Natalie is running an archaeological dig in Alaska with three dudes who are not her husband, but I think he has nothing to worry about with this crew.  As she sinks an explosive charge to map the underground caverns, her hubby Curtis drives up with supplies.  She has spotted a capstone.  Being a Hollywood ^[1] archaeologist, her first act is to destroy the ancient site.  Although, to be fair, she fell through the roof.  It’s not like she purposely knocked over a giant statue, destroyed a wall of intricate carvings, and stole an ark.

In the chamber, they find an alien preserved in amber.  Emmet thinks they need to bring in a bigger crew, but Natalie has had people steal her discoveries before even though her name was written right on the bag, and refuses.  She holds an eye-dropper of acid over the amber and squeezes out a few drops.  The amber sizzles and smoke puffs out of the site.  She repeats the test with the same results, then says, “Negative, no reaction to hydrochloric or carbolic acid.”   Well, it did sizzle and smoke; was she looking for fireworks?  I’m starting to feel sorry for Curtis.

Curtis tries to cut into the amber, but his mind is taken over by the alien.  From the alien’s POV, he sees primitive villagers and tribesmen being tossed about by the alien.  Curtis passes out and the group sees the amber rise like a great souffle, then fall like a lousy souffle.  An alien skeleton is revealed.

Twenty minutes in, this thing is a bit of a slog.  Lisa Zane as Natalie brings exactly the same adequateness as she did in The Nurse, but nothing more than that.  Her husband is a mystery.  He is also an archaeologist, but seems to be a slack-ass who just tags along with Natalie on her digs.  She jumps on him for wanting a cushy teaching job.  However, I understand her frustration — they have just discovered a bleeping dead alien, and the guy could still not be less enthusiastic.  Even with this historic find, he still wants to go back to the states.  Even their argument is boring.

Robert Picardo plays Emmet.  He’s a fun character actor, but I had the sudden realization that he always plays Robert Picardo.  Aside from some stubble, his Emmet is often indistinguishable from his holographic doctor on Star Trek: Voyager.  The other two crew-members are non-entities; like Harry Kim on Star Trek: Voyager.

Meh, it goes on.  Curtis and Natalie try to help the alien, and then it helps them.  The bad guys die, the good guys win.

Other Stuff:

• ^[1] By Hollywood, I mean Vancouver.