"La Femme Nikita" (1997)
I didn't watch "Alias" when it appeared . . . but I watched "La Femme Nikita" (1997) when it first rolled around. Looking back, I'm pretty sure Peta Wilson as Nikita--the Aussie accent, her statuesque figure, her kicking ass and taking names in bomb ass black suits and boots and that whole spy genre attire--really, really ruined me. Her and Scully. I didn't see all of the seasons, but I was gifted with the Season 1 box set several years ago. I must've talked a lot about LFN for someone to buy me the box set. XD But I haven't watched it! AND NOW I AM AND IT IS SO NOSTALGIC. (And hilarious.) The LFN creators would go on to to make "24," so there must have been some magic in this team.
1x01, "Nikita"
Why is the La Femme Nikita (1997) Season 1 box set 6 discs--
OH MY GOD, the 90s fashion!!! These street scenes are unfortunately hilarious because of the terrible fashion statements and the cinematography. (LOL, Peta Wilson made money from passersby during the street scenes by playing the harmonica because no one knew they were filming. XD)
(The commentary is super interesting: They're positing that at the time, in 1997, they believed that they couldn't have an actual coldblooded killer as the protagonist and that's why they made the change, from the movie, to frame Nikita instead of having her outright kill a man. But maybe the attitude has changed today? I don't know! Anti-terrorism concept in a TV show hadn't really been done yet? PLUS FEMALE [ACTION] LEAD. The creators and writers are quite proud of being part of the Xena and Buffy female lead wave. Commentary, you are fun stuff, man!)
LOL, Michael's hair!!!!!!!!!
OH THE OPENING TITLE SEQUENCE. LOL, the sequences where Peta is just standing in front of a green screen.
OMG, JAY FIRESTONE (today producing "Lost Girl") PRODUCED LA FEMME NIKITA. (And it was filmed in Toronto, ofc.) I . . . I don't know what to think about that right now. Mr. Firestone, apparently you've been ruining my life for a very long time.
Hiiiiiiiiii, Madeline. ♥
"You can learn to shoot. You can learn to fight. But there's no weapon as powerful as your femininity."
!!!!!!!!!!! And the way Madeline caresses Nikita's face and Nikita is disoriented and alone and has been missing her mother/lacking a mother so much that she just closes her eyes and is like "kind human contact~".
"We're family now, Nikita."
MOMMY MADELINE! She gives Nikita this one minute pep talk and then she just leaves Nikita hanging with tears in her eyes. AHAHAHAHAHA.
Training montage! Two years of learning to become a badass condensed into a minute! Oh, and how to be a lady. There's Madeline moving Nikita's leg. XD (Hee, praise for Peta's ability to look like she could be physical and yet also be a femme fatale. Gawd, yummy. Good lord, this was Peta Wilson's first job?)
"I've been watching her. She lacks discipline."
Oh, Operations, Nikita will always be a thorn in your side, sir.
"We start making exceptions, we're no better than the CIA."
LOLOLOLOLOLOL.
Odd since this predated it (and I watched LFN the year it premiered), but the piano score reminds me of Parasite Eve's music. XD It's all the melancholy piano.
"I feel..."
"Say it."
"Happy."
OOPS. Savor it for the five seconds you have left to enjoy that happiness, Nikita!
"If you don't mind, wait 'til I leave."
This entire first mission is lifted straight from the French film (including, I think, the ridiculousness of the firearms put to use); I don't blame them since it's a great scene and really establishes 1) Section One's shady mcshadiness and 2) Nikita's adaptability. The TV show's implications for Nikita are different, though, since she wasn't a coldblooded killer to begin with; movie Nikita, though . . . different story. (AHAHAHAHAHA, they tried to come up with ideas for the first mission that were different from the movie . . . and then decided once they saw the location to just go ahead and recreate the movie sequence once they saw the empty restaurant kitchen.)
