Nikita or Yet Another Re-Make Done Too Soon

From 1997 through 2001 a show known as "Nikitia" in Canada or "La Femme Nikita" in the USA aired. That show starred some great actors. Peta Wilson as Nikita, Roy Dupuis as Michael, Don Franks as Walter, Eugene Robert Glazer as Operations, Matthew Ferguson as Birkoff and Alberta Watson as Madeline (for the rest of the cast list visit here). Tonight across the same two nations another show called Nikita began airing (CW Network in the US, A-Channel in Canada).

First some bias and observation about the original TV show. Yes, I am aware there was a movie that the show is based on. I have not seen that movie, although recently I have been debating watching it. I am an avid fan of the TV show. In fact I currently am finishing up the final season of the show. For a time TheWB.com had the show streaming on their website. It has since been taken down in favor of the new show. Lucky for me, I have Netflix and am able to finish the series out on DVD (I was not happy when I found out the original had been pulled in favor of the new). To me, and other fans I've noticed comments from, Peta Wilson is Nikita and always will be. I think I can safely add Roy Dupuis as Michael and Matthew Ferguson as Birkoff to that list as well. The new show, however, isn't terrible.

The new Nikita, played by Maggie Q (of Mission Impossible III and Live Free or Die Hard), leaves something to be desired for me. First off, Nikita is a blond, not a brunette. Second, she's at very least European, if not North American, not Asian. I have no problem with Asians, I just have an image of who should play the role. Maggie Q, doesn't fit that image. She's a great actor, just not for the part. The fact that Michael and Nikita are not involved (at least at this point) is a major flaw in this new show. That is what the original show as based on. Without their relationship the original would not have survived. Another blow to the new show, at least as far as original show fans should be concerned is two fold. First, there is no Section anymore. It's now Division. I guess same idea different name? Why not keep the original, you kept names like Nikita, Michael and Birkoff, why change the name of the covert agency they work for? Second, the show is now clearly based in the United States (despite being filmed in Toronto, Ontario as was the original show). I believe this creates a problem. Whereas before, Section One's actual location was never revealed (although in my opinion show clues placed it somewhere in Europe, possibly France), it is now clear where the target is. This could possibly be a part of the story not yet revealed but I doubt it. To me this just makes the new shows creators and producers seem a bit too ethnocentric, which is a disappointment to the franchise more than to the viewer. My biggest problem will never be addressed, however.

Why is Nikita not in Division? She is apparently a rogue agent. According to the new show, she escaped 3 years ago. The rest of the back story is the same, but this part is different from the original show. Now, if you haven't seen the original show, let me tell you the end. Nikita is still in Section, the final scene has her running the place. Where did she escape, if you go back to sometime in Season 3 I believe, there is a pilot program where she is let out of Section for a time. Could this be the so called "escape" that the new show refers too? I hope not as that would dramatically change the original show timeline. One more note, Nikita (original show) never loved, was proposed to, or even saw anyone named Daniel (as far as I can remember and tell from the quick episode guide searches I just completed). She lived alone and had several neighbors that were her friends when she wasn't inside Section. Her cover wasn't much ("between jobs and working on stuff"). Now she's supposed to be a consultant of some kind. As one final thought, before I wrap up this fairly long rant. The original show ended in 2001. It's not even 10 years later and some network executives thought a remake would be a good idea? I guess if it works for 90210 why not try it with Nikita eh?

Is it a good show? I think time will tell the most. As one of the people on twitter put it tonight "this one doesn't know what it is yet." I agree. The original show was good from the start. This one looks like it will need some time. All in all, if you're looking for a good action show, I don't think you can go wrong with Nikita (either the Original or the New). No star rating on this but I am going to keep my eyes on it over the next few months. To find out more about the original show go to this fan site or IMDB.com. The new Nikita airs Thursday's at 9 ET/PT on The CW network in the US and A-Channel in Canada. As always, comments are appreciated and moderated. Thank you for reading.

Really, he finally decided to post something?

As a matter of fact I did. I know, I know I haven't posted since May. And for that I'm sorry. I wish I could say I've been busy (which is actually true). But that is really no excuse for not coming up with some pithy comment to post. As I write this post it's quite early in the morning. About an hour ago I tried to go to bed. I'm still awake and my brain was moving so fast that I had to get up and do something. Writing my thoughts out to the world seemed like a good idea. I have a whole bunch of topics to talk about but for now, I'll keep it short. There are several more posts in the works (don't laugh I'm really serious). Some might be funny, others inspirational and still more just musings. There will be complaints (as there have been on multiple occasions on this blog). There may also even be a few new podcasts and/or Vlogs in my future too. If I do podcast or vlog I'll make sure to put links here. Oh, check out the links on the right for my Youtube.com page. Any new video stuff I do will likely find its way there at some point (it's pretty limited right now, but I plan expansion). The podcast is already linked (and available in iTunes unless they kicked me off due to inactivity). Anyways, on to topics that I'm working on.

