Menu
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Podcast
      • Slice of SciFi 964: Universal Monsters and HellblazerUniversal Monsters and Hellblazer
      • Slice of SciFi 963: PG Psycho Goreman“PG: Psycho Goreman”: Making horror-scifi fun again
      • Slice of SciFi 962: Escape Pod: The Science Fiction AnthologyFeaturing “Escape Pod: The Science Fiction Anthology”
      • Slice of SciFi 961: BreachIndie SciFi Action: “Breach” takes on fleeing an alien invasion
    • View all
  • Movie Reviews
      • Promising Young Woman (2020)“Promising Young Woman” and the harsh truths of trauma and justice
      • Review: Parallel (2020)“Parallel” takes on the mental and moral tolls of using parallel worlds
      • Review: I'm Your Woman (2020)“I’m Your Woman” shines with a different take on the mobster’s wife
      • Review: Archenemy (2020)“Archenemy”: Working with the Superhero You Find
    • View all
  • TV Reviews
      • "Project Blue Book"“Project Blue Book” explores the threads of UFO reports
      • Manifest Season 1: 5 Episodes In5 Episodes In: “Manifest”
      • 5 Episodes In: Reverie5 Episodes In: “Reverie”
      • 5 Episodes In: Marvel's Cloak and Dagger5 Episodes In: “Marvel’s Cloak & Dagger”
    • View all
  • DVD Reviews
      • Blu-ray Review: Archenemy (2020)“Archenemy” sparkles in sight & sound
      • The Dark and The Wicked (2020)“The Dark and The Wicked” and the Monstrous Weight of Grief
      • Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection“What’s Up Doc?”: A Look at 80 Years of Bugs Bunny
      • Batman: Death in the Family (2020, animated)“Batman: Death in the Family” makes alternate timelines fun
    • View all
  • Columns
  • News
      • TV News
      • Film News
      • DVD News
      • Interviews
      • Events
      • Geeky, Funny & Weird
      • Online Entertainment News
      • Music News
      • On Stage
      • Space News

Slice of SciFi

This is How We Geek Out: Interviews, Reviews & More

  • Writers, After Dark
  • Horror Happenings
  • The Babylon Podcast
  • SciFi Shop Talk
  • Slice of SciFi TV
  • Contact Us
“Alphas” — A Slice of SciFi Review

“Alphas” — A Slice of SciFi Review

July 6, 2011 By Michael Hickerson 19 Comments

Alphas, “Pilot”
Air Date:
Monday, July 11  at 10 p.m. EST
Network: SyFy

Slice of SciFi Rating: 2.5  out of 5.0

NBC/Universal

On the surface, Syfy’s new summer series Alphas feels an awful lot like a clone of NBC’s Heroes. Ordinary people with extraordinary abilities are brought together to fight evil. But dig a bit deeper and you’ll see that, well, the show really is a lot like Heroes, only this time instead of fighting against a mysterious governmental agency, our elite team is a special branch of the Department of Defense.

Led by Dr. Lee Rosen, the series starts out with four of the five member team in place. There’s Bill Harken, a man who can channel extraordinary strength, Gary Bell who is autistic and can see electromagnetic signals all around him, Nina Theroux, who can bend the will of those around her and Rachel Prizard, a woman who can isolate one of her five senses and trace clues back to their original source. In the pilot, we meet Cameron Hicks, a new potential member of the team who has hyperkinetic abilities.

For the first installment, the team is called into investigate a locked-room murder mystery with a twist. The victim was being interviewed by the police when a bullet suddenly struck and killed him. At first it appears Hicks is the long assassin, but the team’s investigation uncovers something greater is going on—not only with the murder mystery but also for the entire series as a whole.

Wisely, the pilot starts with most of the team already established and quickly introduces viewers to the characters and universe through Hicks. We’re spared a lot of heavy-lifting in terms of exposition, which would be well and good if the pilot actually focused on making the characters interesting as people and not as “oh look, there’s the girl who can bend the will of other people.” Perhaps future installments will delve more into who these people are.

The biggest problem with the pilot is the sense that we’ve seen all of this before. Rosen feels like a thinly veiled new version of Professor X from the X-Men comics and movies and beyond Gary’s power to see electromagnetic signals around him, nothing feels new, different or interesting from the power standpoint. Again, future episodes could delve more into the powers, their uses and limitations as the series goes along.

Also, Alphas’ attempt to introduced a long-term arc feels a bit heavy-handed.

That’s not to say the show is entirely terrible. It has flashes of potential throughout and hopefully the series will pick up on these and expand them in future installments. As a pilot, Alphas has a lot of heavy lifting to do. The problem is that the heavy-lifting isn’t done in the most interesting or compelling way. The characters, potential stories and universe have a lot of potential and the pilot did leave me interested enough to give the series a pass on my DVR to check back in on the first three or four episodes.

Share on TwitterShare on FacebookShare on Email

Filed Under: TV Reviews Tagged With: Syfy Channel

About Michael Hickerson

Michael was a contributor to Slice of SciFi, as both a news curator and assistant editor, under the tutelage of former News Director Sam Sloan.

