Smack dab in the
middle of “Buffy and the Vampire Slayer’s” sophomore run, our heroine found
herself pitted against a brute known as The Judge. Pausing for breath between
one grisly butchering and the next, The Judge assuredly expounded his inviolability
to “weapons forged”; he had been around since the Middle Ages when bows and
arrows were the pinnacle of modern warfare and was impervious to such 14th
Century efforts to do him in. Buff-stuff’s penchant for a challenge afforded
her the upper hand, though, and one slick trip to the local Department of Defense’s
arsenal later she gave The Judge what-for, rocket-launcher style. What did Ms
Summers make of that pesky old “no weapon forged spiel? “That was then. This is
now.”
I guess this showdown
packed a particular punch because it was so gaudily contemporary; not only was
the dinky blonde chick whooping another frightful bad guy, but she was doing it
by niftily capitalizing on the most newfangled of weapons. Out with the old, in
with the new. Miserably, though, the scene lacks a hefty chunk of its ‘97 force
when watched today; gadgetry’ has moved on, nemeses have moved on, and feisty
females onscreen have moved on, remarried and spawned generation on generation
of Buffy-ettes. Things have changed since the 90s (see also Pokémon and The
Spice Girls), and to stay abreast of those shifts action-based telly shows have
got to be cutting-edge. Despite being well aware of this, I’ve made it quite
plain in the majority of cases that hopeful replacements for Buffy need not
apply. I’ll opt to wallow in nostalgia, thank you very much. Thus, it was only
after days of pestering that a friend coaxed me into applying my tried and
tested “three-date rule” to her latest small screen darling: “Nikita”.
Even with my crazed
clinging to telly days of yore, the premise of “Nikita” became too alluring to
turn down: one woman’s relentless pains to sabotage the espionage government
agency she used to be a part of, Division. After handpicking its recruits, Division
obliterates his or her past record in society and churns out formidable agents.
So what’s with Nikita’s gritty and rampant resolve to take the team down? Turns
out Division is corrupt, and the crooks heading the operation made the faux pas
of taking out Nikita’s civilian fiancé because the relationship contradicted
protocol.
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| Beauty and brawn: Maggie Q stars as Nikita |
Critically, the pilot
managed to convey its assured and complicated premise without skimping on an
engaging, high-octane first-ep plot. Nikita started the day by dropping in on
her former foster father, snapping his wrist and filling him in on her
entanglement with Division. Having the prescience to know her operative pals
would thus be sticking to her like glue, she then staged a visit to her dead
lover’s grave and used Division’s attempts to annihilate her to kidnap its head
technician. Not content with humiliating the organization just the once before
midday, Nikita incomprehensibly got wind of its latest operational plan to assassinate
an African politician and royally scuppered the attempt, all the while relying
on only the most unfathomable action-stunts and (note the stress on being up to
date) sharpened ammunition. For her final trick, Nikita stormed (or, rather,
strutted) the government gathering attended by Division-head Percy and her
former mentor Michael, coolly divulging her wish to see them suffer and then
rustling up a shoot-out deserving of a spot in any Bond flick. From the off, it
was apparent that Nikita was not another roguish brat, bothersome but easy
enough to do away with when she had the front to show herself; no, Nikita was
shown as a weighty and competent threat with more foresight, resourcefulness
and (to keep us on her side) compassion than a hundred government officials
combined.
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| Not just the new kid: Alex had an agenda |
Parallel to Nikita’s
pilot comings and goings, the show followed Division’s latest recruit into the
fold. After showing her being ditched at a crime scene by a masked accomplice,
Alex was spared prison by Michael and began her operative grooming. It was
intriguing enough, though this dimension of the hour slot struck as a tad
forced; were we to be lumbered with this angst-ridden, comparably incapable
future agent just to be allowed a glimpse into the inner workings of Division? I’d
have happily forgone it. Alex’s early lunchtime dispute with fellow recruit
Jaden and her first session with on-site psychologist Amanda were both more
“Mean Girls” than “Mission: Impossible”. In retrospect, my immediate disregard
for the Alex thread is testament to the show’s nimble construction; at the
close it was revealed that Alex had been planted in Division by Nikita herself
to act as mole, and was much less the inept and innocent newbie than she made
out. And that masked accomplice of hers? Nikita struck again. Just in case the
primary half of the episode hadn’t seen her come off as astute and impossibly
intelligent enough on its own, the revelation that Nikita was also the
orchestrator of Alex’s scenes saw the heroine reach even Buffy-dizzying
heights.
