Alphas: Season 1

I'm kind of annoyed with Syfy for canning Caprica (and SG:U, and every other good show they've ever had), but David Strathairn running a top secret super-powered intervention team on a weekly basis?  How can I NOT watch it?

I'm definitely down for this.

 

And SG:U wasn't good until the last half of season 2, so I can understand Syfy canning them.  lol.

Very much enjoyed this.

Yeah, the show was pretty good.  Though the kid who can see all the electronic stuff got really annoying.  I just kept hearing Robert Downey Jr.'s voice in my head saying "Never go full retard."  I think that should also be amended to "Never go moderately retard."

 

I also felt like this show was an offshoot of the movie Push, where you had superhumans, but their abilities were very subtle for the most part, and you had the good superhumans vs. the bad superhumans with lots of conspiracy and stuff going on.  I didn't think Push was that great of a movie, but it certainly wasn't bad.  This show is along the same lines, but I think it shows promise.  I felt like the team was really well put together and everyone brought something unique to the table.

 

The action in the show was pretty top notch, too.  I was impressed by some of the stunts and conceptual stuff they were able to pull off.  The guy getting shot in the head while in the interrogation room was really cool, as was how they figured out it was done.

 

If they can keep balancing the mysteries these guys tackle, with the cool action and good villains, I think this show will be a lot of fun.

The convincer-lady is way too powerful. For instance, when sniper guy was going back to his apartment and the emotion-girl was there, why didn't convincer-lady just approach him and convince him to piss off somewhere else? The answer is because a) we needed to see Black Hulk in action, b) that's not as fun as seeing Black Hulk in action, and c) raising tension. But it still bugged me.

 

But after that I shrugged and enjoyed it. Strathairn and Callum Keith Rennie bantering was great. I hope they've locked CKR in for a recurring role.

It was like a version of Heroes where I liked the characters and wanted to hang around them.

 

Except for Autistic Guy, but that was only like half the time.

 

Surprisingly funny, not in an uproarious way, but in a nice, fun, gentle way.  I like that.

 

Strathairn is the gold fucking nugget, though.  Without him, man, I don't know.

I dug it.  Someone tell Yoba to stick a toothpick in the corner of his mouth for old times' sake.

I've been burnt before, but this looks good.

Didn't Fringe have a "chain reaction" character exactly like this?

It was a pretty good episode, but I missed the "Team" aspect of it.  In the pilot you really got to see the team working together, but this one was all about the Doctor and the "bad" Alpha, though they did introduce us to the Compound where they send the dangerous Alphas and set up that the government might be up to naughty stuff where the Alphas are concerned.

 

And I'm pretty positive evil Alpha didn't die at the end.  He was a pretty cool character, though.  The escape from the ambulance at the beginning was pretty awesome.

This week's episode was okay.  It was good to get to see the team in action once more, even if Gary is one of the most annoying characters ever created for a TV show... ever.  Though I must say, it seems like Gary and Rachel are the ones who do all the work, and Nina, Harken, and Hicks just kinda stand around - though when action breaks out, Hicks and Harken seem to carry those moments.

 

The idea of a guy who emits pheremones that cause people to go into an uncontrollable rage was kinda interesting.  Though I didn't think the opening sequence on the subway was very well shot, the total clusterfuck in the Alpha Offices was really well done.  I personally enjoyed Agent Don Wilson getting beaten to death with a chair, simply because he didn't really seem all that good at his job.  I mean, the guy was a prick, but him just barging in and starting to bully everyone instead of trusting this team to deal with it just seemed like bad leadership on his part.  And now that he's gone, we get his hot female counterpart as a series regular, lol.  She seemed much better suited to the job from the Cause & Effect episode anyway.

 

There's definitely some growing tension between Agent Cley and Dr. Rosen about how Alphas are being treated and viewed.  Kinda an X-Men vibe where you have one faction that sees them as something other than human and a big threat, and the side that sees them as people who have some type of illness that needs to be treated and nurtured.

 

I also have to question the tactics of Harken where he confronts a guy who can turn mobs into riots at will in the middle of a crowded bus station instead of waiting until he was outside or something.  That, and confronting him in a bus full of people.  Just seems like they could have been a bit more slick about how they took this guy down.

I like what they're doing with Hicks. I was wondering how he'd fit in with an investigative team and he's just keeping to himself and thinking and then coming up with the right answer.

 

I find Bill more annoying than Gary. Gary has an excuse for being annoying. Bill is just an asshole.

Hey, I actually kind of like this show. Wasn't expecting that. At all. Though the amount of disrespect Strathairn gets is infuriating.

Way too much Barry in this episode.  Aside from him not being as annoying this episode as he was in previous eps, he's just not a very likable character.

 

The "autistic alpha" chick was interesting, the way she used her abilities was pretty original.  I knew she had to be the ringleader early on though, so it wasn't that big of a twist for me.  I also liked how Hick's instincts were right on concerning the Red Flag investigation and Dr. Rosen just dismissed them.  Though, it seems like Hicks and Harken are like, the worst field agents ever, lol.  Last episode, they basically allow a riot to start in a bus station, and this episode they let their targets escape at the beginning of the episode, and then fail to stop a truck from exploding at the end of the episode - which was the mission they had to accomplish in the first place.

 

Meanwhile Nina did absolutely nothing again this episode.  And Rachel barely did anything either.

 

The big shocking twist at the end that Red Flag was a movement quickly spreading across the world and setting up an Alpha vs. Human war wasn't a big shocker, since that seems to be what all the previous episodes were already alluding to.

