A complete archive of The Medium is Not Enough’s reviews of TV programmes since 2005
In the US: Fridays, 10/9c, NBC
He’s a neo-con Supreme Court judge! His late dad’s a famous liberal! He feels guilty so jacks it all in to become a crusading lawyer, fighting to change the law and he’s going to make himself some enemies! He’s Jimmy Smits and he’s an Outlaw!
And we’ve seen it all before.
In the US: Thursdays, 9/8c, The CW
In the UK: Living. Starts October. Available on iTunes
La Femme Nikita is probably one of the most influential French movies of the last couple of decades or so. It got remade in the US with Bridget Fonda, it span off a TV series with Peta Wilson and now The CW is spinning off another TV series called Nikita. But it’s also influential in other terms: you can look to shows ranging from VR.5 to Covert Affairs to even Buffy to see the descendants of Nikita – the kick-ass heroine who has a potentially romantic relationship with her less action-packed but still strong, emotionally shut down male ‘handler’.
The plot of the original movie, followed by all the other versions, is that a female junkie is arrested committing a robbery. She’s sent to prison and while there is told that the government has taken an interest in her and want her to join their top-secret agency. She agrees and after faking her death, she’s taught not only how to be a spy and fight the bad guys with potentially unethical techniques, she learns how to be a Lady rather than a common street thug. After a while, ‘Nikita’ as they call her decides she wants to leave ‘Division’ and has to escape from her new bosses, helped by the handler who’s grown to love her (‘Michael’).
Now the last TV series, despite the escapism, was clearly for adults: it was masterminded by neo-con Joel Surnow before he went on to co-create 24 and enjoys many of the same attitudes, concepts of how terrorists operate and what our responses should be. There was frequent torture and murder. It was still obviously escapist, and made 24 look realistic in comparison, but it was clearly a show with some real guts.
But the new Nikita is on The CW, which is best known as the home of Smallville, America’s Next Top Model, Gossip Girl, 90210, Privileged, Life Unexpected and a whole variety of teenage/young adult programming (Supernatural being the strange exception).
So how are we going to get teenagers into this? Well, the answer here is that this Nikita instead of recreating the movie carries on a few years later. Nikita, now played by Maggie Q, is still on the run but has now decided to get her revenge on Division. Meanwhile, Division is still recruiting – and guess what: it’s got a whole bunch of new teenage girl recruits.
In Canada: Sundays, 9pm ET/PT, Showcase
Fantasy books – don’t you just love them? They’re so deep.
Oh, follow me down to the land of Nerry-Nu,
Where the Bibbug Tree is to be found.
WIth a hey nonny nonny, the twiddle beast sings
And the fairies do dance in the round.
Actually, not that I’m biased, but “meaningless guff with sub-adult characterisation and obvious symbolism designed to tap into the ids of the repressed and introverted” would pretty much sum up 90% of it. I’m looking at you here Vampire Diaries and Twilight in particular. Yes, yes, I know Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Being Human, etc. But 90% of it.
Maybe that’s why I can’t take Lost Girl at all seriously. Obviously “young adult” fare that pretends to be for an older audience, this sees a young woman (she’s really not a girl, despite the title) with strange powers discover that the reason her parents always told her sex was bad was because she’s a succubus and her kiss can kill. So she goes wandering from place to place until she comes across a young street waif and a Chris Martin-alike vampire cop and discovers who she really is, that sex isn’t all bad, she isn’t really alone and that she’s really, really important.
Are you spotting the sub-text yet?
I’ve just about caught up with my backlog, with only this week’s Dark Blue and the first ep of Hellcats to watch. I’ll be reviewing the first ep of Nikita next week – let’s just say for now that it was pretty dreadful and Maggie Q and trees are made of the same material:
But what have you been watching?
As always, no spoilers unless you’re going to use the <spoiler> </spoiler> tags, please. If you’ve reviewed something on your blog, you can put a link to it here rather than repeat yourself (although too many links and you might get killed by the spam filter).
In the US: Wednesdays, 10pm, FX
You know, I can remember a time when practically every TV show was about private detectives. Riptide, Tucker’s Witch, Simon and Simon, Magnum PI, The Rockford Files – no one did cops, it was always private detectives. Now they’re rarer than an ice cream at the Arctic.
But look, here comes one! It’s called Terriers and stars Donal Logue (Life, The Knights of Prosperity) as a shabby, unlicensed private detective who deals purely with the small-time – until an old friend asks him to find his daughter. Then things start to get big.
With Ted Griffin (Ocean’s Eleven) and Shawn Ryan (The Shield, The Unit) as exec producers, you’d presumably have high hopes for Terriers. Indeed, it has some fun dialogue, a decent plot and gritty edges. So why has it got the worst launch ratings of any FX show ever and why was I yawning all the way through it?
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