Animation
Shape Island
Shape Island may charm little viewers and won’t bend their parents out of shape. But the show can also feel surprisingly flat.
Last I checked, “assassin” didn’t show up on high school aptitude tests. You can’t major in it, you can’t apply for it via online want ads (unless the screeners at Craigslist are having a particularly bad day). So it’s a bit of a hard career to get into. But once you’re in, according to Nikita, the gig’s nearly impossible to quit.
Femme fatale Nikita wants to make a career change. Drafted by a swarthy government agency called The Division when she was just a drug-addled teen, Nikita spent years doing the Div’s dirty work, snuffing folks out with little mercy and loads of style. But that was before she loved and lost her boyfriend—who
had become something of a distraction in Nikita’s line of work.
In the aftermath, she flew off the grid and spent three years in hiding. Now she’s back, looking to turn in her notice for good while avoiding permanent termination. Oh, and she hopes to take down the whole corrupt Division with her, freeing its bevy of assassins-in-training—all troubled kids just like she used to be.
Nikita’s roots tangle down toward the 1990 film La Femme Nikita, with this CW series being just the most recent of several incarnations. It’s an interesting prime-time offering from CW, land of smoldering vampires and Beverly Hills zip codes. The show feels grittier, the writing crisper, the tone bleaker than the network’s typical fare. People are killed, often in cold blood. “It’s really a revenge tale,” star Maggie Q told MTV News. “[Nikita] gets out and she wants the people who hurt her to pay. It’s a pretty dark series for this network.”
Which is maybe one reason why CW buffed the show with so many scantily clad, model-worthy actors. In Nikita’s bizarro world, most women have waists approximately the same radius as their necks, skin as smooth as a marble countertops and belly buttons that attract camera lenses like flames attract moths. It’s Burn Notice meets Melrose Place. It’s The Professional paired with Charlie’s Angels. It’s 24 competing on America’s Next Top Model.
The Division’s young recruits are under no illusion as to what they’ll be asked to do. “I’m just jealous you get to smoke someone,” one “student” says to another. And something of that ethos is wrapped up in CW’s manifestation of Nikita. “Smoking” someone is an attractive physical attribute here. Slaughter is sexy.
(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at letters@pluggedin.com, or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)
Nikita is one of scores of “bikini babes” at a pool party. Alas for the host, Nikita’s working, and she snaps the man’s neck with her bare hands, skewers his bodyguard with a knife and thwacks another with a chair. Sure, it’s only a dream. But it’s also representative. Nikita shows off her underwear frequently, while other fledgling assassins wear midriff-revealing tops. We see Nikita in bed with her beau, kissing his ribs. Child prostitution comes up in conversation.
Nikita breaks her foster father’s wrist. (Punishment for him being inattentive when she was younger, and likely abusive?) She hits someone in the face with a gun, shoots somebody else in the shoulder (to give him plausible cover) and kills or injures several extras (sometimes with a spatter of blood). A Division superassassin kills a guy by shooting him in the back of the neck, and he slices a couple of others open with a pocketknife (finishing the job with a gun). Folks get beaten, kicked and have their heads rammed into doors and sinks. A teen holds scissors to a woman’s throat.
Foul language includes misuses of God’s name and infrequent uses of “d‑‑n,” “b‑‑ch” and “friggin.'”
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
Shape Island may charm little viewers and won’t bend their parents out of shape. But the show can also feel surprisingly flat.
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