1. Saying goodbye. How do you do it? I have some ideas especially when it involves a long radio career. I'll talk about how it affected me and why you should care.

2. Finding a job. No I can't help you find one, but I still need one, so it's something I'll talk about.

3. Hockey. Hey, what do you know it's not first on the list it's third, that's not too bad. Just in case you didn't know the season starts in a little over a month (preseason is in a couple of weeks).

4. What inspires you? This actually may get back to #1, but we'll see.

5. Politics and more. This one we'll see about, I'm not sure I'm ready to take this one on quite yet.

More? Probably, I have ideas that just run around my head a lot. I need to just remember them and start writing.

As always, thanks for taking the time to read. Comments must be approved by me before they are posted.

An Open Letter to NBC and the IOC

To: The Executives of NBC and NBCOlympics.com

CC: The Members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC)

Subject: Open Letter regarding NBC and NBCOlympics.com 2010 Olympic Coverage

Before I get into the actual subject of this letter, let me first admit my bias. I was born and raised in Canada. Therefore, I have grown up watching CBC and CTV's coverage of the Olympics. Until 2000 I had never seen a single minute of NBC Olympic coverage. Since 2000 I have been forced to watch much more NBC coverage than I want to. I believe there are major flaws in NBC's coverage both on their broadcast network as well as their online content. In addition to my issues with NBC I also have a problem with the several IOC decisions all of which I plan to address. It should also be noted that much of what I am referring to is in regards to the most recent Olympic Winter Games, held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada in February 2010, however, I noticed some of these problems as early as the 2000 Summer Olympic Games in Sydney, New south Wales, Australia.

My issues with NBC are as follows: first, NBC did not, and does not regularly, carry Olympic events live across the United States. Second, NBC's online content, for the 2010 games, required that you to be a member of a particular subscription based service in order to watch live online content (including full event replays). Third, NBC airs far to many commercials. Fourth, NBC does not air enough sport, they instead choose to broadcast multiple interviews and athlete profiles instead of showing more sport. Finally, NBC chooses to only show a particular list of events and leave out a large amount of the events held at the games.

In addition to my issues with NBC, I have two questions for the IOC. First, why does the IOC insist that you must live in a country in order to watch that nations coverage? In other words, why if I live in the United States can't I watch coverage out of Canada, the UK or France? Second, why does the IOC allow NBC to essentially charge for viewing online content, especially when other nations do not (like Canada)?

I will be specifically looking at NBC's 2010 coverage as compared against CTV's 2010 coverage. I will also do my best to only include an argument based on broadcast channels only. I'll start with the issue of live coverage. For the second time in 10 years the Olympics were held in North America. This means that a lot of events took place near or during prime time both in the Eastern time zone as well as the Pacific time zone. NBC decided to only air events live during Eastern prime time. This means if you lived in Central or Eastern time you got to watch the Olympics as they happened on NBC. If you lived in Mountain or Pacific time, you had to wait three extra hours for your prime time (aka 8pm local) to watch the events that ended at minimum 3 hours before. Compare this to CTV, not only did CTV start their broadcast day at 3AM pacific, it didn't end to 11pm Pacific. There was one exception, CTV took a 30 minute news break at 2:30pm pacific. Three sets of hosts ran the shifts throughout the day, one set from 3am-9am, another from 9am-2:30pm, then a final host from 3pm-11pm. After 11 there was another 1 hour news break, followed by some replays from 12-3 again hosted by a late night host (who was live as well from what I understand). That's 22.5 hours of live Olympic coverage every day of the games. Oh and just to emphasize this point that was all nationwide. CTV was on 22.5 hours nationwide with Olympic coverage. NBC on the other hand was live in less than half the country (by land mass, not population). Some may make the argument that The Today Show which also airs on NBC should be considered Olympic coverage, even with adding that in, NBC is only up to 7 hours a day and none of it was live in the time zone that the games occurred in. NBC should learn from their Canadian counterparts and figure out the meaning of the word live. No one wants to watch the games after they know the results. The Olympics are meant to be watched live.

NBC's record of online content has been fairly good, up until this year. NBC has somewhat led the world when it comes to online Olympic coverage. During the Summer Games in 2008 NBC provided a lot of online content all for free (with ads). So naturally I was expecting NBC to provide the same sort of coverage this year. Not so. NBC, for this games, required that you be a subscriber of a specific internet provider and/or cable or satellite provider. This means that almost half of Americans were unable to watch live event coverage online. In addition, NBC also required that same "subscription" for full event replays online. But they had lots of highlights. I don't want to watch highlights, if I wanted to watch highlights I could just watch their broadcast channels because that was all NBC carried during prime time. You want an example? The men's downhill. NBC carried 5 skiers in the men's downhill during their prime time show. I know for a fact that CTV carried every single one of the top 30 skiers and most of the top 50 on the network. During prime time CTV did re-air fewer skiers but they still aired more than 5. Another example...the Figure Skating gala. NBC carried 6 skaters (Joannie Rochette, Evgeni Plushenko, Evan Lisachek, Yu-Nan Kim, Charles White and Meril Davis and Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir). I don't remember exactly how many CTV aired but I know it was more than that. Especially because NBC did not carry any of the pairs finalists (2 men, 2 women, 2 ice dance). In addition, CTV's partner Sportsnet carried the entire event live. I don't believe any of NBC's partners did.

