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Nominated for 18 Gemini Awards (which honor the English language achievements of Canadian television), La Femme Nikita established itself as a stalwart on the USA Network in the late-1990s. Based on the 1990 motion picture of the same name, La Femme Nikita changed its cast, but not its edgy characters and exciting underworld setting. A forerunner to the successful hit series Alias, the show features all the intrigue of its successor coupled with the fast-paced action of 24. An hour-long action/adventure drama series, La Femme Nikita premiered on the first day of 1997 and quickly built a loyal fan base that followed the series for five stellar seasons before its premature cancellation in Spring 2001…

La Femme Nikita follows the life of Nikita (Peta Wilson), a woman wrongfully convicted of a brutal murder. Sentenced to life in prison, a top-secret government agency known only as Section One sets its sights on the woman it believes to be a ruthless killer. Faking Nikita’s suicide, they usher her out of prison to train and program her into a willing and obedient assassin. But the conspirators at Section One didn’t bank on Nikita’s innocence. Now, they’re stuck with a bloodthirsty felon who’s not as bloodthirsty as they thought. Nevertheless, Nikita (now code-named ‘Josephine’) must carry out the orders of her superiors or else face her own death at the hands of an organization intent on keeping its secrets from the outside world. La Femme Nikita boasts an excellent cast to compliment Nikita’s numerous adventures, among them are Michael Samuelle (Roy Dupuis), Davenport (Lawrence Bayne), Seymour Birkoff (Matthew Ferguson), Walter (Don Francks), and Paul “Operations” Wolfe (Eugene Robert Glazer). Together, they create an intriguing atmosphere of mysterious identities, ruthless assassins, and government conspiracies that is certain to entertain even the most discriminating of viewers…

The La Femme Nikita DVD features a number of exciting episodes including the series premiere “Nikita” in which Nikita, a lone girl living on the streets, is wrongfully convicted of a murder she did not commit. When the government fakes her prison cell suicide, Nikita awakes in the care of Section One, a super secret government entity with the goal of turning Nikita into an anti-terrorist assassin. But Nikita, who is innocent, initially resists the brainwashing techniques before finally submitting to the organization in order to stay alive… Other notable episodes from Season 1 include “Gray” in which a hacker compromises the employee database of Section One, and “Noise” in which Birkoff’s fear of dying while on a mission threatens to end his career with Section One…

Below is a list of episodes included on the La Femme Nikita (Season 1) DVD:

Episode 1 (Nikita) Air Date: 01-13-1997
Episode 2 (Friend) Air Date: 01-20-1997
Episode 3 (Simone) Air Date: 01-27-1997
Episode 4 (Charity) Air Date: 02-03-1997
Episode 5 (Mother) Air Date: 02-10-1997
Episode 6 (Love) Air Date: 02-17-1997
Episode 7 (Treason) Air Date: 02-24-1997
Episode 8 (Escape) Air Date: 03-03-1997
Episode 9 (Gray) Air Date: 03-10-1997
Episode 10 (Choice) Air Date: 04-07-1997
Episode 11 (Rescue) Air Date: 04-14-1997
Episode 12 (Innocent) Air Date: 04-21-1997
Episode 13 (Recruit) Air Date: 06-22-1997
Episode 14 (Gambit) Air Date: 06-29-1997
Episode 15 (Obsessed) Air Date: 07-20-1997
Episode 16 (Noise) Air Date: 07-27-1997
Episode 17 (War) Air Date: 08-03-1997
Episode 18 (Missing) Air Date: 08-10-1997
Episode 19 (Voices) Air Date: 08-17-1997
Episode 20 (Brainwash) Air Date: 09-21-1997
Episode 21 (Verdict) Air Date: 09-28-1997
Episode 22 (Mercy) Air Date: 10-05-1997

About the Author

Britt Gillette is author of The DVD Report, a blog where you can find more reviews like this one of the La Femme Nikita (DVD).

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Who is the chubby, aging baby boomer waddling through airport after empty airport, wearily tugging along his 2-piece luggage roller? Hey, it’s not Michael Moore (again). Why, for heaven’s sake, it’s none other than a bored, disgruntled Al Gore, Jr. - the Man Who Personally Believes He Coulda/Woulda/Shoulda Been King! Well, at least Saturday Night Live believed him. Instead of ruling the Western World with a Green Fist, he’s starred in a new movie persuading us to stop using up so much energy. Meanwhile, Al Gore Jr. cruises about foreign capitals in one gas-guzzling, chauffeured Mercedes after another, pondering one very deep thought after another while solemnly tapping away on his Mac Powerbook. Earth to Al Gore: Actor Steven Seagal already nailed down the slick but glazed ‘poseur look’ about nine movies ago.

