Ah, Nikita. This show has been a must see since I saw the three-minute promo. A strong Asian female lead on television? Who thought it could be possible (obviously not M. Night Shymalayn). As an Asian female myself, I feel obligated to stick with “Nikita” no matter how much it might suck. Luckily, I have good news. I went to the Nikita panel at Comic Con yesterday and saw the whole pilot. This Nikita is excellent and has the potential to be even more than that.

Non-Spoiler Summary:

Nikita (Maggie Q) delivers some exposition on why she has gone rogue (if you’ve seen the six minute promo, it’s pretty much like that). There’s a new girl (Lyndsy Fonseca), whose death was “faked”, that this big baddie organization is trying to train. It seems as if she’s going to be the next Nikita, and even gets the same handler (Shane West). Nikita on the other hand seems to be trying to make contact with this organization through her step father, a kidnapping, and some fancy-schmancy party. She’s on a mission to take them down and assures them that she’s not alone, despite appearances.

Spoiler Parts (Highlight to Read):
Nikita is right. Their new “Nikita” is really just a mole Nikita’s using.

Also, it seems as if Nikita’s ex-handler, Michael, is still in love with her as shown in like every goddamned promo. He guns her down in some dark alleyway but he lets her ago after a really long talk. She shoots him in the shoulder (to make it look like he actually attempted to kill her) and runs off. Actually, it seems as if she’s trying to avoid actual killing if she can, especially among Organization members she was friendly with (fair enough).

The three-minute promo covers a lot of the episode actually. They leave two things out:
1). Nikita kidnaps a guy (and later ties him to a teeter-totter hehe) to hack into their codes and passwords. He says she didn’t “break” him. Who knows if that was true.
2). The Not!Bikini scene is a dream. Sorry.

Thoughts:
While the pilot was very interesting and stood on its own ground, the biggest asset is its potential. The two lines no-waiting plots gave different perspectives and constantly kept the audience thinking and wondering. There’s plenty of room for intriguing backstories and pasts. I’ve personally never watched any previous Nikita’s but her past seems intriguing (lazy step father, drugs, etc) and obviously her relationship with Michael which is already begging for sappy fanfiction. I just hope that Nikita’s actions weren’t all triggered by guys (I mean betraying the evil organization wasn’t JUST because of her dead ex-lover) in order to keep with the strong, female protagonist we need on television.

Maggie Q is wonderful as Nikita. She was cool, poised, and kickass with some capabilities for vulnerability too. She really brought out the best in Nikita and made her three dimensional in a way that wasn’t forced. The heels and her thin-ness on camera still bug me but hey, it’s the CW. The rest carry the weight and are fine in their  portrayals. I’m particularly impressed with Lyndsy Forensca too.

Granted, this show can improve a lot. I’d like to see more humor; their few stabs at it were all pretty well done. Also, they need to explore and dig into the characters, because that’s where the potential lies. The action scenes are already intriguing and well-done; let’s hope it stays that way. But nevertheless, I am eagerly looking to cram Nikita in on my already busy Thursday nights (off topic but Vampire Diaries, Bones, Fringe, and Nikita? God someone help me).

Panel (Afterwards):
Maggie Q, Lyndsy Forensca, and Important Industry Person came out and did a Q&A session. I wish I could recount everything they said but I was too starstruck by Maggie Q’s better-in-real-life beauty (I’ve had a major girlcrush on her for years) so I only remember bits and pieces.

-Important Industry Person says that he’s not remaking Nikita, he is exploring what happened after Nikita escaped from the organization. Kind of like making a fanfic after the ending, only this is a television show with a massive budget.

-Maggie Q is aware of the importance of having a strong kickass female lead. She also is grateful that she was chosen (because of her race) and wants to make sure her character doesn’t act stereotypically Asian.

-Maggie also didn’t want to wear a bikini out of modesty which is kind of ironic. Actually, the bikini scene wasn’t even supposed to happen, considering they shoot in Vancouver. However, the people above were so insistent on the bikini scene, they were willing to fly them out to Miami just for the bikini. Also, Maggie Q is quite funny herself: “I asked for a classy one piece and the director gives me this. I tell him this is a two piece with a piece of string.”

-Lots of stunt training, they’re learning every day. It’s hard the television hours and typical obvious industry stuff.

…And that is all I remembered. But there’s also a new, sexy promo image that was just unveiled recently:

And yes this poster is SIGNED by Maggie Q herself.

So everyone remember, Thursdays at 9PM starting on September 9th on the CW. Let’s make Nikita happen. Because if it doesn’t, I’m sure we won’t see another female Asian as the lead in Hollywood for another ten years.

I admit that I don’t have a lot of experience watching webshows. The only one I’ve watched is “Dr. Horrible” and that’s because it’s by Joss Whedon (don’t lie, that was your reason too).  However, while “Dr. Horrible”  that webshows can be just as good (if not better) than what is shown on TV, then the message “The LXD” sends is the opposite.

If you want to know what the hell The LXD is, it’s supposed to stand for “Legion of Extraordionary Dancers”. This is supposed to be a webseries of guys (do girls not exist?) who have the superpowers of..dance. Like America Best Dance Crew Style. In fact, I’m guessing in the show that they will be a Dance Crew..With Superpowers.  But back to this show, there’s just one teensy problem. It sucks.

Before you throw tomatoes at me, I know the dancing is amazing. I would not expect anything less from the director of “Step Up 2″ Jon M. Chu and it’s clear lots of thought and time were put into the choreography. However this amount of love and attention was clearly not put into the writing and cheesetastic dialogue.

Let’s start off with the characterization. I remember reading somewhere that each episode of the first season is supposed to introduce a certain character. I don’t know anything about any of the characters besides the fact that they’re kickass dancers. That and they’re all going to be part of some superhero dancing league according to  the exposition of Generic Mysterious Elder with Gravely Voice. Right.

This brings us to the plot…Whatever that’s supposed to be. 1.01 at least tried to have a story, as generic as it was, but as soon as you throw in superdancing powers it stops making sense. 1.02 was even worse. The sole purpose seemed to display super-awesome dance moves in a warehouse, and the creeper that’s watching them.

To sum it up, this series fails because without the dancing it’s just plain awful. This would be fine normally except that the creator intended for you to watch the whole episode, and not just fast forward to the dancing.  Paramount is wasting their money giving this loltastic web series such a huge budget (the production values show)  when they could have just put up more YouTube videos of LXD dancing. Then again, Paramount is the studio that let M. Night Shamalyan spend 500 million on the joke that is “The Last Airbender”. Of course, now that they’ve invested so much in this project, they should just fire whatever writers are on this show (are there any?) and get new ones. I know the concept of superhero dancers seems loltastic but I think there is potential…if done right. Right now, they’re doing it wrong. Way wrong.