Commercials are essential to television, I understand this. But there is a difference between essential and over doing it. NBC over did it. During the figure skating instead of showing the skater in the "kiss and cry" area, NBC almost always took a one minute break instead. CTV took breaks too, after about 3 or 4 skaters, that equals one or two breaks ever 6 skaters or every flight. NBC also aired to many spots during events that you shouldn't break from, like the Opening and closing ceremonies. The closing ceremonies for example NBC cut the speech of the CEO of the Vancouver Olympic Committee (VANOC) nearly in half. Now, I will say that Mr. Furlong's speech did not start well (his French left something to be desired) but there is no reason to break away from that especially when it was to promote a reality TV that was immediately following the conclusion of the games. Oh, and did you know there was a concert during the closing ceremonies? If you watched NBC you didn't because they cut that too. What were the advertisers paying for? Athlete pieces about Apollo Ohno over and over again. NO, advertisers are paying for event coverage. Now that I've taken on NBC I turn my attention to the Internation Olympic Committee (IOC).

The IOC is not without controversy. Decisions they have made on where to host the games, issues with the officials. When you consider the size of the IOC, it actually doesn't do a terrible job. I would however, like to know the answer to the questions I posed earlier. The IOC claims that each nation (and/or group of nations in the case of parts of the EU) can have one broadcast network that carries the games. They are also allowing multiple cable companies (owned or partnered with by the broadcast company) to carry other elements of the games. This next statement is going to be controversial. I believe the IOC is discriminating by this policy. Cable is still not fully integrated into any nation. Only half of people in the United States have cable, even less have all the NBC channels that carried the Games. But I'm getting off topic. Why does the IOC block nations from watching other nations coverage? Is it money? Probably. Is it that the IOC doesn't care about ex-patriots? Probably not. But it sure does feel like that. To me the IOC should at the very least allow the online content to be available to the world, no matter who is broadcasting it. In my case, I would rather watch CTV and/or CBC (the contract just moved) over NBC. But I can't because my IP is blocked by CTV, something the IOC mandates. I just want to know what the true reason behind it is. Second, and probably more important, is the "cost" of some online content.

Let me preface this by saying that CTV carried ALL online content for free. Most of that content was online broadcasts of their on air broadcast coverage (yes, CTV basically did web casts of their broadcast channel for the duration of the games). It didn't matter if you didn't have cable, you could still watch TSN or Sportsnet (which are normally cable only) online. Meanwhile, in the USA. NBC forced internet providers to have "deals" with them in order for you to be able to watch live event coverage. That amounts to having to pay for Olympic content. Why is it free in some places (ok, I'm talking about Canada but I know it's not the only place) and a cost in others? Second, why does the IOC allow networks to force this "charge" on consumers? I don't have an answer to this question. I don't know why NBC gets away with it and CTV doesn't even think about it.

I know this is very long. But it had to be. There is a lot of issues with NBC and the IOC as far as I'm concerned. One more thing, perhaps if the IOC would actually look at broadcast bids instead of just taking the one that gives them the most money, they just might get a quality product, especially in the United States. I know this is rambling, again, it could not be avoided. This is how I feel about the issue.

To NBC please change your ways. Please make the largest event in the world accessible to the whole country as a live event (especially when the games are carried in a North American time zone). To the IOC either tell NBC to change or get a new Olympic contract for the United States. The Olympics don't just happen in prime time. They happen all day for the 17 days of the games. Viewers should be able to see it as they happen not when some network decides they should. NBC carry more sport, especially if you aren't going to extend your coverage. Athlete interviews and profiles are fine, but you have to have more than 4 hours to put them in. If you only have 4 hours a day, skip the profiles carry the sport. To the IOC, open the online content up to the world. Who knows you might find that I'm right. some countries have better coverage than others and you could, since you control content so much, force some changes in the whole world.

I know this is well after the fact, but I think the sentiment remains the same. I hope this letter can cause you to think and consider the coming games in London (2012) and Sochi (2014), both of which as of right now are still being carried on NBC in United States.

Thank you for reading. Please note all comments must be approved by me before they are posted. If you would like to contact me directly, my email link is listed on this page.

New Posts Coming

I know it's been a while since I posted something. I'm working on a couple of topics and hope to have at least one of them done soon. I'll get more consistent with this eventually. I just don't know when that will be. If I do decide to make the podcast more prevalent you will be the first to know.