Nikita – What the Hell, CW?

Dear CW Producers,

If you want your big budget, high concept spy show to succeed, actually supporting it with decent writing could help. Let’s try maintaining it for the rest of the season, okay?

Yours,

An, CC TV

Because I viewed last night’s show as utterly abysmal, I’ll try to identify what I liked first. What I didn’t like could fill the rest of my dissertation.

What I liked

• Clever title, even without the Kill Bill allusion.
• Nice backstory opening credits.
• Alex’s diversion with Jaden? Nice.
• The fight scene between Nikita and Michael? Awesome. How Nikita got out of his hold? Awesomer.
• History repeating itself: Michael and Nikita, Alex and Thom.

What I didn’t like

• The show devolved to random, vague clichés, including the earnest, “We have to expose what they’re going to do” and the old favorite, “I owe him at least that much.”
• Lack of continuity. In the opening, Nikita tells Jill her name. In the ending, Jill complains Nikita won’t tell her who she is.
• Julie Gonzalo probably tried her best with the role. But, sometimes when an actor receives a clichéd role and poor lines, some can break out of it. She played Jill they way they wrote it, but if I hadn’t known about her background I would’ve called her a poor actress.
• Everything else between the opening and closing credits.

Random Thoughts

• They’re slowly getting away from the Dollhouse themed clothing. I’m fine with the formless gray sweats. However, can they let Jaden wear something other than a sports bra?
• Alex has great hair. Is that the mark of a spy? Is that why they refuse to give Jaden a decent hairstyle?
• Last week I mentioned the disappearance of the crusading journalist. Scratch that, they’ve transformed into crusading bloggers.
• As I sit here rocking my workout togs, I do not believe bloggers are that well-dressed.
• Why would a college student assume a blogger on a conspiracy theory site would have 50K?
• Why was she so desperate to get her story out when she had her own medium? I love print journalism, but if I had an interview with Sophia Myles, why wouldn’t I publish it to CliqueClack, which I already write with, as opposed to say, the New York Times? I know she wanted their monetary assistance, but still.
• Who says ‘freelance journo’?
• The guy called the journalist’s cell phone and she doesn’t have caller id (admittedly, he could’ve just blocked his number)?
• Is it me or did Nikita look odd on the college campus? Did anyone else get a green screen feel?
• Alex really needs to learn to hide her emotions. I’m surprised that Division hasn’t made a connection between Alex and Nikita. In the ’90s show, Nikita always thwarted their missions, despite initially doing her job. Yet, no one ever said, “Waitaminute, Nikita’s our best in-house operative yet out-of-house, her missions always partially fail. What’s up with that?” Seriously, with the Red Bull spill and the police alert going out, no one suspected the new recruit?
• Should they really keep the operations center so close to the new recruits? (Show-wise it makes sense, but logistically it doesn’t)
• Did anyone feel they forced the college episode to maintain the ‘youth’ link? Considering how well it did in last week’s number, I wish they’d just write what works for the characters/plot and stop forcing the tween demographic. This week, they upped the BH Spy 90210 competition with the ‘training mission.’ It just didn’t work for me.
• Alex probably isn’t the smartest or the prettiest new recruit in the past three months so why does Jaden focus on her? It’s their job to do their best to not die, so Jaden’s jealousy just seems irrational. I would prefer a healthy competition (which I thought the show would give us).
• For the first time we see Michael get the upper hand in a fight both emotionally and physically. Normally, Nikita neutralizes Michael because she knows he won’t hurt her. This time Michael used it to his advantage. After seeing Michael on the business end of Nikita’s gun twice already, I felt sorry for him and hoped he’d win. Nikita’s final line? Great delivery. After last night’s episode, I’m ready to delve into the Michael-Nikita relationship. The two actors seem in-synch now, and I want to know how they converged and fell apart (in this show’s universe).

Final Thoughts
Considering the pilot and last week’s ep, I wonder if they used “Kill Jill” to keep costs down. Even so, smaller budgets do not necessitate poor writing. Unfortunately, I sense next week will continue this week’s crappiness. I liked last week because it forwarded Nikita’s anti-Division mission.

Admittedly, this week continued the theme of Division’s deviancy. No matter how shadowy the past heads appeared, they still focused on anti-terrorism. However, getting in bed with war criminals and protecting drug-smuggling CEOs greatly veers from the original mission which Michael pointed out last week. So, I’m surprised there aren’t more non-recruits questioning the sudden mission change. Sure, Division wants to avoid triggering anyone’s “inner Nikita,” but won’t active operatives notice that they’re hunting down journalists and protecting drug smugglers? Admittedly, if the head labels one intelligence leaks and the other trusted allies, I guess they’d have to trust him. Either way, considering the Division head tried to amass nuclear firepower, and has a tiny trained army, even if he has information on other government agency heads, I’m surprised the CIA aren’t watching him closely and attempting to shut him down (no matter how heroically the Division head could spin his activities later).

Either way, episode 1 established really nice momentum and the show shouldn’t slow down its overarching plot for filler episodes such as this so soon in the game.

Clacked by An Nicholson
on Sep 24, 2010 @ 12:00 EST5EDT