Is “An Inconvenient Truth” a documentary about Global Warming, or Al Gore’s microphone-grabbing, spotlight-snatching platform to whine about, and revisit, his presidential election loss, six years ago? Is former Veep Gore really hoping to educate film audiences about the very serious dangers of carbon dioxide emissions, greenhouse gases and abrupt climate change, or conniving to create a multi-media white paper for the Democratic Party’s energy agenda? We’re not sure, actually. Perhaps, it is because Al Gore, and the film’s executive producer Davis Guggenheim, were themselves confused as to the direction in which they were heading with this narcissistic political propaganda.

C’mon, a former high-profile Vice President of the United States shuffling through airport security like the rest of us hoi polloi? If so, then why didn’t the alarm bells go off? For those who missed it, in one scene Gore wore a belt buckle the size of a small dish, when passing through the airport’s metal detector. And it didn’t screech? Right! Or how about the scene where a pompous Al Gore (sans bodyguards) was hailing a cab in Manhattan, but no one recognized him? Well, perhaps that part was realistic. Who really cares about Al? Was the former #2 man doing a for-the-people inspirational routine, along the lines of “He Walks Among Us,” so that we’d buy his punch line about self-sacrifice at the end of the movie?

The man, who at one time claimed to have invented the Internet, more carefully documented his alleged 30-year personal campaign to help bring Global Warming to a screeching halt. Amazingly, he didn’t include footnotes with his film speech. We’re sure Gore was anticipating the “I invented the Internet” jokes and dutifully prepared his track record for audiences. He shamelessly dredged up memories of his old Harvard science professor, Roger Revelle, whom he once called into congressional hearings to have the scientist warn about CO2 emissions and rising water temperatures.

How seriously can we take ‘Scientist’ Al Gore? In a Washington Post article (March 19, 2000), Al’s grades and scores were questioned, during the presidential campaign, and the assistant headmaster at Gore’s private school, St. Albans, reportedly “chuckled at (Gore’s) science results.” He had scored so poorly.

Gore’s one constant, his glibness, manifests in this quasi-documentary. Mostly it’s a political infomercial, but for whatever reason Gore was so fervently pitching and hyping Al Gore was never made clear. He hasn’t quite grasped how serious the earth’s climactic changes could impact our civilization, other than flicking through multiple photos of receding glaciers and a few other tidbits. Gore mentions we might have 100 million refugees if sea levels rise, as if those many would actually survive. In contrast, Dr. Lovelock, author of “The Revenge of Gaia,” is forecasting the demise of billions of people under the same “earth is melting” scenario. Whom do we believe? We vote Lovelock, not Gore. After all, the politician admits, in a recent Rolling Stone magazine interview, Lovelock has forgotten more science than Gore has ever learned.

Whatever gravity the poseur portrayed during his supercilious narration, and in his deep-thinking (but awkward) poses, Gore nullified these moments with clumsy flashbacks to the 2000 presidential campaign. (Well, Gore reportedly did a lot of drugs in college, so we guess he’s entitled to his flashbacks.) While he claimed in his movie to have moved on, the man still sounded downright bitter during this pre-campaigning film farce. His movie oozes contempt for the man who defeated him, and offers the same ill will toward anyone distantly related - family, business or otherwise - to the man who is now President of the United States. For those who helped keep him out of the White House or dissed him? He repays his enemies in a way only a screenwriter could: Gore adds his enemies to his movie.

Gore’s rapid-fire “subliminal images” are cleverly aimed at Florida and the 2000 presidential campaign. Take that Senator Katherine Harris! Guess which state gets submerged first when the polar ice caps melt? You got it, Florida. Of all the lakes in the world which are drying up, Gore selects Lake Chad. For those who have forgotten, it was the notorious “chads,” which cost Gore the presidency. Darn it Al, will you let it go? It’s been six years, you know. You LOST the election!

Film goers should wonder why an ex-tobacco farmer, and erstwhile U.S. presidential candidate (going 0 for 2 on presidential campaigns), has only NOW come out against fossil fuels because of Global Warming. What’s his agenda? To educate the public? If that is the case, then the filmmakers should have focused on the matter at hand - the earth is getting hotter, and we need a solution. Dr. James Lovelock’s mandate is simple: Nuclear energy is the single solution. Listen up, Hillary Clinton - you might have enjoyed Al’s ramblings, and said so in your pretentious New York Press Club speech last May, but where is Gore’s actual solution to the Global Warming crisis?

The self-righteous Al Jr. offers no solution in his movie. Even when asked by an audience in China for his solution, Gore spouts non-sequiturs - political rhetoric, but no word of a solution. The movie director deftly cuts away before Al can look even sillier, while we wonder why Al offered no solution.

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