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Nikita is a street kid who gets convicted to life imprisonment
for a murder she didn't commit. An ultra secret anti-terrorist
agency fakes her death in order to train her as an operative
of Section One. She has a simple choice, comply or die...
La
Femme Nikita is a series based on the stylish Luc Besson
film of the same name; Bessons film also spawned a 1993 US
remake Point of no Return staring Bridget Fonda. The
television version stars the Australian actress Peta Wilson
as Nikita, who also stared as the vampiress Mina Harker in
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
and will soon be seen in next year's [2006] Superman Returns.
Roy Dupuis plays Michael, Nikitas mentor. Roy main body of
work has been in French Canadian films, but also can be found
in the much underrated science fiction film Screamers.
Section One's inventions and weaponry expert Walter is played
by Don Francks, whose filmography is way too long and impressive
to detail here.
Series
three picks up with Looking for Michael, which ties
up the threads of the Season Two finale where Nikita helps
to neutralise Adrian the original founder of Section One.
At the start of the season Nikita is so distrusted by her
employers that they attempt to assassinate her. Surviving
this threat and having been rehabilitated back as an operative
Nikita attempts to track down Michael, exposing his secret
life in the process. This season is as much about the relationship
between Nikita and Michael and their desire to get away from
Section One as it is about Section One's increasingly cruel
and violent methods.
I didn't warm to this program at first. The title sequence
seems to be little more than exploitative shots of Petra Wilson,
tossing her hair about like some kind of pastiche of a shampoo
advert. Title music is by Mark Snow, who also wrote the memorable
X-Files theme tune. I hadn't seen Nikita before and
knew very little about the show, what struck me first was
how much in style and atmosphere it was like 24. A
little digging around in the box revealed that the two people
behind Nikita; Robert Cochran and Joel Surnow did indeed write
24.
It's
an odd experience to watch a whole season in one go. I found
that all the episodes were quite intense, a lot of the dialogue
between the main characters is carried on in either a low
tone or a whisper, there is only one character who brings
any comic relief to the show, so watching multiple episodes
can be a little too unremitting in its seriousness. By the
time I got to the end of the season I really had warmed to
the programme and I really enjoyed Nikita.
The
twenty-two episode series comes on six discs housed in a hard
plastic casing. There are commentary tracks on the first and
last episodes, which are fine, but listen once events. There's
a gag reel, cancelled scenes and a piece on designing Nikita.
Subtitles are English, French and Spanish. Sound is stereo,
but then it's mostly a show about characters rather than special
effects so the stereo track does a more than adequate job.
The picture is a bit on the grainy side but not enough to
spoil the show.
If
you've never seen the show but liked 24, you may well
enjoy Nikita, though I suggest you don't watch too
many of them in one sitting.
Charles
Packer
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$69.99
(Amazon.com)
Region 1 Edition |
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$183.99
(Amazon.com)
Season 1-3 Box Set Region 1 Edition |
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£60.00
(Amazon.co.uk)
Region 1 Edition |
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£143.00
(Amazon.co.uk)
Season 1-3 Box Set Region 1 Edition |
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