(Again, fun commentary: Peta Wilson insisted on using a real gun instead of a prop gun because she wanted everything to feel real; she wanted to feel the weight of the gun. Apparently at one point she smacked herself in the face and gave herself a bloody nose. XD She also liked to do most of her own stunts. [As did Roy Dupois, who played Michael.] Except for the big climactic one here. XDDD OMG!!! AHAHAHAHAHA. They took actual shots from Point of No Return [they owned the rights to it], the Hollywood remake of the French film La Femme Nikita. Oi. But that's why there's the rocket! AHAHAHAHAHA.)
(Huh: they wanted to make their bad guys a "little more real looking." XD)
"Why didn't you tell me this was a job, instead of pretending?"
"No matter what state of mind you're in, you have to be able to perform."
"You're sick. You don't want a person. You want a machine. I can't do that."
"You just did."
OH SNAP.
(LOL, the commentary talks about how filming in Toronto during the Fall/Winter months meant that they couldn't do southern climates, so that's why all their villains are like Eastern European. XDDD)
Section One/Michael got Nikita such a cool flat. And despite it all, Nikita is quite happy to have her own place. (AHAHAHAHAHAHA, the set for her apartment gave them such headaches. Trying to keep it as generic as it was. OMG, Peta spray-painted the walls once and they painted it back over. AHAHAHAHAHA.)
"Tell no one who you are or what you do. Anyone asks, you're between jobs and taking some time to figure things out."
There are so many Section One agents out there.
"Your code name is Josephine."
:D
Ahahahaha, I remember this scene of Nikita hanging up sunglasses. XD (All Peta, apparently. She had a partner in Australia making sunglasses. XD Apparently the writers put quite a bit of the actors into the characters.) OMG, Nikita's door is decorated like a rebellious teenager's. XD She is also prepared to kill strangers with wire, if need be. They trained her well.
I've always wondered why Nikita didn't change her name from the one she had before her "death." Why is she still "Nikita"?
CARLA THE CARPENTER SHOULD HAVE TOTALLY HIT ON NIKITA!!! I can't remember if she was a plant or if she reappears. (Oh, there we go, thanks for spoiling me commentary! Originally Carla was an attempt to give an outside life to Nikita. Then the writers totally gave up on the idea. AHAHAHAHAHA. POOR NIKITA.)
"Take off your clothes."
Not only does Nikita immediately strip in a room full of fellow operatives, she's totally not wearing a bra. UUUUUUUUUUUUUGH, Nikita, you were the one that ruined me, weren't you? You and Scully.
LOL, WALTER EXPLAINS TO NIKITA HOW TO USE THE EXPLOSIVE LIPSTICK WHILE SHE'S TOPLESS AND HE DOESN'T EVEN SNEAK A LOOK. (The commentary says that that whole bit, with Nikita topless and Walter giving her instructions, was interesting since it emphasized that for the Section One people it was all about the mission/job.)
(LOL, the technology! "Five minutes into the future" look of Section--no paper anywhere. They literally stopped putting earpieces into the actors' ears and just had them talk--and the audience automatically came to assume that they were wearing earpieces.)
(LOL, the second mission having nothing to do with anything. XDDD AHAHAHAHAHAHA, the writers slaving over Operations' briefing speeches and then going onto the internet and discovering that the audience didn't care! Ahahahahahahaha. Poor writers!)
"I can't do what you want me to do."
"Mistakes are not an option."
"I can't pull the trigger."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm not who you think I am. I'm not a killer."
"The moment I believe that, Nikita, you're canceled."
(LOL, love for Peta's versatile hair. "Pippi Longstockings version of a spy.")
What an oddly paced first episode. (It was apparently filmed third. They were straight up given 22 episodes, so they let the actors settle in before shooting the pilot.) It was a two-mission episode to cover Nikita's full transition/initiation into Section One operative, but it feels like two mini-episodes smushed into one.
LOL, angsty candlelit montage!! SYMBOLIC BURNING OF NIKITA'S "FUNERAL" PHOTO. XDDDDDDDDDD (Commentary: "Make sure your teasers and your tags are really memorable." Never happy endings for Nikita. :( "All the episodes leave with a question mark" re: the characters' lives and where they're left.)
