Synopsis | Cast   During a spacewalk to repair the Hubble Telescope, astronaut Clay Collins (Colin Glazer) is pierced by an infinitesimal meteorite. Quarantined at Johnson Space Center in Houston, he finds he's been infected with DNA double-helixes of something unknown — along with what appear to be microscopic moths. Chief medical officer Dr. Jerome "Geronimo" Horne (Nicholas Lea) and his colleague Dr. Thaddeus Owens (Anthony Sherwood) call in the eminent entomologist Dr. Savannah Bailey (Jamie Luner). She discovers that the meteoric particle contains an unbalanced chromosome structure — indicating that the lifeform will adapt to a host. And as well, she finds a renegade "trigger protein," which could cause . unspecified changes in humans. Horne soon finds the astronaut dead, as moth-like creatures erupt from chrysalides that have sickeningly sprouted from the victim's fingers. They escape the facility. Infestation or invasion — it's begun. The first terrestrial victim is Frank Hansen (Steve Bacic), the put-upon husband of sharp-tongued Shelly (Teryl Rothery of Stargate SG-1). Swarmed by the moths as he barbecues in his backyard, he finds his hand broken out in blisters. Shortly afterward, he disappears. Soon a dozen other people within a five-mile radius have done likewise, as Houston police detective Art Torrecelli (Paulino Nunes) and Captain Carolyn Delong (Gloria Slade) try to find a pattern. What they find instead is the first of a bizarre and unprecedented series of deaths. Unbeknownst to anyone, Frank Hansen has returned ...changed. With multifaceted green eyes and new insectoid appendages hidden beneath a long coat, he is the first of a new kind. A horrified Shelly Hansen discovers her sister (Brandi Marie Ward) dead — and as Bailey later informs the police, dead in the manner of an eaten insect, her organs liquefied and sucked out. As the number of missing persons rises and the strange deaths mount, intelligence agencies worldwide fear an extinction-level pandemic. Even allies tell the U.S. if the "disease" isn't quickly contained, they will take nuclear action to sterilize the hot zone. A federal authority named Quidd (Karl Pruner) tells the Houston police and the space-center scientists that before this can happen, the nation itself will destroy the city to keep the disease from spreading. Horne and Bailey have 48 hours to uncover the truth. But even if they do, how do you stop the most efficient predators and survivors on planet Earth, now that they've human size, form and intelligence? Former CBS President Kim LeMasters — who gave the green light to some of the network's most successful series and telefilms before giving up one of the top spots in television to pursue his writing — and Chuck Bowman — one of television's most accomplished directors — have combined their talents to create one of the smartest, savviest and most entertainingly well-crafted SF thrillers of its kind since The Andromeda Strain. (And watch for TV über-producer Stephen J. Cannell of The Rockford Files, The A-Team, Hunter, 21 Jump Street and Wiseguy fame, playing a sinister but avuncular tugboat captain.)