In a case of mistaken-identity, homeless drug-addict Nikita finds herself taken into police custody, and in order to get her life back she is forced to undergo severe training at the hands of a covert special agency.
I have been familiar with the name Nikita since I was young, but I had never seen the show; I'm fairly confident that one or both of my parents had watched it during it's original run, but I don't think that I was ever exposed to more than the opening credits. Certainly the font used for the title screen is something I recognize, but the fact that Nikita is Australian came as a complete surprise to me, so, clearly, I hadn't been too present while it was on the air.
During training Nikita (Peta Wilson) improves in a believable manner, not starting out as some kind of natural savant, but not being so horrible that it's played as a joke. She is, in the beginning, bad at what she's doing, and while she gets better she isn't so good that she could be mistaken for someone else, and it's nice to see a character find a middle ground in regards to that kind of talent.
I absolutely love the ending to this episode; in burning the picture of her own (faked) grave she resigns herself to the new life of servitude that she's been granted, effectively accepting that the Nikita she knew is gone and dead and prepares to become the Josephine that her handlers are turning her into. It's a sad moment, a mixture of defeat and hope, but is a good indicator that she will now lend herself more readily to the tasks laid out for her because there's no other alternative. If this organization could render her effectively dead to the rest of the world, then they're likely to kill her should she show any more resistance.
The sequence in the restaurant, where Michael (Roy Dupuis) forces Nikita to either steal from a dangerous (and heavily guarded) man or be killed is heart-wrenching. This trial by fire does nothing but destroy the remnants of Nikita's soul, and not only did he not give her all of the information about the task at hand, but he gave her very specific instructions for her escape that were blatant lies. I understand that it was meant to test how well she would handle an unknown situation, how cleverly she could navigate her way through this unknown area, and how effectively she could complete a random mission, but it only serves to deaden any loyalty she might have felt toward the people she's been forced to work for. Moments after narrowly surviving a gun fight and an explosion, Michael has the gall to ask Nikita to trust him, and refuses to give her a reason as to why she should.
The passage of time in this episode is very unclear to me; I'm not sure how long Nikita's training has been, nor how intense her training was. There are several times in the episode where it could make sense that anywhere between two days and two years could have passed, and the questionable timeline detracted somewhat from the story.
Wilson's Nikita is spot on, every emotion is presented so genuinely through her body language that she truly encapsulates the characters fear, joy, depression, and addiction. She is a pleasure to watch and her performance in this episode makes it clear that she'll have no difficulty in carrying this series. Dupuis' Michael, on the other hand, is at once both severely intense and horribly wooden; it's evident that we're meant to sympathize with his character at some points, but he lacks so much emotion and facial expression that it's impossible to get a grasp on what the actor is trying to do. When giving orders to Nikita he appears to be quite threatening, and I wonder if he might be either a villain or some form of robot.
The series begins with a disjointed montage made on shaky-cam, a sequence that is so jarring it's difficult to fully comprehend what's happening, and it works incredibly well to imitate the drug-addled stupor that Nikita is in. Jon Cassar does an excellent job of conveying confusion and fear through his choice of shots, and it is an incredibly effective tool in setting the tone of the action.
Cyrus Nowrasteh has a good grasp on the characters and writes a bleak and desperate world in which Nikita has been caught up in. The script is a solid effort, and should the series maintain this quality, then it will be an amazing experience.
Nikita is an exciting series and not enough good can be said about it. The number of possibilities for this series is endless, and, no matter which direction this show decides to take, they could all be equally thrilling. I enjoy the antagonism between Nikita and the organization she was forced into, and I look forward to seeing that further explored.
La Femme Nikita is in the running to become the feature for Wednesdays. The series ran from 1997 to 2001 on CTV with a total of 96 episodes.
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