Nikita 1x01 Review
Sep. 11th, 2010 11:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iariaI have to start by acknowledging that I loved La Femme Nikita and while I am going to try to accept this show for itself and not constantly compare the two I probably won’t always succeed (though the distance since I last watched LFN will probably help).
I am so glad that I didn’t inadvertently spoil myself for the twist at the end because it blew me away. How fucking awesome was that?! I loved it. I did not see it coming at all.
• Suddenly I am completely sold on Alex now. In fact there was no better way for TPTB to get me on Alex’s side. I’ve discovered that I am very attached to Nikita and possessive of her, new actress and story regardless, and I was not pleased by the show seeming to start off by giving Alex Nikita’s origin story and then setting her up as Nikita’s replacement – the girl who would match and then beat Nikita as the best. No, thank you. Being the best is already taken. So Alex actually being Nikita’s protégé, sent in to be a mole and help Nikita take down Division – I am so there. It actually made me flail in glee. I loved that it was Alex and Nikita robbing the store together.
• Strangely despite my love and protectiveness of Peta’s Nikita (and I do love her a lot) I was immediately sold on Maggie’s Nikita. I think she’s excellent. Unfortunately I am not as sold on everyone else.
- I was grudgingly liking Lyndsy’s Alex before the end reveal and that immediately made me love her.
- Shane West’s Michael is not as bad as I thought he would be from the trailer but he’s not really Michael. God, I hope he grows on me though. He may be miscast but at this point there isn’t anything that can be done about it. They could make Michael less important to the story but I really don’t want that. Michael is essential to the Nikita story, IMO, and I really want to love him and his relationship with Nikita.
- Birkoff is not as wonderful as LFN’s Birkoff (I vastly prefer LFN’s actor) but he wasn’t bad. Maybe he’ll grown on me.
- I’m neutral on Jaden and Thom but they could be interesting. I did like the cleaner (I didn’t get his name) and he really felt like he fit the part.
- I’m not sold on Percy as the Operations counterpart. I find Percy a lot less intimidating and scary than Operations and I can’t help but feel that Operations would eat Percy alive. He’s pretty eh.
- Another person who would get eaten alive by their counterpart is Amanda. I love Melinda Clarke a lot and she was one of the things that made me want to watch this series but as the show’s Madeline equivalent so far she’d really disappointed me. This in turn disappoints me even more because I really want to love her. Madeline was scary awesome, Melinda Clarke can totally be scary awesome and so Amanda should be a shoe in to be scary awesome as well. But she just wasn’t. It’s only the pilot so I’m holding out hope but I’m still disappointed. Also, until that last scene with Amanda it appeared that her role at Division was a fair bit different than Madeline’s was at Section One, and I was not pleased with the change. Amanda appeared to be in charge with grooming new recruits into their new life instead of being the second in command that Madeline was. Now maybe that is still her role and if so I will be happy. But in this episode Michael was in all those scenes that Amanda-as-Madeline should have been in and if Michael is giving that part of the Madeline’s role in this new version, i.e. the second in command, I am going to be pissed. I’m just getting that out now.
• This episode gets tons of thumbs up for passing the Bechdel Test multiple times – Alex/Jaden, Alex/Amanda, Nikita/Alex if you count their text messaging at the end – and the very likely possibility that it could pass the Bechdel Test every episode. This pleases me a lot.
• Beyond some of the casting and Amanda not being Madeline I had only one real issue with the episode and series as a whole but it’s a big one: I hate the whole ‘Nikita fell in love with her cover, wanted out so Division killed him, and now she wants revenge’. First, how many times have we seen this background before? Too many in my opinion and it just made me roll my eyes. I’m over that story. Second, and most importantly, why does it all have to be a about a guy? Why can’t Division forcing her to be an assassin against her will and ruling her life be a good enough reason for her to want out? It’s an excellent freaking reason! There is no need for this dead fiancé and his inclusion makes me very grumpy-face.
• “She was a wreck. I was able to turn the tables on her easy.” – Birkoff. That’s actually what I thought when I was watching that scene. She was way too easily rattled by him, and I didn’t like it at all. It made her interrogation of him feel very off and not at all like Nikita to me. Birkoff stated that she’d have to kill a lot of people she knew to succeed in her plan and she acted shaken by what he said. It annoyed me at the time because it clearly had to be something she’d already thought of, I mean she’d kidnapped Birkoff to torture him supposedly, and it seemed so ridiculous for her to be shaken by him saying that. At the time it really bothered me so I was really glad that it was all an act.
• Nikita appears to be going hard-core in her take down of Division. In her quest she’s already killed two three innocent, or rather civilian, people. She went to see her former foster father knowing he’d be killed. She probably killed Alex’s druggie ‘boyfriend’ (and set the whole thing up) and most importantly in the robbery she shot and killed a bank employee. Maybe it’ll turn out he was a bad guy but that doesn’t really excuse it and right now there is no reason to think that. I love the idea of a very morally grey Nikita. In hindsight it seems obvious that Nikita was acting with Birkoff and it changes it from a scene that annoyed me to one that I loved.