Iconic screen shot of Peta Wilson's Nikita. XD (AHAHAHAHAHAHA. Apparently in this shot, Peta was actually angry with the director because she and the director had argued about the scene and had creative differences about it. AHAHAHAHA. "Boy, was it ever perfect. Sometimes you have to use that. That's her looking right at me. I can feel it right now as I look back at her actually.")
1x02, "Friend"
You really think that Section One would check for cyanide capsules, considering their line of work and the people they deal with.
"You want me to put it on for you, sugar?"
And suddenly Walter is a perv. XD
OMG, Nikita's hair, the twin pigtails. AHAHAHAHA. WAY TO BE INCONSPICUOUS.
I love that Nikita understands that "I'll take care of it" means that Section One is going to kill the woman who recognized her as a childhood friend and that Nikita immediately acts . . . but then she just takes this woman back to her own apartment? Seriously, Nikita. XD
"I'll protect you. I swear."
Any promise like that is automatically doomed. DOOMED.
It's so interesting that Michael is absolutely silent the entire time that the Mijovich dude is hitting on and petting Nikita and mistaking her for an escort. Michael doesn't interject or explain Nikita's position at all, but lets Nikita do all the work making it clear that she is part of the security detail and that the dude better keeps his hands off her. Then, after Nikita effectively proves her skills and qualifications by manhandling Mijovich, Michael doesn't apologize or offer any smart remarks either. It's quite interesting. Maybe I'm thinking in opposition to Dyson, into whose mouth the LG writers feel like they need to put smart one-liners to prove that he isn't one-upping Bo.
WHY DO SNIPERS ALWAYS USE LASER SIGHTS? Ugh. I hate that trope.
And just like that, Nikita proves that she's over the hesitant-to-kill thing.
"So what's going to happen to me?"
"You'll need a new name. A new identity."
WHY DON'T YOU HAVE A NEW NAME OR IDENTITY, NIKITA?!?!?!
"Your name. How you look. The pieces of paper you carry. None of it matters. Because nothing can change what's inside here."
Man, they really grew you up over those two years, Nikita. That's some Madeline wisdom right there.
Girl bonding time over dress up montage!
"Is it gonna be alright, Nikita? I mean really."
"Really."
SO DEAD, JULIE, YOU ARE SO DEAD. Because Nikita needs some dirty Section One agent life lessons.
Oh, I remember this torture scene.
Aw yeah, Nikita getting out a signal for a rescue. Smart girl.
"You have the courage of a man."
"How would you know?"
OH SNAP.
HEE, PLOT TWIST. DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNN.
"I really enjoyed our time together."
Watching this as an adult I suddenly see so much (belligerent) subtext.
Okay, EFF YEAH NIKITA TAKING ACTION TO SAVE HERSELF, but, um, this is so stupid, why wouldn't you just step up to Nikita and put a bullet in her brain instead of trying to shoot her from across the room? WHAT IS SHE GOING TO DO TO YOU WHILE SHE'S TIED UP?
OVERLY DRAMATIC RESCUE! CAN YOU FEEL THE SEXUAL TENSION BETWEEN MICHAEL AND NIKITA????
"I feel her. She's here."
Ofc I thought Nikita was sexy.
Honestly, seeing the Julie-Nikita tiff, I am sad now that Nikita wasn't a little queer. Though, if I remember correctly, at some point in the later seasons there's a torture scene that was a bit . . . woman-on-woman kinky.
Where do people just get these RPGs, man? Is it so easy to acquire one? Actually, you know what, I don't want to know.
"Come on. Pull the trigger, Nikita."
"The world would be a safer place if I did."
"Then do it. I'm not going to spend the rest of my life rotting away in some prison cell."
"Who are you?"
"DO IT!"
"What's your name?"
"You want to know who I am?"
Dude, Nikita, really, you let her pick up the RPG again in the middle of this speech?
"This. This is who I am."
STARE OFF. GUN DOWN. Nikita was actually hesitant again here.
Wait. Is Nikita's jacket pleather? Why is it so shiny?! WHY, 90s fashion, what is this travesty?!?!?
