It took a guest starring role for Thad Luckinbill, who I first saw on Young & the Restless late in 1999, to get me to watch this show. Over the years, his character came in and out of heavy story lines. His character was always one of my favorites and he handled interviews with humor and class. When an actor or actress gets our attention, we like to stay up on all their latest work and so here we are.
Nikita, at first glance with all the promos, was just not a show we wanted to add to our reviews, as we felt this concept had been done before. Now it has been picked up for a second season, and with Luckinbill’s persuasiveness, we are going back to the beginning. After watching the first episode we are hooked.
The writing is less 007 and more Buffy Summers meets Jaime Sommers while together they right the world’s wrongs. Nikita (Maggie Q ‘Margaret Denise Quigley’) does not seem to have a last name, which could be cause for later episode reveals. She was a drug addicted teenager who was sentenced to death but saved by Division, an agency which will train her to follow their protocol of bringing down anyone attempting to destroy the United States of America. The organization is soon dismantled by the government, but those in power at Division choose to follow their own protocol and go after whoever they want, possibly for a large fee.
They recruit Nikita and in the opening sequence narrated by her she explains the past, her role at Division and what she has set out to do now that she has escaped. 6 years earlier, she was taken from prison, forced to become an assassin for Division, a secret unit of the government that she explains has now gone rogue. She believes that Division killed the man she loved. Eventually she would get free and is now hunted by her mentor, Michael (Shane West). Nikita has trained her own protege, Alexandra Udinov (Lyndsy Fonseca), who will be her eyes and ears on the inside of Division, and together they will take Division apart one one mission at a time. Alex will be forced to face training by Division and must withstand all the tests and challenge they put before her. When she completes these, and with the discretion of Division, she will go outside the compound and become the assassin they have planned.
Both characters, Nikita and Alexandra, have dark pasts and without Division they would not have been able to escape, but this freedom comes with a cost. It starts with their lives, then their humanity, followed by the training of survival of kill or be killed.
Michael is a former US Navy intelligence officer who is now second in command at Division. He is a good guy trapped in his own revenge scheme to get retribution for the death of his wife and daughter, who were killed by Kaseem Tariq who was hired by the head of Division to kill Michael.
Percy (Xander Berkeley) is the ruthless head of Division, and when Nikita escapes it becomes his one focus to bring her back to the organization’s compound. This pursuit sometimes brings out his inability to stay focused on the mission and he often makes crucial mistakes in the process. He build the empire known as Division and has taken the organization from a government controlled program into the private sector, scoring billions in revenue.
Amanda (Melinda Clarke) is a psychologist and master manipulator who uses twists and turns to control the agents. She builds cold relationships while working with the recruits. She does, however, show signs of heart felt caring when in the presence of certain training operatives.
Seymour Birkhoff (Aaron Stanford) is a computer genius and came into Division at the same time as Nikita. In college he attempted to access The Pentagon which put him in a direct path of Division.
Roan (Rob Stewart) is a cleaner which goes hand in hand with assignments of assassination. He is Percy’s right-hand man who follows orders exactly and never questions a moment of time spent within Division.
Owen Elliot (Devon Sawa) is also a cleaner for Division but after they kill Emily the woman he fell in love with he joins forces with Nikita to bring down Division. Elliot is the operative who killed Nikita’s fiance, Daniel Munroe, which may come out in later episodes.
Ryan Fletcher (Noah Bean) will assist Nikita in her pursuit to take down Division.
Nathan Colville (Thad Luckinbill) is the love interest of Alex but is soon forced to flee because he shoots Jaden to protect her.
Thom (Ashton Holmes) has been training with Division for a year before Alex arrives. He is determined to prove his wealth within Division while trying to protect Alex.
Ari Tasarov (Peter Outerbridge) runs a Russian crime syndicate called GOGUL. He is a cold-hearted and calculating man who wants Nikita to join forces in taking down Division so his criminal organization can take control of the world.
As with our music, movies and books reviews, we look for small tokens by those in charge of the final product. Television loses a star instantly by not rolling the episode title at the beginning of each episode. So it seems Nikita would have scored a 5 star rating had they been thoughtful enough to share the titles during opening credits.
This is an extremely well written revenge-meets-espionage network television show. Since the merge of The WB and UPN, CW has dropped a lot of really good shows and it has taken awhile for them to build reputable lineups. “Supernatural” might have been the strongest show CW kept in rotation. Now with “Nikita” along with “The Secret Circle”, “Ringer”, and “Vampire Diaries”, the network has begun to build a younger generation following. The older crowd who loves good adventure, supernatural and action thrillers will easily get hooked as well.
Let’s encourage the networks and cable to work harder to bring greatly written shows back and drop this pursuit of ridiculous reality television. Those days are in the past, so let’s begin to demand better programming, because let’s face it, some reality television is like waiting for hockey to break out during a game that is all fighting. It is now all about the conflict not about the creative genius of writers that still await discovery. Congratulations, CW you can become the strong network if you do not lose sight of what needs to be put in the past: reality television.
