The New "Nikita"

I don't have much familiarity with the various incarnations of "La Femme Nikita," which began as a Luc Besson action film in 1990, was remade as "Point of No Return" with Bridget Fonda for American audiences, and finally spawned a successful cable series, "La Femme Nikita," that ran for four and a half seasons in the late 90s. "Alias" is also widely acknowledged to have taken several elements from the franchise. Somehow I managed to avoid all of them, so I went into the newest reboot, CW's "Nikita," with some familiarity with the premise, but no attachment to any existing characters.

A quick introduction: a rogue operation that was once part of the US intelligence network, known as the Division, coerces young ne'er-do-wells into becoming assassins and operatives for them. Nikita (Maggie Q) is one of their former star pupils, who escaped Division's clutches and is trying to bring them down from the outside. Meanwhile, a new teenage recruit named Alex (Lyndsy Fonseca) is introduced to the training program after being arrested and framed for murder. Operative Michael (Shane West) and psychologist Amanda (Melinda Clarke) handle her transition, and she befriends other Division trainees Jaden (Tiffany Hines) and Thom (Ashton Holmes). Other members of Division include its ruthless head, Percy (Xander Berkeley), and the resident techie Birkhoff (Aaron Stanford).

"Nikita" is certainly darker and more ambitious than you'd expect from the CW, and I am desperately trying to give them the benefit of the doubt in case they really do end up producing a "Sandman" television show. After viewing the first hour, I can see some potential. Maggie Q is by far the show's best asset, a transplanted Asian-American Hong Kong action star with the screen presence and the fighting experience to pull off this kind of role. The show dulls when she's off the screen for too long. Fonseca's Alex is the standard teenage-girl-with-a-chip-on-her-shoulder heroine that we'd expect for the network's demographic, but she's not obnoxious and I can see room for growth. The rest of the cast is uniformly underwhelming, but it's early yet and nobody's had a chance to do anything interesting, so I'm not going to write anyone off. What worries me more is the production quality.

I'll give the show credit. The tone is right, it looks expensive and serious, and it has some respectable ambitions. But over the course of the hour, I could tell that certain elements weren't going to hold up. The writing is the most obvious Achilles heel. The dialogue is written at the level of most other CW shows, meaning it's heavy on emotional outbursts, light on original plot points, and depends heavily on the appeal of the photogenic young leads. The pilot does pull off one good twist to set up its premise, but I'm skeptical that they can keep the momentum going when the characters are rattling off glib explanations for how the Division manages to operate instead of laying the groundwork for a more complicated series mythology. Of course a slick action show doesn't need much plot, but if they were going for something cheesy and fun, there should be a lot more humor and a lot less angst. Also little things like the muddy score and some of the lighting tricks were noticeably sub-par. Compared to similar action shows like "Burn Notice" and "Chuck," you can tell there are some corners being cut. Never a good sign.

Still, it's expected that there would be some kinks to work out in the early going. If nothing else, this is a step in the right direction for the CW. "Nikita" has plenty of crossover appeal and might steal a few viewers away from Thursday night heavyweights "Fringe" and "CSI." It'll also be a good stepping stone for Maggie Q to bigger and better things, because she's doing a great job of shoring up the show's weaknesses right now, and these fairly lightweight spy-game shenanigans wouldn't work half as well without her. I've heard some complaints that she looks too fragile too be a credible bruiser, but Q is one of Jackie Chan's proteges and rose to prominence in Hong Kong action films like "Gen-Y Cops." She's doing all of her own stunts for "Nikita," and even if the show doesn't last past a season, I expect that Maggie Q could have a long career in Hollywood. If she wants one, that is. Remember what happened to Michelle Ryan in the wake of "The Bionic Woman"?

If there's any benefit to being on the CW, it's that at least "Nikita" will have a more breathing room to work out its little problems without being yanked immediately if it fails to connect right away. It might turn out to be a good show, and it might not. I'll stick around to find out.