Nikita: Midseason report

I've only kept up with two new shows from this fall season, Hellcats and Nikita (both on the CW...take from that what you will). Hellcats is just mindless fun but Nikita I think is something more. At times it can get a little repetitive but overall I've been really impressed with its quality and pacing and especially the acting.

I mean, this is definitely my kind of show: we have not one, but two female heroines, high stakes and lots of action and conspiracies, but the world of the show still feels intimate and personal. One of the things I didn't like about The Event or V or Flashforward or any of the other networks' attempts at doing action/mystery shows is that they have these huge, disconnected casts of characters and as a viewer, you're kept in the dark about what's going on. Even on Dollhouse, I hated how in the beginning Ballard was just on the outside doing his own thing...I just wasn't interested. But on Nikita, the setup is actually very tight: there's everyone in Division, there's Alex, and there's Nikita. No wondering what the point of certain plotlines are or where they're going to converge.

That said, it is slightly ridiculous that Nikita and Michael seemingly come face-to-face every single week and at the end of the episode, nothing has really changed. This week's midseason finale finally turned everything around though: Division finally finds out how Nikita has been getting information from the inside (but not from whom), Nikita is actually captured by Division (but then escapes of course), and most importantly, Alex graduates from recruit status.

And dammit, they killed Thom! How it happened did totally make sense and the fact that Alex did it, even unintentionally, does make it a really powerful plot point. Alex and Thom obviously had a connection (and chemistry too...their kiss from a few weeks back was HOT), which might now give Alex more drive, similar to how Daniel's death affected Nikita, but I just really liked Thom as a character and hate that he's gone now. Couldn't they have killed off Jaden instead??

I've liked Maggie Q as Nikita from the beginning--she's sexy and dangerous and decisive but with just enough pathos. She was such a good choice for this series. Lyndsy Fonseca as Alex was a little less convincing to me at first, but she's really grown on me. I like Alex a lot, she's smart and tough but still vulnerable. Xander Berkeley sometimes puts on the evil a little thick, but I don't think Percy is the kind of villain we're supposed to like. That's Michael's domain, and I think Shane West has been acquitting himself pretty well despite my original misgivings. I've also liked Devon Sawa (yes, it's Casper all grown up and buff) as Owen when he's popped up. He and Nikita are kind of hot together...as are Nikita and Michael. Lots of simmering sexual tension on this show!

I think there's still a lot of potential here and am very interested to see how things will operate now that Alex isn't chained inside Division. But sigh, no new episodes until the end of January!