Related Posts

“Caprica” — A Slice of SciFi Review
Slice of SciFi #408: Interview with Kris Holden-Ried of “Lost Girl”
Defiance

Comments

  1. James says

    July 6, 2011 at 5:03 pm

    I’ll pass. After Stargate Universe there is not much use watching SyFy for an ongoing series. Why read a book if you only can get half of it?

    Reply
    • Gazerbeam says

      July 6, 2011 at 5:23 pm

      With that attitude, no show will ever work. If you don’t watch, it doesn’t get ratings, it doesn’t sell ads and it gets cancelled. If you’re not watching because you think it will be cancelled, chances are you’re probably right.

      Reply
      • ParasailPete says

        July 6, 2011 at 8:25 pm

        Gazerbeam, I almost always agree with the argument you’ve posited against James’ statement, but I have to side with him on this. Were Alphas on any other network I would be all for supporting it, but Syfy has done everything it can to alienate its core audience. Having done that I feel completely justified in abandoning all their programming and hoping the majority do the same so that hopefully Syfy will become just a bad memory. That would make room for others to hopefully fill the void, and if it doesn’t then at least we’re rid of the insulting attitudes of Syfy’s executives. I, like many others, are just waiting for Syfy to go off the air so I might stand in unison with other true fans of science fiction and applaud the demise of this Trojan horse, this abomination, of what was once a great network for science fiction. Good riddance.

        Reply
  2. Mich67 says

    July 7, 2011 at 4:39 am

    I haven’t abandoned SyFy…Eureka is one of my favorites and have every intention of watching its new season however since I’m completely hooked on Teen Wolf I’ll have to pass on trying out Alphas since they occupy the same time slot. What I’ve heard about it hasn’t appealed that much to me anyway.

    Reply
  3. Sam says

    July 9, 2011 at 7:37 am

    To those who won’t watch because of a bad feeling toward SyFy for past transgressions, this is what we call a self-fulfulling prophecy. I would caution against it. Had we all stopped tuning into Fox after their really atrocious handling of Firefly we would not currently be enjoying the genius of Fringe.

    Reply
  4. Jeff says

    July 10, 2011 at 8:43 pm

    I’m with James and ParasailPete. I used to turn my TV on to channel 122 (Dish SyFy), but no more. I don’t even stop on SyFy to watch Star Trek anymore. SyFy can die a long slow death or a quick one, I don’t care. I won’t be watching.

    Reply
  5. Eric says

    July 11, 2011 at 8:51 pm

    I just saw it… It was good enough to make me want to watch more. Far better than the cape and ordinary family.

    Reply
  6. A. A. Roi says

    July 12, 2011 at 7:50 pm

    I thought is was fairly pedestrian but that’s kind of geige issue from SyFy, not great, not awful. Although there were moments of intrigue there were a number of turly egregious mis-representations that threw me out of the show from time to time including their ‘homage’ to memorable X-files ep Blood and the show’s embarassingly made up definitions for the real world conditions of Synesthesia and Hyperkinesis. Toronto looked good, though.

    Reply
  7. John says

    July 13, 2011 at 6:13 pm

    I thought it was OK for what it was. It also reminded me of a show I watched for maybe half a season back when I was a kid in the early 80’s about a group of people with special powers that had a couple of scientists that took care of them. It’s all a little fuzzy. I remember 1 tall black guy who was one of the scientist who could shrink and the other scientist was, in real life, I think a famous actors son. I believe he was killed in an Air Force Reserve flight training accident. Strange I can remember that but not the show or the actor. I want to say he was a Van Patton or a Van Dyke or someone like that.

    Reply
    • Donnie Kupka says

      July 24, 2011 at 5:05 pm

      That tv show was called “Misfits of Science” and I used to watch it as well when I was a kid. Courtney Cox played the girl with telekinesis…I thought I was the only person in the world that remembered that show…lol

      Reply
  8. John says

    July 13, 2011 at 6:20 pm

    Never mind, found it. Dean Martin’s son….

    Misfits of Science

    Reply
  9. Mike H says

    July 16, 2011 at 5:14 pm

    I’ve decided to never watch any show live as it airs ever again. I will always watch them off the DVR. The only way networks will change their current ratings/business model is if enough people stop watching live and start time shifting all of their viewing. Then they will have to adopt to our viewing habits or become extinct. Sure, a few good shows could end up being casualties in a war like that, but in the long run, I think we as viewers will be way better off with a ratings model that favors the viewer rather than the networks. I strongly encourage everyone to time shift all your viewing if possible.

    Reply
    • k9 says

      July 18, 2011 at 9:00 am

      If only this were true. I have been time shifting since the VCR first came out and it has not helped yet.

      Reply
      • Mike H says

        July 19, 2011 at 1:37 pm

        The reason it’s not working is because not enough viewers are jumping on the bandwagon. If the majority of viewers did it, I believe it would work.

