released 28 sep 03 / last mod 01 jun 07 / greg goebel / public domain
* Steven Spielberg's ten-episode mini-series TAKEN, made for the Sci-Fi Channel, provides a history of alien encounters on Earth over three generations of three families: the Keys, a family who fascinates the Visitors with their strong will to survive; the Clarkes, who include Visitor genetics in their bloodline; and the Crawfords, government "spooks" trying to crack, at any cost, the mystery of the Visitors.
TAKEN has generally good production values and acting. It does not, however, have much in the way of interesting ideas. The story elements are predictable: spindly big-headed alien "Grays", abductions aboard UFOs, vicious government conspiracies, nothing new. The story line propels itself using personalities and relationships and not speculative concepts. This is no doubt fine for many people, but for myself I find it disappointing that the series takes not the least interest in what the effect of a first contact with aliens would be on human society and history.
It would seem such an event would have at least some effects, but TAKEN doesn't consider them. It doesn't even really say very much about the Visitors. I get the impression that Spielberg isn't really all that big a science-fiction fan and doesn't really see the genre as a literature of ideas; in fact, in some cases he seems to see it more as a platform for moralizing. "Mr. Spielberg, if I was in need of moral instruction, I wouldn't be looking for it in a Sci-Fi Channel miniseries."
OK, OK, many viewers don't care about such issues and so that all is a matter of my personal preference. However, I will say that though TAKEN does have its shining bits -- Joel Gretsch's Owen Crawford is a fascinating character, unbelievably ruthless and cynical while seeming miserable and pathetic at the same time -- it falls on its face in places. For example, there's one gruesome scene in which the Black Hats do nasty things to a guinea pig, which was so over the top that I found it funny in a ghastly sort of way: "These people are supposed to be ultra-villains? This is the sort of sick stunt I would expect from a gang of frat boys who've had way too much to drink."
I will also make one particularly strong criticism in that all the episodes were 90 minutes long, and I could see no reason why any of them were. Every episode could have been trimmed to an hour, even 45 minutes, and lost little or nothing -- the story spins its wheels more than it needs to. In sum, TAKEN is watchable and entertaining. Unfortunately, it is also forgettable.