"Nikita remains a puzzle. She continues to break Section code and yet she manages to succeed."
"What code did she break?"
"Please, Michael. You've been here long enough. Information is what we do here. If you don't think I don't know every detail of every operation."
I love the darkness of Section One. The commentary put it best: Section One tries to out-ruthless the ruthless terrorists. These are not nice people. At all.
I am not surprised at all that I loved this.
1x01, "Nikita"
Why is the La Femme Nikita (1997) Season 1 box set 6 discs--
OH MY GOD, the 90s fashion!!! These street scenes are unfortunately hilarious because of the terrible fashion statements and the cinematography. (LOL, Peta Wilson made money from passersby during the street scenes by playing the harmonica because no one knew they were filming. XD)
(The commentary is super interesting: They're positing that at the time, in 1997, they believed that they couldn't have an actual coldblooded killer as the protagonist and that's why they made the change, from the movie, to frame Nikita instead of having her outright kill a man. But maybe the attitude has changed today? I don't know! Anti-terrorism concept in a TV show hadn't really been done yet? PLUS FEMALE [ACTION] LEAD. The creators and writers are quite proud of being part of the Xena and Buffy female lead wave. Commentary, you are fun stuff, man!)
LOL, Michael's hair!!!!!!!!!
OH THE OPENING TITLE SEQUENCE. LOL, the sequences where Peta is just standing in front of a green screen.
OMG, JAY FIRESTONE (today producing "Lost Girl") PRODUCED LA FEMME NIKITA. (And it was filmed in Toronto, ofc.) I . . . I don't know what to think about that right now. Mr. Firestone, apparently you've been ruining my life for a very long time.
Hiiiiiiiiii, Madeline. ♥
"You can learn to shoot. You can learn to fight. But there's no weapon as powerful as your femininity."
!!!!!!!!!!! And the way Madeline caresses Nikita's face and Nikita is disoriented and alone and has been missing her mother/lacking a mother so much that she just closes her eyes and is like "kind human contact~".
"We're family now, Nikita."
MOMMY MADELINE! She gives Nikita this one minute pep talk and then she just leaves Nikita hanging with tears in her eyes. AHAHAHAHAHA.
Training montage! Two years of learning to become a badass condensed into a minute! Oh, and how to be a lady. There's Madeline moving Nikita's leg. XD (Hee, praise for Peta's ability to look like she could be physical and yet also be a femme fatale. Gawd, yummy. Good lord, this was Peta Wilson's first job?)
"I've been watching her. She lacks discipline."
Oh, Operations, Nikita will always be a thorn in your side, sir.
"We start making exceptions, we're no better than the CIA."
LOLOLOLOLOLOL.
Odd since this predated it (and I watched LFN the year it premiered), but the piano score reminds me of Parasite Eve's music. XD It's all the melancholy piano.
"I feel..."
"Say it."
"Happy."
OOPS. Savor it for the five seconds you have left to enjoy that happiness, Nikita!
"If you don't mind, wait 'til I leave."
This entire first mission is lifted straight from the French film (including, I think, the ridiculousness of the firearms put to use); I don't blame them since it's a great scene and really establishes 1) Section One's shady mcshadiness and 2) Nikita's adaptability. The TV show's implications for Nikita are different, though, since she wasn't a coldblooded killer to begin with; movie Nikita, though . . . different story. (AHAHAHAHAHA, they tried to come up with ideas for the first mission that were different from the movie . . . and then decided once they saw the location to just go ahead and recreate the movie sequence once they saw the empty restaurant kitchen.)
(Again, fun commentary: Peta Wilson insisted on using a real gun instead of a prop gun because she wanted everything to feel real; she wanted to feel the weight of the gun. Apparently at one point she smacked herself in the face and gave herself a bloody nose. XD She also liked to do most of her own stunts. [As did Roy Dupois, who played Michael.] Except for the big climactic one here. XDDD OMG!!! AHAHAHAHAHA. They took actual shots from Point of No Return [they owned the rights to it], the Hollywood remake of the French film La Femme Nikita. Oi. But that's why there's the rocket! AHAHAHAHAHA.)