        Reply
  10. AndMcDonald says

    July 18, 2011 at 5:28 am

    @Mike H: I’ve been DVR time-shifting since Jan 2000 when I bought my first Tivo but I don’t think it matters one tiny bit unless you are a Nielsen “family”.

    I don’t think anything matters (viewing live with commercials, viewing next day with or without commercials, viewing 2 weeks later) unless you are a Nielsen family.

    Reply
    • Mike H says

      July 19, 2011 at 1:41 pm

      Imagine though if 80% or 90% of viewers started time shifting all their viewing. Those are numbers the networks would have to acknowledge & adapt to. Right now, not nearly enough people time shift to make a difference, but it has to start somewhere.

      Reply
  11. Ben Ragunton says

    July 18, 2011 at 6:15 am

    I just watched the first episode a couple of night ago, and while it was by no means perfect, it was still written better than most of the episodes from Heroes. In fact, I would daresay that this is the show that Heroes was supposed to be!

    It’s still on the 6 episode probation period, but I generally like what I’ve seen so far and am hopeful that it will only improve from here on out.

    Reply
  12. k9 says

    July 18, 2011 at 8:58 am

    So far so bad, I was not impressed as we have been here before. I will give it time to see if it gets better but this type of show is not my cup of tea so to speak. It seem very formulaic and it seemd like they tried to rush in too many characters all in one episode. The characters themselves seem like your run of the mill personalities. The angry black man, the anxious nerdy kid with no respect etc etc.

    As to SYFY failing if you look at the stations ratings you will see that the crap they put on is actually making their audience grow. All their reality crap and their brain numbing Sat movies seem to work. Ycu can thank the mindless American viewing audience for not wanting to think about anything and just watch the reality crap- Really- Quantam Kitchen??? This sounds like science but in fact is junk with a flare and do not even get me started on Wrestling.

    I too hope eventually they will come back to their roots but I am not expecting it. I am expecitng the SCI-FI portion to continue to shrink especially if this ia all they have left now. Even if you watch all 3 shows on Mndays; big deal you get 10 days oout of 182 or so with something good on due to thier short seasons. Just when they are getting good they stop and then call it season 4.5

    At this point I do not care what happens to SYFY channel as I get used to not seeing Eureka and WHS 13, Haven and Alphas are only so good I would not miss them.

    Reply
  13. Di says

    July 18, 2011 at 9:52 am

    I was not thrilled with the Alphas TV show, quite mediocre and boring. I thought the cast of characters did not blend well and they were annoying. The tv shows like Heroes, Santuary, Warehouse 13, Leverage, Fringe, Torchwood plus other shows are superior in imagination, character casting and writing. I would rather see the new tv show Three Inches, there cast sounds like an excellent match. I also would like for the three Inches show to be the originally planned 1 hour show. I read it would be reduced to a 1/2 hour show, which is a big mistake. Haven’t heard when the Three Inches tv show will be viewed. Maybe they should bring back Joss Whedon to write new tv shows. There’s a talented guy who has imagination and originality.

    Di

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Search in posts
Search in pages
Filter by Categories
Audio Productions
Awards News
Book News
Book Reviews
Columns
Comics News
DVD News
DVD Reviews
Entertainment Business News
Events
Fan Films
Fan Productions
Film News
Film Reviews
Gaming News
Geeky, Funny & Weird
Human Interest
Interviews
Music News
On Stage
Online Entertainment News
Science News
Slice of SciFi
Slice Video News
Space News
Specials
Technology News
TV News
TV Reviews

Subscribe to Podcast

Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsAndroidiHeartRadioStitcherTuneInRSS

Listen to Slice of SciFi

iTunes
iHeart Radio
Player.FM
RSS
 

Keep Up With Slice of SciFi

  • Movie & TV Reviews

Recent Comments

  • Lou Tambone on Universal Monsters and Hellblazer: “Thank you, Summer. It was great talking to you again.”
  • dutch on “Parallel”: Isaac Ezban, Martin Wallström and Mark O’Brien: “If you pass this film up by saying, “Ugh, another parallel universe flick.”, you did not ask the right question.…”
  • Summer Brooks on “Near Dark”: Stacey Abbott on teaching vampire lore: “I hadn’t remembered until I was making the graphic for this episode that I own a copy of READING ANGEL…”
  • Joyce Gravino on “Near Dark”: Stacey Abbott on teaching vampire lore: “Thank you for this episode. I now have to to look for the reading angel book and the x-files one…”
  • Daniel M on Giveaway: “2067” on DVD: “back to the future”
Tweets by @sliceofscifi
death to humans 160x600
Save 10-50% on in-stock toys at TFAW.com.

Slice of SciFi
1121 Annapolis Rd PMB 238
Odenton MD 21113
602-635-6976

Artwork:
Slice of SciFi spiral logo designed by Tim Callender

Theme Music:
Slice of SciFi music and themes
courtesy of Sci-Fried

Sister Sites:
Writers, After Dark
Horror Happenings
SciFi Shop Talk
Slice of SciFi TV

Copyright © 2005–2021 · Magazine Pro Theme On Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in