Worth watching, but perhaps out of fashion

It's been a while since I saw this one.

"First Wave" is a Canadian science fiction series. The pilot is one of the better sci fi productions I've seen. The main character, Cade Foster, gets his life destroyed by a series of mysterious events, which turn out to be orchestrated by a group of aliens preparing an invasion of our planet. Unfortunately for the aliens (known as the Gua), Foster is a security expert and former thief, and he therefore manages to escape from the mental asylum where they have locked up a number of human subjects.

In the rest of the series, Foster roams North America, hoping to somehow stop the alien invasion. He develops a complicated relationship with Joshua, a dissident Gua posing as an African-American. The prophecies of Nostradamus and a conspiracy theorist named Crazy Eddie also play important roles in this series. I don't remember exactly how the show developed, but I think it has an inconclusive ending. Apparently, the network cancelled the show due to bad ratings.

"First Wave" is heavily dependent on the conspiracy subculture that thrived during the 1990's. It's all in there: Nostradamus, a paranoid guy living in a trailer, alien beings posing as humans, repressed memories... 

For this reason, the series might give a dated impression. After all, conspiracism doesn't feel very fashionable anymore. We have other fads. Still, I think the series is worth watching. My favourite episode is "Speaking in tongues", where Foster deprograms an entire religious cult centred on worship of one of the Gua. The cultists respond by turning Foster into their new saviour! An unfortunate insight into human psychology.

Three seasons of "First Wave" were produced. Some episodes have been uploaded on Youtube by fans, for those who want a sneaky preview.