NIKITA; the CW
Thursdays @ 9 pm
Maggie Q, Lyndsy Fonseca, Xander Berkeley
The CW has been hyping Nikita for months, but the show's pilot has little zip & seems like something we've seen before. That's because we have: this is the 4th incarnation of the "Nikita" franchise in 20 years (2 films & a USA series).
The challenge to the show's producers was to come up with something fresh. The end result is something you'd likely see on the Syfy channel at 3 am.
The basic premise in this uninspired reboot remains the same: Nikita [Maggie Q] is taken into custody by a secret government agency that erases her memory and trains her to be a deadly assassin. Trouble is, no one knows if this agency [referred to as "The Division"] is good or bad.
Before the first commercial, Nikita goes rogue & now the Division is after her.
"Nikita" aspires to one modification in the franchise: more killing, less clothes. Indeed, there are about 15 or so kills, although we lost count. And in the "less clothes" department, Maggie Q sports a red one-piece bathing suit while snapping the neck of a bad guy in a jacuzzi. Don't know what the dude did to receive an "unhappy ending", but "Nikita" doesn't hammer you with exposition.
A subplot in the pilot is the introduction of Alex [Lyndsy Fonseca], a wayward youth who also is captured by the Division to become an assassin. The smart money is that Alex will serve as a protoge to Nikita in future eps.
Hawaiian-born actress Maggie Q [nee Margaret Denise Quigley] first came to our attention in 2007's ping-pong epic "Balls of Fury". At 85 pounds, some of the weaponry she uses in "Nikita" is half her body weight. But she looks good.
The production as whole looks like it was done on the cheap. Yeah, I mentioned it has Syfy network stamped all over it.
"Nikita" also loses style points for being shot in Toronto and trying to pass it off as New York.
Here's hoping that the producers offer fomer-Nikita Peta Wilson a cameo. She could use the work.
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