - 'The Aftertime'    Related Links First Wave Sci-Fi Channel Quatrain 99, Century 1: Heed the call to the isle of commerce, But be watchful for footsteps that lead unto battle. Look for the light to guide thee, The hacking blade has a double edge.

Written by series creator Chris Brancato
Directed by Jorge Montesi

Rob LaBelle's credit appears before the "Guest Stars" credit, highlighting his status as a regular without the expense of reshooting the opening credits. Rena Mero is perhaps better known as female wrestler "Sable."

An asteroid plummets to Earth and is retrieved by the Gua agent Joshua. He takes a message ball from it and begins downloading the personality it contains into the husk of a beautiful woman.

Her name is Lucas, and Joshua tells his assistant she may be the Gua's greatest warrior. He should know -- he trained her.

Chris Brancato clearly wrote "Target 117" with an eye towards bringing new viewers up to date. Cade's journals go into more detail than usual about who he is and what he's doing, and Joshua provides an update of the struggle from the Gua point of view.

It's a typical First Wave episode, representative of the rest of the series. Cade is by turns determined and tricky, the female guest star is gratuitously sexy and the production crew makes the most of a limited set and casting budget.

Unfortunately, the Gua also show their usual shakiness in the villain department. If Lucas is the best warrior the Gua have, Earth can rest easy.

Lucas shows no evidence of combat skills or military discipline, relying exclusively on her husk's enhanced physique to hunt Cade. Rena Mero's performance doesn't help the character's believability. As an actress, she's an excellent pro wrestler.

Fortunately, Roger R. Cross turns in his usual excellent performance as Joshua, who goes a long way toward restoring the Gua's credibility. Joshua really is the best the aliens have, largely because he is the only one who seems to think about what he's doing.

In particular, the Gua's constant failure to eliminate Cade is beginning to make sense. Joshua seems to have a hand in creating the Gua's experimental protocols, and he's doing everything in his power to keep Cade alive.

Joshua no longer believes that the invasion is a moral imperative, and views Cade as his best hope for stopping it. If he can prove to the Gua that Cade is just one of many wily humans, or if Cade survives long enough to build an effective resistance, the aliens may call off the attack.

However, his only justification for not killing Cade is to present him as an experimental enigma that needs further study. He's stringing the Gua along in a play for time.

Lucas seems to have realized this at the climax of "Target 117", prompting her decision to eliminate Cade now. Fortunately for Joshua, it's a decision that proved to be fatal.

The Gua can build better warrior husks by including more of their alien DNA, but avoid doing so because human medical science would be able to detect the bodies' extraterrestrial nature.

Joshua knows all about Eddie, but doesn't seem particularly concerned.

The Gua's military conduct was once driven by the principle of "Battle must be waged only when the moral force of right is behind us." Joshua feels this is no longer the case in contemporary Gua policy.

What made Joshua think Lucas was losing the battle?

How will the Gua react when Lucas doesn't come back?

Why did Eddie and Cade think Lucas would just stand around and let them hit her with a car? When she didn't run, shouldn't they have taken it as a clue that it wasn't going to hurt?

Lucas was a trained warrior with exceptional senses and plenty of time to examine the field of combat. Why didn't she notice the large, dangling cargo container and the release controls that that Cade and Eddie had rigged?

For that matter, after the light blinded her, why didn't she simply close her eyes and close in on Cade using her enhanced hearing?

Why does the rigged container crush her when another falling container, a car crash and an explosion didn't even muss her hair? Could she be faking?