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January 19, 2008
The End of an Obsession
For most fans of La Femme Nikita, this post is six years too late. I was not an obsessive follower of the cult hit. I watched it sporadically for one season on the one t.v. on campus that got the USA Network. The next season, that t.v. no longer got the USA Network, and my appreciation of LFN lingered as a distant memory.
As a head's up for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about LFN was originally a French movie made in 1990, remade into the somewhat terrible film Point of No Return in 1993 and the t.v. series began in 1997. Buffy the Vampire Slayer the movie was released in 1992 and began its t.v. life in 97 as well. I mention this because they are both important cultural touchstones for the beginning of strong, leading females. I believe they should both be heralded as the original modern feminist screen heroes, though LFN is often thought of as the precursor to BtVS.
I purchased the first two seasons shortly after they came out. I was frustrated that the other seasons were being held up by disputes over music rights (or so the fandom said), and stopped looking for them. Then, on New Year's Eve I purchased seasons 3, 4, and 5 (on sale!). For the last 20 days, I've obsessively watched every episode from those seasons, breaking for the obvious (paid work) and not so obvious (never-ending volunteer work).
Sadly, the ending is not as good as the journey. Apparently, the writers knew they were being canceled during season 4, so they decided to wrap things up in the most fucked up ending to a series ever. Then, because of fan outcry, they were brought back for a pathetic 8 episode 5th season that further destroyed the good name of the series.
Since most people have never seen the series, I don't want to screw up the first 3.5 seriously good seasons for you by explaining the details of the horrid end. So, I'll talk in generalities.
There are few series that think it's a good thing to end by killing off the main characters one by one. Even worse is the idea of radically changing a major character into a sniveling idiot. Perhaps worse than all the other putrid contrivances of the 5th season was watching the New Woman shamelessly use her body to get ahead in Section. The show, like the French film it's based on, revolves around the love between Nikita and her mentor, Michael. But they did not come together because she wanted to use her anatomy to get ahead in the world, and it was disgusting to watch that plot unfold with another operative. (Let's not quibble over the fact that she was ordered to do this. Men directing women like puppets is another thing the writers got wrong in the last season. Perhaps because they killed off their gender-bending central figure.)
I guess that's not the worst thing I can say about the writing. Not allowing Nikita to react to the fact that Michael had a wife and child (supposedly operatives completely separate from real human reactions to interpersonal relationships when they're created as part of an assignment) and then having multiple high-level males die so that one innocent kid could live was just too damn much for me.
Needless to say, I wont be watching the end of the series again anytime soon. It was a bit of a shock to return to my DVR and find new episodes of Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives waiting for me. Perhaps now I'll have time for the ten episodes of Cane that are waiting on my DVR...or maybe I'll just finally delete them and open up space for guilty pleasures that have a higher likelihood of returning when the strike ends.
2001 Interview with LFN star Pita Wilson. Transcript is housed on the fan site LFN Forever
Totally excited review of the series written while it was still on the air at Pop Matters.
The almost dead official site where you can link to watching a few eps for free.
Posted by cj at January 19, 2008 11:10 PM