Copyright © 2011 by Sarah Stegall
Alphas
Syfy, Mondays 10PM
“Pilot”
Written by Zak Penn & Michael Karnow
Directed by Jack Bender
Warning: this review contains some spoilers. If you’d rather not know what the episode is going to include, bookmark this page and read it after viewing.
“I planned this out with extreme precision.” —Ghost
It’s not that there’s anything particularly wrong with Alphas, the new show that debuted last night on Syfy. It’s just that there’s nothing particularly new about this new show. We saw the idea of humans with slightly extraordinary powers play out for several seasons on Heroes, and in several films in the X-Men franchise. There is nothing extraordinary any more in the idea of mortals with extraordinary powers. So while Alphas does have an interesting premise and at least one really solid bit of casting, I have to wonder if it will ever stand out from the crowd enough to be noticed.
“Time to kill. Pull the trigger.” —Ghost
It doesn’t help that we start off with a well-worn idea: murderous behavior triggered by a phone call. Charles Bronson did it in 1977’s Telefon; more recently most of the human race did it in Stephen King’s novel Cell. I’ve been known to get a little crazy myself after certain phone calls. In a world where people are nearly surgically attached to their cell phones, I would have thought more could have been done with this idea than a retread over familiar ground, but I’m afraid that may turn out to be a hallmark of this series. Producer/creator/writer Zak Penn has come in for a lot of criticism for his handling of the X-Men franchise, and his attempt to convert it here into a television series may not work out as well as he hopes.
“Our minds are capable of so much more than you think.” —Dr. Rosen
Cameron Hicks (Warren Christie, October Road) is a sniper with amazingly precise skills, which are exploited by a master manipulator known only as the Ghost. These super-precise skills are called Hyperkinesis, and allow Hicks to do things like throw a fastball through a runner’s legs to get him out at first (we could use him on the Giants team right now). Completely unaware that he was used as a puppet to shoot a man in a bizarrely impossible shot, he is recruited by Dr. Lee Rosen (David Strathairn, The Bourne Ultimatum) who is sort of a Professor Xavier to a team of super-humans known as Alphas. Rosen figures out how to counteract Hicks’ programming, and hey presto, would he like to join the team?
“I’m the cold charlie in this.” —Hicks
Hicks joins them in order to track down the Ghost who manipulated him, using himself as bait (the “cold charlie”, a term used by snipers in Iraq to describe drawing enemy fire). There are a few good moments where each member of the team gets to demonstrate his or her talents. Malik Yoba (Defying Gravity) plays Bill, a man with the ability to more or less turn into the Incredible Hulk (minus the green makeup) at will. Laura Mennell (Smallville) plays Nina, who can use the Force (or something like it) to hypnotize people. Rachel (Azita Ghanizada, General Hospital) plays a girl whose synesthesia allows her to heighten certain senses at the expense of other senses. Finally, there is Gary (Ryan Cartwright, Bones), a high-functioning autistic savant who can see the electromagnetic spectrum. These last two characters have real breakout potential, if only because these are talents we have not seen before.
“If the Ghost is still out there, you’re at risk.” —Rosen
The pilot serves mainly to set up two things: the Alphas are in a precarious relationship with their government sponsor, Don Wilson (Callum Keith Rennie, Battlestar Galactica), and that there is a dark version of their own Alpha team, a group known as Red Flag. Most of the rest of the pilot is a routine CSI with superpowers thrown in, with conspiracy theories, betrayals, and unsolved mysteries. Rosen functions as father-confessor and father-figure to the group, with ex-FBI agent Bill offering professional expertise in their cases. There’s some office politicking, some family arguments, and a running gag about Gary driving the van. The Alphas’ lair is under a bowling alley, hah hah. We’ve seen much of it before.
“You’re on the wrong side of this thing.” —Ghost
And that’s really the problem here. The parts of this show are fine—you do not get any better than the likes of David Strathairn. The writing is not stellar, but it wouldn’t have to be if the premise was a little more compelling. But the parts do not add up to a compelling whole. Much as I want to like Alphas, it’s just a little too familiar. It has everything I liked about Heroes: otherwise ordinary people with one extraordinary ability, something that might even be possible with enough tweaking of the human genome. Nobody flew, nobody wore spandex, and they quarreled and loved and fought like any other normal people. But I saw this last year, in No Ordinary Family. It was even more comic-book familiar in The Cape. The appeal of shows like that was that we could see ourselves more likely to be reflected in middle-range superheroes with flaws, than in the likes of Superman or the X-Men. Trouble is, we’ve seen that reflection too often.