|
“La Femme
Nikita-The Complete Third Season“
|
 |
Reviewed
by: |
Wayne A. Klein |
| Genre: |
Thriller
|
| Video: |
1.33:1 Full
screen |
| Audio: |
Dolby Digital
2.0 |
| Languages |
English |
| Subtitles |
English |
| Length |
978 minutes
|
| Rating |
NR |
| Release Date |
6/28/05
|
| Studio |
Warner Home
Video |
| Commentary:
|
Members of
the cast and crew on the third season opening episode and finale |
| Documentaries:
|
None |
| Featurettes:
|
On production designer
Rocco Matteo |
| Filmography/Biography:
|
None |
|
Interviews: |
None |
| Trailers/TV
Spots: |
None |
| Alternate/Deleted
Scenes: |
Deleted
scenes |
| Music
Video: |
None |
| Other:
|
Gag reel
|
| Cast
and Crew: |
Peta Wilson,
Roy Dupuis, Don Francks, Matthew Ferguson, Eugene Robert Glazer |
| Written
By: |
Cyrus Nowrasteh,
Lawrence Hertzog, Michael Loceff |
| Produced
By: |
Rocco Matteo,
Jamie Paul Rock |
| Directed
By: |
Jon Cassar,
Rene Bonniere, Joseph Scanlan |
| Music:
|
Sean Callery
|
| The
Review: |
Section One has seduced Nikita making
her into an automaton just like all the other killers and
spies within the organization. Or has it? Perhaps she has
buried herself in a “role” to convince those within the organization
that she’s just like them. Michael has disappeared and the
head of operations sanctions the termination of Nikita while
she is on a mission. She survives the attempt on her life
returning to Section One. Eventually the mystery of Michael’s
disappearance is uncovered. When we see him again he’s a changed
man with the loss of his wife and son. During the third season
Nikita discovers further unpleasant truths about Section One
including experiments that she hadn’t suspected were going
on within the organization. “Gates of Hell” and “Slipping
into Darkness” are two of the outstanding episodes during
seasonthree and the continuing quality writing kept the series
on course developing the deeper and darker conspiracies within
Section. ***
This popular predecessor to “Alias”
visited many of the same themes and did most of them better.
While “Alias” spiraled off into its absurd storylines involving
the Rambaldi devices, “Nikita” continues to focus much more
on action and character driven storylines every bit as involving
without preposterious plot devices borrowed from “The X-Files”.
In many respects, “La Femme Nikita” is “Mission: Impossible”
turned inside out (or, more accurately, the Bond films with
a darker streak and less clearly defined politics) and the
success of the series rested as much with the strong casting
and performances as the strong writing of the series. ----
|
| Image
and Sound: |
A stellar
transfer from Warner Home Video, the third season looks much
like the second on DVD with sharp, vivid colors and a nearly
crystal clear picture. There’s a small amount of dust in some
of the episodes included here and this is most noticeable in
any stock footage or the titles sequence as opposed to most
of the original episodes themselves. The 2.0 soundtrack makes
effective use of the format with a nice solid bass that generates
an expansive feeling to the soundtrack particularly during the
action sequences where there is gunfire or explosions. The dialog
comes across with great clarity. Warner continues to set the
pace for TV series released on DVD by paying great attention
to the transfers to most of the sets they’ve released. --- |
| The
Extras: |
We get
the season gag reel which is a lot of fun. There are also
10 deleted scenes with an introduction from director Jon Cassar
and a new featurette “Designing Nikita” that allows us an
inside look into the world of production designer Rocco Matteo.
The featurette is top notch and the inclusion of both the
gag reel and deleted scenes continues to demonstrate that
Warner sets the pace for not only theatrical DVD releases
but for TV series as well.
|
| Commentary:
|
There are
two commentary tracks on this set. We get a commentary by members
of the cast and crew on both the season premiere and final episode
of season three. Both commentary tracks make up for the fact
that there’s only two included in the set; both are chock full
of useful information and trivia about the series and the tone
is breezy to say the least. --- |
| Final
Words: |
terrific
package from Warner, I’m hoping that the third and final season
of “Kung Fu” as well as the remaining seasons of “La Femme Nikita”
receives as much care as the studio has lavished on this series.
It’s amazing that studios just dump product without providing
any special content particularly on older series. What’s to
stop fans from just continuing to watch their recordings of
them? Warner knows how to play the marketing game when it comes
to releasing this stuff to DVD and virtually no other studio
has done as well as they have with most of their releases on
DVD when it comes to special features, image quality and pricing.
Keep up the great work you guys! |
