Cade goes to an army base to compete for the Red Flag, something the Gua seem to want to win. But why, and who on the base is an alien?

Once again, we're confronted with a small group of people, at least one of whom is an alien and must be exposed. The thing is, the writing isn't sufficiently clever here to outwit the viewer, as there are certain characters who clearly aren't the alien, however much the finger of suspicion points at them.

Sebastian Spence was clearly put through his paces for this episode as Cade goes through a battery of army tests and has to pass them. However, there's not really any real plotting here; the tests are all just there to help Cade work out who the alien is. There's no sub-plot, no secret plotting behind the scenes, and there's some odd Abraham Lincoln connection I still don't quite get. Plus, the whole red flag thing still puzzles me: being the first to get a flag means you can pick any post in the army to go into? What if you're just a stupid well-built kid with no intelligence? It can't be that easy, surely.

Not to mention that at the end, the alien seems distinctly unconcerned with capturing the actual flag when beating up Cade seems a much more worthy prospect. If the mission means that much, why stop at the final hurdle? And what was the plan anyway, just kill the opposition? Isn't that rather suspicious?

Red Flag has some serious lack of throughline, but it's still entertaining if predictable fun, and as such a fitting entry to the series.

***

Would you like to go to the First Wave Season Two guide, head back to the main TV reviews page, read older reviews in the Reviews Archive or return to the front page?

This page hosted by
Get your own Free Home Page