The following two
episodes, “2.0” and “Kill Jill” respectively, kept momentum going in the character
department and wowed with their plot premises. In “2.0” Division made the
protection of wealthy Serbian war criminal its priority on the promise of a
hefty pay out, and Nikita naturally made it her day’s work to finish him off. To
muddy the water, both were foiled when Dadich, Division’s said golden ticket,
was taken hostage by a group of mercenaries following a hotel showdown with
Alex at its helm (that first mission as an active agent for a covert and
debauched governmental organization can
be pesky, can’t it?). Division’s sights soon became set on a tracking device
that would have led them to Dadich’s valuable uranium, so Nikita adapted her
schedule accordingly and lobbed it in front of an underground train. Special
mention in “2.0” has to go to its breathtaking pace, both in terms of the
storyline lurches and the literal speed and visual dexterity of Nikita (Maggie
Q, who plays her, insisted back in 2010 that she did all of her own stunts in
the series: now that’s an actress
worthy of her no doubt sickeningly mammoth paycheque).
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| Espionage thriller meets beauty pageant: journalist beauty Jill Morelli was taken under Nikita's wing |
“Kill Jill” centred on
Division’s determination to conceal a commercial short haul plane crash, due to
its cargo being made up of stacks of lucrative cocaine rather than the
customary pasty and excitable tourists. Nikita concerned herself with
protecting Jill Morelli, a journalist who had been contacted with footage of
Division’s agents doing their dirty work following the crash and who Division
was therefore keen to interrogate and discredit. After another signature
shootout scene and several ill-fated kidnap plots, episode three culminated in
Nikita outdoing Michael and his Division cronies to clear Jill’s name. For the
first time, though, what was going on in the bowels of Division’s headquarters
became more engaging than Nikita’s trigger-pulling antics in the outside world.
Suspecting a mole planted by Nikita working within their walls, Percy and
Michael demanded the evaluation of their technician, Birkhoff, by the
aforementioned psychologist Amanda. By having Division pit ignorant worker
against ignorant worker, the show’s writers bolstered the unit’s presentation
as an inhumane and ruthless foe. The situation simultaneously allowed “Nikita”
to showcase its attention to detail; even the lesser characters like Birkhoff
and Amanda were written as having their own insecurities, potent personalities
and dynamics. Alex, meanwhile, was duped into legitimately assisting Division
sniff out Nikita when she solved what was ostensibly a training exercise, and
this whipped up dormant conflict for her character: the woman that saved her
life or the secure government agency that gives her and potential love-interest
fellow recruit Thom a home? Dispelling my initial fears that she would serve as
the series’ bumbling wannabe living in Nikita’s fierce shadow, Alex’s
organizing her own battering just to get closer to Division’s hub evidenced the
writers’ refusal to let only their protagonist take all the series’
considerable grit.
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| She's behind you: Nikita got to grips with former tutor Michael |
Having watched a
measly three episodes, its patent that “Nikita” can hold its own in the
savvy-stakes; it’s chock-a-block with gasp-worthy conflict shots, calculated
but subtle storylines and multifaceted characters from the top down. The only
chink in its armour this early on is the lack of empathy I feel for Nikita;
she’s almost too cool for human emotion and contact, and this marginally
alienates viewers. Without reverting to a glitzy drama or coffee-shop soap,
I’ve got my fingers crossed that Nikita doesn’t go on being such a lone she-wolf for too much
longer. And my previous declination to tune into any new series featuring gutsy
female heroines taking on sprawling foes? “That was then. This is now.”
One Line Wonder
Percy (speaking about
Nikita): I’m not going to let a piece of street trash slow down this operation.
Famous last words, anyone?
The Fortune Telly-er
It’s sort of backwards
for a fortune segment, but I see future episodes exploring Nikita’s back story
more. There are gaping holes that, perhaps when filled, would give Nikita that
touch of familiarity she needs to be accepted into viewers’ telly routine: did
she really get recruited by Division in the same way as everyone else, or did
someone see that she was a threat to be minimised? How did she wind up meeting
a civilian fiancé in the first place? Why did Michael so willingly let her out
of his clutches at the end of the pilot, and why was he so confident in “Kill
Jill” that she wouldn’t carry out her threat to shoot him?
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