(Huh: they wanted to make their bad guys a "little more real looking." XD)
"Why didn't you tell me this was a job, instead of pretending?"
"No matter what state of mind you're in, you have to be able to perform."
"You're sick. You don't want a person. You want a machine. I can't do that."
"You just did."
OH SNAP.
(LOL, the commentary talks about how filming in Toronto during the Fall/Winter months meant that they couldn't do southern climates, so that's why all their villains are like Eastern European. XDDD)
Section One/Michael got Nikita such a cool flat. And despite it all, Nikita is quite happy to have her own place. (AHAHAHAHAHAHA, the set for her apartment gave them such headaches. Trying to keep it as generic as it was. OMG, Peta spray-painted the walls once and they painted it back over. AHAHAHAHAHA.)
"Tell no one who you are or what you do. Anyone asks, you're between jobs and taking some time to figure things out."
There are so many Section One agents out there.
"Your code name is Josephine."
:D
Ahahahaha, I remember this scene of Nikita hanging up sunglasses. XD (All Peta, apparently. She had a partner in Australia making sunglasses. XD Apparently the writers put quite a bit of the actors into the characters.) OMG, Nikita's door is decorated like a rebellious teenager's. XD She is also prepared to kill strangers with wire, if need be. They trained her well.
I've always wondered why Nikita didn't change her name from the one she had before her "death." Why is she still "Nikita"?
CARLA THE CARPENTER SHOULD HAVE TOTALLY HIT ON NIKITA!!! I can't remember if she was a plant or if she reappears. (Oh, there we go, thanks for spoiling me commentary! Originally Carla was an attempt to give an outside life to Nikita. Then the writers totally gave up on the idea. AHAHAHAHAHA. POOR NIKITA.)
"Take off your clothes."
Not only does Nikita immediately strip in a room full of fellow operatives, she's totally not wearing a bra. UUUUUUUUUUUUUGH, Nikita, you were the one that ruined me, weren't you? You and Scully.
LOL, WALTER EXPLAINS TO NIKITA HOW TO USE THE EXPLOSIVE LIPSTICK WHILE SHE'S TOPLESS AND HE DOESN'T EVEN SNEAK A LOOK. (The commentary says that that whole bit, with Nikita topless and Walter giving her instructions, was interesting since it emphasized that for the Section One people it was all about the mission/job.)
(LOL, the technology! "Five minutes into the future" look of Section--no paper anywhere. They literally stopped putting earpieces into the actors' ears and just had them talk--and the audience automatically came to assume that they were wearing earpieces.)
(LOL, the second mission having nothing to do with anything. XDDD AHAHAHAHAHAHA, the writers slaving over Operations' briefing speeches and then going onto the internet and discovering that the audience didn't care! Ahahahahahahaha. Poor writers!)
"I can't do what you want me to do."
"Mistakes are not an option."
"I can't pull the trigger."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm not who you think I am. I'm not a killer."
"The moment I believe that, Nikita, you're canceled."
(LOL, love for Peta's versatile hair. "Pippi Longstockings version of a spy.")
What an oddly paced first episode. (It was apparently filmed third. They were straight up given 22 episodes, so they let the actors settle in before shooting the pilot.) It was a two-mission episode to cover Nikita's full transition/initiation into Section One operative, but it feels like two mini-episodes smushed into one.
LOL, angsty candlelit montage!! SYMBOLIC BURNING OF NIKITA'S "FUNERAL" PHOTO. XDDDDDDDDDD (Commentary: "Make sure your teasers and your tags are really memorable." Never happy endings for Nikita. :( "All the episodes leave with a question mark" re: the characters' lives and where they're left.)
Iconic screen shot of Peta Wilson's Nikita. XD (AHAHAHAHAHAHA. Apparently in this shot, Peta was actually angry with the director because she and the director had argued about the scene and had creative differences about it. AHAHAHAHA. "Boy, was it ever perfect. Sometimes you have to use that. That's her looking right at me. I can feel it right now as I look back at her actually.")
