Alphas: Series Premiere

Television is glutted with shows about justice. Lawyers, Cops, Judges, Private Detectives, Black Ops teams, variously acronymed agents (i.e., CSI, NCIS, FBI, etc.), and even super heroes have each had at least one show dedicated specifically to them. This has been going on since before television existed. (Just last week I saw a silent short film featuring Sherlock Holmes). In any case, the justice-based drama has evolved into a specific animal. It’s slick. The locations, the gadgets, the lawyers/cops/judges/etc., their dialogue—all of it is slick. Unless of course, as in the show Numb3rs, they are intentionally unslick in order to appear even slicker than slick. Alphas has entered into the televised miasma of justice with an interesting take on the genre.

This team seems more like a self-help group than an elite force. There’s bumbling, special diets, Bill antagonizes Gary for being weird, and Rachel doesn’t know if she can confront Bill about eating part of her muffin without asking. But they are the only ones who are qualified to act when another person like them, a witness for the investigation of Red Flag (a vague and ominous group that also has enhanced abilities), is somehow shot in a locked, windowless interrogation room. The game’s afoot, and the Alpha’s shoelaces are tied together, but they’re going to put their best foot forward regardless.

So, who are these “alphas”? Dr. Leigh Rosen (David Strathairn) is clearly some sort of psychologist hippie who is working for the government. He drinks organic ayurvedic coffee substitute, listens to vinyl, and has a really calming voice and demeanor. He also has at the office an MRI and a locked fridge of injectable drugs at his disposal. One by one we are introduced to his team. Nina Theroux (Laura Mennell) is an attractive girl who gets what she wants because she has the ability of hyper-induction (mind control). She drives a hot car, looks great, and makes traffic cops gladly eat the tickets they’d been trying to issue her. Bill Harken (Malik Yoba) is an FBI agent who has a super-strength reaction when his fight-or-flight response is stimulated. He is also a bit of an asshole because he thinks his comrades are amateurs. They are, but still. Rachel Pirzad (Azita Ghanizada) is the nice girl next door who has synesthesia (the ability to amp up all of her senses 1,000%). She can read the New York Times or hear conversations from ten blocks away, and she is her own personal forensics lab as she is able to see chemical signatures and molecular structures with the naked eye. Gary Bell (Ryan Cartwright) is a distracted yet witty autistic man-child still living at home with his mom. He has the ability of transduction (he can see all electromagnetic wavelengths). His mind processes the whole of the internet and all wireless transmissions in real time. I’d be distracted too.  

There is something refreshingly dorky about the Alphas. They hitch a ride to the office with Dr. Rosen, in his minivan. The office looks a little run down and, well, kind of like a freaking office. There’s bland design schemes, Styrofoam cups in the break room (such a faux pas for these organic hippie types), Gary feels the need to monologue about how his mom insists that he eat brown bag lunches for his health, and the flatscreen stops working right in the middle of the “supposed to be cool and high tech” presentation of the case, which forces Dr. Rosen to simply tell them about the case without all the fancy bells and whistles. These details matter because they counter all that “David Caruso and his sunglasses” crap. This show feels more like Little Miss Sunshine meets second-rate Marvel heroesthan your average justice drama, and I for one appreciate that.