 

And it also seems to me that a woman who can't communicate with anyone unless there's an ipad handy would be a very poor leader.  Communication is important when mounting a nation-wide resistance effort, is it not?

This show really suffers from the good guys being ineffectual and stupid in order for the plot to happen. But for some reason I like it. I also like looking at the brunettes. 

I'm digging this show pretty well. I think it will get much better after it finds it's footing with where it wants characters to be.

I really like the show... Dr Rosen and Hicks are IMO the most interesting characters. And I like how their powers are more limited and down-to-earth. (Compared to Heroes, which continually had to come up with new ways to Nerf their too powerful characters) I also liked seeing them being more proactive rather than reactive - by starting the episode with the attempted capture operation.

 

Also fun to see the cop referring to Hicks as the "John Woo Guy"  ... Nice to see him get some deserved gun action.

Renewed.

Only saw the first few episodes but it was quite entertaining. Straithan really elevates it.

No power of his has been revelead yet. There might not be one. Otherwise his general power is to increase the greatness of every scene he is in. 

...

Oh man, I'd give my left nut to be a misunderstood genius like Matchstick. And the replies make it twice as funny.

This show is definitely the X-Men, without all of the Marvel Universe baggage. That being said, I find that the characterization is richer and deeper here than we've gotten from any of the onscreen X-Men adaptations.

David Strathairn is one of the greatest actors alive today, and he makes really interesting choices as Rosen. He's both warmer, and less intimidating, than Professor X. Seeing him grow closer and closer to his team while the government tries to pull them in a very undesirable direction is absolutely fascinating.

Brent Spiner's character was fun. He reminded me a bit of his "Area 51" character from Independence Day. I liked how they were setting him up to be basically the Magneto to Strathairn's Professor X, which made it all the more shocking when Rebecca Mader's character just killed him right out of the blue.

I'm digging this show. Good to see DS9 and BSG writers kicking around with some decent television. Cast is good too. I think the show has a while to go before it gets to the level of Fringe or some other acclaimed but mainstream genre show, but the potential is there.

Glad to see this turned out to be worthwhile. I was excited to hear from ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY that Strathairn would  tackle a show of this nature, as he's long been one of my favorite actors. I'd recently heard from someone 'in the know' that he was not enjoying his work on this show, was disappointed with the direction it was going and considered the program "stupid". That kind of did alot to kill my hopes, such as they were, that SyFy might have stumbled on another hit. With what you guys are saying in this thread though, I may well check this out once it hits INSTANT

Edited by Princess Kate - 9/13/11 at 1:46pm

I think Strathairn's power is being superhumanly manipulative and passive aggressive. I love it.

 

But isn't this the second "bad guy wreaks havoc in the office" episode? Do they not have a location budget?

Budget? What is this budget thing you speak of. Isn't this on syfy?

 

 

Wow.  That was definitely the best episode of the season.  It was nice to see the team all come together, and the suspense over who the mole is was great.  The twist about the evil shapeshifting Alpha was cool too.  The funny thing is, the team is like "I don't like how you handled this" with Agent Clay, yet if you look at the episode, if he hadn't handled things the way he did, Red Flag would have been able to erase those files and hide whatever it was they were planning, and probably end up killing Rosen and Gary to boot.

 

The whole thing with Hicks possibly being the mole was cool too, especially since it lead to one bad ass fight scene between Hicks and Bill.  Hicks really showed his awesomeness in this episode, both with his fighting the assault team and taking on Bill in the safehouse.  I like how they keep bringing in new Alphas with different abilities as possible members of the team too.  The guy who could read facial expressions seems like he'll be coming back.

 

And the final scene where Bill has a heart attack was pretty engaging too.  We finally get to see the team kinda come together at the end and then one of them just keels over.  Good cliffhanger!

Really solid (mid)season finale.  I really hope the rumours I've read of Straithairn hating the show are false, because the whole thing falls apart without him.  And not just because he's by far the best actor in the show, but the character of Doctor Rosen is absolutely the heart of the show.

Yeah, it was a decent season ender.  I saw the "twist" of Rosen's daughter being involved with Red Flag coming a mile away though.  And now we have a big bad to root against!  Yay!  Even Gary is starting to become an enjoyable character.  Though Hick's showdown with his evil counterpart was kinda clumsy, especially after the kick-ass fight he had with Bill the previous episode.  I would have liked to have seen a bit more character development in this episode, but the mythology surrounding everything being advanced was okay as it looks like we're heading towards a war between Alphas and Normals.  I did like the end where Rosen basically reveals the existence of Alphas to everyone, thus screwing up Red Flag's evil plans.  But I wonder how that's going to affect things since he's basically pissed off everyone in charge.  I wonder if there will be a new head of the team?

This show turned out surprisingly OK. Far above my expectations. The last couple of episodes, budget excluded, have actually been pretty great.

I'm definitely looking forward to the 2nd season after that season finale. ALPHAS really came out of left field for me but thankfully I stuck with the show since it's definitely got a lot of potential as it moves forward.

I think the reason the show does work is that the people involved with the show have a good understanding of the source material. This is what HEROES should've been.

Well I was told that he was up in Canada filming a show he hated, and was very upset with how things turned out

I am not sure if there is some other show he is doing, but I assumed the person I was talking to meant ALPHAS

Him hating it doesn't really impact the show though, as long as he's not sullen and disinterested on screen or something. And from what you guys say, that isn't the case

It sucks that Straithairn is so down on the show. As someone who doesn't watch it much, I think it's the best thing SyFy (ugh) has put out in a long time.

Just saw the finale(?). This show has BALLS.

 

The episode itself was not as good as last weeks - but the last minutes really elevated it. I look forward to see what happens next.