1x02, "Friend"
You really think that Section One would check for cyanide capsules, considering their line of work and the people they deal with.
"You want me to put it on for you, sugar?"
And suddenly Walter is a perv. XD
OMG, Nikita's hair, the twin pigtails. AHAHAHAHA. WAY TO BE INCONSPICUOUS.
I love that Nikita understands that "I'll take care of it" means that Section One is going to kill the woman who recognized her as a childhood friend and that Nikita immediately acts . . . but then she just takes this woman back to her own apartment? Seriously, Nikita. XD
"I'll protect you. I swear."
Any promise like that is automatically doomed. DOOMED.
It's so interesting that Michael is absolutely silent the entire time that the Mijovich dude is hitting on and petting Nikita and mistaking her for an escort. Michael doesn't interject or explain Nikita's position at all, but lets Nikita do all the work making it clear that she is part of the security detail and that the dude better keeps his hands off her. Then, after Nikita effectively proves her skills and qualifications by manhandling Mijovich, Michael doesn't apologize or offer any smart remarks either. It's quite interesting. Maybe I'm thinking in opposition to Dyson, into whose mouth the LG writers feel like they need to put smart one-liners to prove that he isn't one-upping Bo.
WHY DO SNIPERS ALWAYS USE LASER SIGHTS? Ugh. I hate that trope.
And just like that, Nikita proves that she's over the hesitant-to-kill thing.
"So what's going to happen to me?"
"You'll need a new name. A new identity."
WHY DON'T YOU HAVE A NEW NAME OR IDENTITY, NIKITA?!?!?!
"Your name. How you look. The pieces of paper you carry. None of it matters. Because nothing can change what's inside here."
Man, they really grew you up over those two years, Nikita. That's some Madeline wisdom right there.
Girl bonding time over dress up montage!
"Is it gonna be alright, Nikita? I mean really."
"Really."
SO DEAD, JULIE, YOU ARE SO DEAD. Because Nikita needs some dirty Section One agent life lessons.
Oh, I remember this torture scene.
Aw yeah, Nikita getting out a signal for a rescue. Smart girl.
"You have the courage of a man."
"How would you know?"
OH SNAP.
HEE, PLOT TWIST. DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNN.
"I really enjoyed our time together."
Watching this as an adult I suddenly see so much (belligerent) subtext.
Okay, EFF YEAH NIKITA TAKING ACTION TO SAVE HERSELF, but, um, this is so stupid, why wouldn't you just step up to Nikita and put a bullet in her brain instead of trying to shoot her from across the room? WHAT IS SHE GOING TO DO TO YOU WHILE SHE'S TIED UP?
OVERLY DRAMATIC RESCUE! CAN YOU FEEL THE SEXUAL TENSION BETWEEN MICHAEL AND NIKITA????
"I feel her. She's here."
Ofc I thought Nikita was sexy.
Honestly, seeing the Julie-Nikita tiff, I am sad now that Nikita wasn't a little queer. Though, if I remember correctly, at some point in the later seasons there's a torture scene that was a bit . . . woman-on-woman kinky.
Where do people just get these RPGs, man? Is it so easy to acquire one? Actually, you know what, I don't want to know.
"Come on. Pull the trigger, Nikita."
"The world would be a safer place if I did."
"Then do it. I'm not going to spend the rest of my life rotting away in some prison cell."
"Who are you?"
"DO IT!"
"What's your name?"
"You want to know who I am?"
Dude, Nikita, really, you let her pick up the RPG again in the middle of this speech?
"This. This is who I am."
STARE OFF. GUN DOWN. Nikita was actually hesitant again here.
Wait. Is Nikita's jacket pleather? Why is it so shiny?! WHY, 90s fashion, what is this travesty?!?!?
"Nikita remains a puzzle. She continues to break Section code and yet she manages to succeed."
"What code did she break?"
"Please, Michael. You've been here long enough. Information is what we do here. If you don't think I don't know every detail of every operation."
I love the darkness of Section One. The commentary put it best: Section One tries to out-ruthless the ruthless terrorists. These are not nice people. At all.
I am not surprised at all that I loved this.