Okay, this show looks like it may have some merit. 'Course this is based only on the last 20 or so minutes, when things started blowing up, and the show took a distinctly X-Filesish twist.
So, what happened in the first 40 minutes (everything before the protagonists forceful introduction to the world of amateur dentistry)? Anything cool? She wear anything skimpy?
I watched it – looked pretty damn good, if you ask me.
Here’s a real short synopsis, told in real-time (with none of the time jumping around that happens in the actual show to develop tension).
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Girl (I forget her name, okay, I’m bad with names. oh wait, it’s Sidney) is in college class, not paying too much attention, doing poorly. Her doctor boyfriend proposes to her on the school lawn. She accepts. Then tells him that she’s a spy working for the CIA, and that he can’t tell anyone.
She goes off on mission with older black gent, finds out he’s lied to his wife of 12 years about what he does. “No one breaks the code”. While on mission, her fiance calls her machine and says the word ‘spy’. The agency has tapped her phone, director is called, and fiance is killed (offscreen) by Sidney’s father.
Sidney and partner complete recon mission in China-- it’s the same building where the dentistry scene takes place. They were just looking for some weird device developed by an inventor killed in Germany.
Sidney comes home, finds her fiance’s corpse in the bathtub. She freaks-- tells her director to screw off. Three months later she’s still stumbling around, and black gent tells her that she’s gotta come back or it’ll be bad.
Later, in an underground parking garage, she survives an assassination attempt with the (surprise!) help of her father-- who she thought sold aeroplane parts. He whisks her out, tells her that he works for the same agency she does, and that it’s not really the CIA. It’s actually some evil group called ‘the alliance of 12’ or sd6. He offers her an out-- with a plane trip to somewhere safe, but she refuses.
She then gets a little help from a newsman friend of hers, swipes his sister’s passport (hence the pink hair), and goes back to the Chinese place (which 3 months later, after they know they have a security breach) and undergoes amateur dentistry while swiping a device (left on the same lab bench), then drops it off and does the old double-cross thing.
Well, now that that’s all out of the way, let’s discuss.
Need I put a spoiler in this far down? Eh…fine.
[sub]spoiler space[/sub]
OK, I didn’t like Syndey’s father. No, I have nothing against Victor Garber. Heck, I found him a redeaming feature in Titanic. The problem was the character wasn’t developed enough for us to feel anything in the plot twists.
First we find out that Sydney has a father
10 minutes later we find out he’s really a spy
15 minutes later we find out she doesn’t know he’s a spy.
5 minutes later we find out he’s working for the bad guys and so is she.
15 minutes later we find out he’s really working for the CIA as a double agent.
Now, either the entire season is going to be a roller coaster of plot twists just like that, or they took a good first season’s worth of plot lines and shot their load in the first episode. With J J Adams, writer of Armageddon, at the helm, I’m not sure if I should be holding my breath.
I thought it was great, mostly 'cuz they killed the boyfriend. During the first half hour he was being set up as a long-term character with whom Sydney’s double life would certainly cause problems in the future. And then she gets home and he’s dead. I certainly wasn’t expecting it. I doubt the show will be able to keep me this off-balance throughout the rest of the season, but so far it’s real promising.
–Cliffy
P.S. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Syd’s dad who pulled the trigger on the boyfriend. Sloan (Sydney’s boss) just told the father as a courtesy.
Actually, I thought they were telegraphing the fiance’s death as soon as she took him into the shower.
As for being informed about the death, Syd’s dad distinctly said he would take care of it.
Tune in next week, i guess.
No he didn’t. He said he understood what it meant.
–Cliffy
I was just terribly amused that they show Sidney flying to and from Taiwan the first time, explain the pink hair because of her flying out on the return trip, then totally ignore the final return trip. With a face that looks like someone… well, did unnecessary dental work, wearing the same clothes, etc. she manages to get back on a plane, fly what, 10 hours? from Taiwan back to the US, march into SD6, then go to Langly… all without a change of clothes after having been tortured, shot at, run after, etc… not to mention being handcuffed in a chair for at least a couple hours. Now that’s a versatile wardrobe! 
btw, where was the action in the US taking place? As in, she “Walked in” to the CIA headquarters in Langley… where is she living? Musta missed that part.
I was pretty sure the boyfriend was gonna get it immediately after she told him. Oh, and I don’t think the dad killed the boyfriend himself… he made some reference to the group (internal to SD6) that did it. He’s more of an “administrative” type guy than a “shoot the guy in the bathtub” type guy, I think.
Anyway, it was good enough that I’ll try and watch the next episode. It does have that “La Femme Nikita” type appeal…
Just skimming for now (waiting for the bathroom to open up), but was there any explaination of what the invention was?
I mean, first it was hovering there, presumably held up by a magnetic field, then she cuts the wire and it goes splat. But, hey, the chunk of iron (electromagnet?) it was sitting on seems to be plenty good enough for the SD6 guy. (I’m guessing it wasn’t a big ball o’ biowarfare.)
I think it was a super conductor. And it was running on what appeared to be a nine-volt battery in room-temperature conditions. Hence all the brujaja.
I have no idea what was ‘held’ in the magnetic field.
My 2 cents on the show: It is a lot like Le Femme Nikita. It does seem to have a larger budget. We are all willing to buy that she’s a hard ass. She seems smart enough too.
I think I was most dissappointed that the father was a double agent. Of course, he could be double-crossing the CIA, but still, I thought that that was a somewhat predictable move.
I’m not holding high hopes up for the show. They’ll need some really great script writing to keep this show afloat. It is too similar to other shows in its genre. And the ‘Beautiful but Deadly’ ‘Dark and Edgy’ stuff is wearing thin. Hollywood should look for a new direction. Like short, chubby and harmless or something.