La Femme Nikita: Nikita

"It would be a mistake to become emotionally attached to the material."

I love this show with a passion. But let's face it, the pilot episode sort of blows; it doesn't give us any indication of how good this show can be. The episodes slowly improve as the series progresses, accumulating quality as well as weight and characterization. So I forgive them.

Peta Wilson's Nikita is almost too vulnerable, despite her exceptional looks and stature. Quirky and likable, she appears to be emotionally immature, more than ready to lean on Michael and let him make it all better. Transparently thrilled when he took her out of dinner, she was more upset about his betrayal than the danger she was in. Fortunately, Nikita turned out to be stronger than she appeared; she rallied, told the bad guy to go to hell, and even killed for the very first time... to save Michael, which was certainly an interesting way to launch the series.

I like the character of Nikita just fine, but the reason I decided to write these reviews was my fascination with the character of Michael, played by Roy Dupuis. Michael is a master manipulator and he certainly started out that way here – charming her in the restaurant, and then freezing her out and throwing her to the wolves. Roy Dupuis wasn't completely into his Michael bag yet, here; there were a couple un-Michael-like smiles in this episode, plus in the office scene he paced and yelled at her, which just seems odd when you've seen later episodes. (By the way, I won't put spoilers in these reviews; this is as spoilery as I get.)

So today's question is, why did Michael decide to save Nikita's life? Is he just the protective type? Well, no. He liked her, and/or he was hot for her, or why take the trouble to defy his keepers? Was he just averse to losing the two years of training he had personally just invested in her? Of course, he got a little instant karma, because she almost immediately saved his life in return.

Bits and pieces:

— How old is Nikita? It just feels off somehow that a young woman as striking as she is would still be in rags and living on the street. Drugs? Nikita doesn't feel like an addictive personality. Probably youthful angst caused by Nikita's mother, who sounded like a stone bitch.

— They made Nikita's framing, prison sentence, and two years of training mercifully brief. Let's cut to the chase, shall we? We shall.

— Where is Section One? It's, like, geographically null. The license plates look sort of North American in some scenes, and Section One appears to be American, which is interesting because our two stars are not. Roy Dupuis' English is almost perfect, but there is occasionally a trace of an accent. And Peta Wilson is obviously Australian.

— The final screen in the opening credits said that Nikita was five eleven, 120 lbs, blood type O negative, hair blonde, and eyes green. I don't know; Peta Wilson's eyes look blue to me. Dupuis' are green.

— I liked that honking huge wedge of pizza Nikita was eating in the teaser. It looked bigger than she was.

— Sunglasses. Interesting decorating accessory.

— Nikita's neighbor across the hall was introduced: Carla the carpenter, who came over with a coffee plant. A little alliteration there.

— Nikita's code name is Josephine. I like the way Roy Dupuis says it.

— Peta Wilson and Roy Dupuis are exceptionally beautiful people, and they're even more beautiful in extreme close-up. I noticed several extreme close-ups in this episode. They do it a lot in this series.

— Having Nikita undress in front of everyone jumped out at me. It was dehumanizing.

— I don't care much for the jagged opening credits, although I do like the music.

— Okay, silly hair. Those bangs during the dinner scene. And braids on a mission? What was she thinking?

— Cancelled scenes: There's a funny scene with Birkoff training Nikita ("You wanna turn the volume down on the gum?"), and an out-of-character bit with Michael pleading with Madeline not to cancel Nikita for blowing her first real mission.

Quotes:

Operations: "We start making exceptions, we're no better than the CIA."

Nikita: "You're sick. You don't want a person. You want a machine. I can't do that."
Michael: "You just did."

I don't usually rate pilots, so I'll just say at this point that it gets a lot better and leave it at that,

Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

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