• “That could have gone better.” – Nikita. I was thinking that also. I mean she was awesome but I thought she would have dealt with them faster. I don’t like that Thom managed to prove himself a challenge to Nikita – she’s been in the business much longer, had to have been training for awhile now (not say hanging out on a beach somewhere) and, oh yeah, she’s the best. She should have wiped the floor with him. It annoyed me that she didn’t.
• I really, really want to know how Nikita and Alex met. I want to know just how long this was in planning, clearly awhile, and how much of that plan Alex was a part of. Did Nikita save Alex or did she find Alex later on the streets? For Nikita to be trusting Alex so much and for Alex to go into Division (I wanted to say Section) there has to be a lot of trust and loyalty between them and that takes time. I’m betting right now that the whole druggie with a boyfriend situation was a cover – that once Nikita had her plan worked out they set Alex up as a meth addict, gave her a loser boyfriend... just how long did she live her cover? Was she really addicted to meth? I guess she had to have been to fool Division. Though honestly those questions don’t matter as much as me wanting to know how Nikita and Alex met, and just how/why Alex is so loyal to Nikita that she would risk her life to help her bring down Division. Is it loyalty (did Nikita save her)? I want the answer to that to be yes even if there’s another reason. Was Division somehow behind her bad past or does she just want to take down a bad guy? I can’t wait to find out.
• I wonder how Alex is going to handle making friends of her fellow recruits – people who she’s actively working against to betray/save/take down. That’s a thread that I’m very interested in seeing play out.
• Something that would be nice is if I would stop thinking Section instead of Division. I don’t know why they didn’t just keep the name. It does make me want a fic where Section and Division exist in the same universe and as part of the same organisation.
• I liked the cuts between Michael telling Alex what she had to learn to Nikita being everything he wants to turn Alex into.
• Certainly plenty of fan service in this episode – was it really necessary for Nikita to be walking around in her underwear and an open robe in that throw-away scene? Answer no.
• This was not a funny pilot. It’s a drama and the show can be pretty dark so I’m fine with it but I’m just noting it. There was only one moment that amused me: Michael is still talking to the foster father when the cleaner shoots him in the head, and off Michael’s look states “Don’t worry I’ll clean.” and Michael returns with this slightly exasperated “I was talking to him.” That worked for me.
I am so glad that I didn’t inadvertently spoil myself for the twist at the end because it blew me away. How fucking awesome was that?! I loved it. I did not see it coming at all.
• Suddenly I am completely sold on Alex now. In fact there was no better way for TPTB to get me on Alex’s side. I’ve discovered that I am very attached to Nikita and possessive of her, new actress and story regardless, and I was not pleased by the show seeming to start off by giving Alex Nikita’s origin story and then setting her up as Nikita’s replacement – the girl who would match and then beat Nikita as the best. No, thank you. Being the best is already taken. So Alex actually being Nikita’s protégé, sent in to be a mole and help Nikita take down Division – I am so there. It actually made me flail in glee. I loved that it was Alex and Nikita robbing the store together.
• Strangely despite my love and protectiveness of Peta’s Nikita (and I do love her a lot) I was immediately sold on Maggie’s Nikita. I think she’s excellent. Unfortunately I am not as sold on everyone else.
- I was grudgingly liking Lyndsy’s Alex before the end reveal and that immediately made me love her.
- Shane West’s Michael is not as bad as I thought he would be from the trailer but he’s not really Michael. God, I hope he grows on me though. He may be miscast but at this point there isn’t anything that can be done about it. They could make Michael less important to the story but I really don’t want that. Michael is essential to the Nikita story, IMO, and I really want to love him and his relationship with Nikita.
- Birkoff is not as wonderful as LFN’s Birkoff (I vastly prefer LFN’s actor) but he wasn’t bad. Maybe he’ll grown on me.
- I’m neutral on Jaden and Thom but they could be interesting. I did like the cleaner (I didn’t get his name) and he really felt like he fit the part.
- I’m not sold on Percy as the Operations counterpart. I find Percy a lot less intimidating and scary than Operations and I can’t help but feel that Operations would eat Percy alive. He’s pretty eh.
