Episode "Lie With Me" (102) Original Air Date: Jan 21, 2013 Network: The CW The adventures of the teenaged Carrie Bradshaw continue chockful of typical teen fare. Carrie works to repair things with her younger sister while trying to deal with the angst of crushing on a guy that has the IT girl of the school targeting him. Despite Donna's attempts, Sebastian claims he interested only in Carrie. But in typical teen girl form (at least the TV version) Carrie isn't so sure and plots to find a way to spend more time with the man of her teenage dreams.
“A World Full of Strangers”(Ep 101) Marti Perkins is forced to take drastic steps when her scholarship is revoked.Original Air Date: Wednesday, Sept 8, 2010
Nikita is a remake of the USA Network show La Femme Nikita, which was a remake of the films La Femme Nikita and Point of No Return. The common thread with all 4 versions is that 'Nikita' is a street savvy but attractive punk type who is recruited by a top secret government group. Depending on the version she either
was a criminal,
was accused of being a criminal,
was in prison, or
was actually executed.
In all versions she is trained to be an assassin and a spy -- well versed in all weapons, computers, explosives, strategic tactics and the act of disguise.
The previous television version shows us several years of Nikita at work in Division (a super secret group that not even the CIA knows about it would seem) before jumping ship. The CWs version harkens back to the latter film's take with 'Nikita' falling for a guy against Division’s rules. In the film, Nikita (or rather Nina) fakes her own death and leaves her guy behind. This time, Division finds out about the fellow and Alias style has him murdered. Which pisses off Nikita and she runs, vowing to bring them down.
And that’s all before the show actually starts it seems. Which is my big issue with the show, at least as the trailer presents it. I don’t mind that they cast Maggie Q over a hot blonde like Peta Wilson. I doubt this role is really going to take that much in terms of deep acting skills and Maggie has shown through work like Live Free or Die Hard that she can handle bad ass action with some quippy lines tossed in. I can even get over the utterly white bread supporting cast where even the nerds are actually rather hot. But what really irritates me is shows the crap out a bunch of backstory in some long drawn out talking heads BS. I would actually rather that they show us happy Nikita and her boy for an episode or two (or at least the first bit of an episode) and then off him and let us see her do her thing. Or even go ahead and start it, as they say, in medias res, and show us that back story a la Lost with some flashback action, including some of that slick training stuff and early missions.
That said, I know that promos aren’t always the best marker of a show and as a fan of the bad ass female character (yeah I have a girl crush on Sydney Bristow and Fiona, sue me), I’m willing to give this show a chance. Despite a strong feeling I will be disappointed in the end and this will be one for the snark.
Take a smart girl from a poor family and put her at a nice college on a scholarship and you just know something is going to go wrong. It’s basically the first law of the universe. Make that girl totally disdainful of cheerleaders as half dressed airheads and the second law tells us that cheerleading will be the only way to her out of her mess.
And thus we have Marti, who finds out a week before she’s going to be kicked out for not paying her tuition that this nice school cut her scholarship (who really cares why). And funny enough the hated cheerleading squad has an opening that just happens to include a scholarship. Which is double amusing because one presumes that they aren’t yanking money away from the girl that got hurt cause that would be tacky. So they seem to keep some reserve money for emergencies somewhere. Uh okay.
Add to this that Marti can’t seem to pull off the lame moves in the standard routines but then goes all Bring It On with some fly hip hop grooves and some serious tumbling skills, which land her on the squad and win her the admiration of the team captain, who she snarked in the extreme only a few days before.
Yeah. Totally doesn’t make sense. But it’s a comedy so like who cares. It’s hip, it’s fly, we’ve got cool moves, some ‘yes cheerleading is a sport’ pride speeches (which granted it is) and a fun little love quadrangle between Marti, a team member, his ex (the hurt girl) and Marti’s best friend Dan who is also apparently not a richie rich type and until laws one and two kicked in, Marti’s co hater of all things cheer.
Hellcats is typical cheeseball CW fare. And to make it more CW worthy, it was created by the network's own superboy Tom Welling. Which may or may not be a good thing for the network or Mr Welling's future producing aspirations. However, if this little peek is a sign of things to come, this show will forever be on my snark list. Go Team!