- Another person who would get eaten alive by their counterpart is Amanda. I love Melinda Clarke a lot and she was one of the things that made me want to watch this series but as the show’s Madeline equivalent so far she’d really disappointed me. This in turn disappoints me even more because I really want to love her. Madeline was scary awesome, Melinda Clarke can totally be scary awesome and so Amanda should be a shoe in to be scary awesome as well. But she just wasn’t. It’s only the pilot so I’m holding out hope but I’m still disappointed. Also, until that last scene with Amanda it appeared that her role at Division was a fair bit different than Madeline’s was at Section One, and I was not pleased with the change. Amanda appeared to be in charge with grooming new recruits into their new life instead of being the second in command that Madeline was. Now maybe that is still her role and if so I will be happy. But in this episode Michael was in all those scenes that Amanda-as-Madeline should have been in and if Michael is giving that part of the Madeline’s role in this new version, i.e. the second in command, I am going to be pissed. I’m just getting that out now.
• This episode gets tons of thumbs up for passing the Bechdel Test multiple times – Alex/Jaden, Alex/Amanda, Nikita/Alex if you count their text messaging at the end – and the very likely possibility that it could pass the Bechdel Test every episode. This pleases me a lot.
• Beyond some of the casting and Amanda not being Madeline I had only one real issue with the episode and series as a whole but it’s a big one: I hate the whole ‘Nikita fell in love with her cover, wanted out so Division killed him, and now she wants revenge’. First, how many times have we seen this background before? Too many in my opinion and it just made me roll my eyes. I’m over that story. Second, and most importantly, why does it all have to be a about a guy? Why can’t Division forcing her to be an assassin against her will and ruling her life be a good enough reason for her to want out? It’s an excellent freaking reason! There is no need for this dead fiancé and his inclusion makes me very grumpy-face.
• “She was a wreck. I was able to turn the tables on her easy.” – Birkoff. That’s actually what I thought when I was watching that scene. She was way too easily rattled by him, and I didn’t like it at all. It made her interrogation of him feel very off and not at all like Nikita to me. Birkoff stated that she’d have to kill a lot of people she knew to succeed in her plan and she acted shaken by what he said. It annoyed me at the time because it clearly had to be something she’d already thought of, I mean she’d kidnapped Birkoff to torture him supposedly, and it seemed so ridiculous for her to be shaken by him saying that. At the time it really bothered me so I was really glad that it was all an act.
• Nikita appears to be going hard-core in her take down of Division. In her quest she’s already killed two three innocent, or rather civilian, people. She went to see her former foster father knowing he’d be killed. She probably killed Alex’s druggie ‘boyfriend’ (and set the whole thing up) and most importantly in the robbery she shot and killed a bank employee. Maybe it’ll turn out he was a bad guy but that doesn’t really excuse it and right now there is no reason to think that. I love the idea of a very morally grey Nikita. In hindsight it seems obvious that Nikita was acting with Birkoff and it changes it from a scene that annoyed me to one that I loved.
• “That could have gone better.” – Nikita. I was thinking that also. I mean she was awesome but I thought she would have dealt with them faster. I don’t like that Thom managed to prove himself a challenge to Nikita – she’s been in the business much longer, had to have been training for awhile now (not say hanging out on a beach somewhere) and, oh yeah, she’s the best. She should have wiped the floor with him. It annoyed me that she didn’t.
• I really, really want to know how Nikita and Alex met. I want to know just how long this was in planning, clearly awhile, and how much of that plan Alex was a part of. Did Nikita save Alex or did she find Alex later on the streets? For Nikita to be trusting Alex so much and for Alex to go into Division (I wanted to say Section) there has to be a lot of trust and loyalty between them and that takes time. I’m betting right now that the whole druggie with a boyfriend situation was a cover – that once Nikita had her plan worked out they set Alex up as a meth addict, gave her a loser boyfriend... just how long did she live her cover? Was she really addicted to meth? I guess she had to have been to fool Division. Though honestly those questions don’t matter as much as me wanting to know how Nikita and Alex met, and just how/why Alex is so loyal to Nikita that she would risk her life to help her bring down Division. Is it loyalty (did Nikita save her)? I want the answer to that to be yes even if there’s another reason. Was Division somehow behind her bad past or does she just want to take down a bad guy? I can’t wait to find out.
• I wonder how Alex is going to handle making friends of her fellow recruits – people who she’s actively working against to betray/save/take down. That’s a thread that I’m very interested in seeing play out.
• Something that would be nice is if I would stop thinking Section instead of Division. I don’t know why they didn’t just keep the name. It does make me want a fic where Section and Division exist in the same universe and as part of the same organisation.
• I liked the cuts between Michael telling Alex what she had to learn to Nikita being everything he wants to turn Alex into.
• Certainly plenty of fan service in this episode – was it really necessary for Nikita to be walking around in her underwear and an open robe in that throw-away scene? Answer no.
• This was not a funny pilot. It’s a drama and the show can be pretty dark so I’m fine with it but I’m just noting it. There was only one moment that amused me: Michael is still talking to the foster father when the cleaner shoots him in the head, and off Michael’s look states “Don’t worry I’ll clean.” and Michael returns with this slightly exasperated “I was talking to him.” That worked for me.
