IT'S ALL IN THE GENES! 'ALPHAS' SEASON TWO RETURNS TO UK HD

The Super Seven are back. ALPHAS Season Two. Image: SYFY CHANNEL.

Making a final farewell on the UK's SYFY Channel HD this week, from Thursday evenings, the second thirteen episode season of the supercharged, superhuman character drama ALPHAS, originally created by Zak Penn and Michael Karnow, proves a hit and miss affair after a previous, generally positive debut in 2011. Last season's well developed, escalating civil war between the our Alpha heroes (helped by their vulnerable human security back-up) against the wannabe world-changers, Red Flag, ended in tragedy, but critically saw in the emergence of a new enemy power player: Stanton Parish (a creepy but engaging performance from Jon Pyper-Ferguson), the mysterious, long living leader of a far more dangerous terror cell with a grudge against humanity. In the midst of this, kindly non-powered leader of the Alphas, Doctor Lee Rosen (the always excellent David Strathairn), breaks his silence about the existence of Alphas to a shocked world, and has suffer the consequences of his actions. So far so, so good, right? Follow on events in the second season opener prove interesting, as our broken up heroes have to reassemble, in not the best of personal circumstances, to rescue two of their own from a Guantanamo Bay-esque prison for people with unique skills. But from there, it strangely takes a while for the show to get back up to speed, slightly bogged down by several additional new characters and secondary plot developments that ultimately prove unnecessary (yes, Azita Ghanizada (playing senses charged Rachel, rapidly becoming less insecure about herself and her abilities) is lovely and looks terrific in lingerie, but her slightly comedic romance with non-Alpha security officer John Bennett (Steve Byers) is pretty time wasting), whilst other characters deserving of more screen time and development have little to do, like the intriguing "pusher" Nina (Laura Mennell) and weighty Bill (Malik Yoba), who, at the start of the season, has an addiction linked to a kind of underground fight club for Alphas- a clumsy plot strand that ultimately goes nowhere and soon disappears.

Trailer: Alphas season 2 New Trailer - YouTube

Emerging characters Danielle Rosen (Kathleen Munroe) and the vengeful Stanton Parish (Jon Pyper-Ferguson)

Behind the scenes, I think the loss/disappearance of Season One producer Ira Steven Behr and series co-creator Zak Penn, both of whom have a strong ability to write and fuse character drama and action, were keenly felt this year, and I think too many new behind the scenes cooks were trying to make their mark on an evolving series that really didn't need to have the rug pulled form under it just as it was finding its feet with audiences...

Fortunately, the antagonism between Rosen and Parish, with the latter's daughter Danielle (played by Kathleen Munroe) caught in the emotional crossfire, helps pick the the story and series up half way through, making it worth staying the course, backed up with some solid guest stars like Sean Astin and genre favourite Summer Glau. Events then lead to a genuinely enjoyable cliffhanger finale set in New York, now never to be resolved, which makes you wonder why the hell SYFY axed the damn show, and whether there are any real life Alphas out there capable of making them change their minds!

Season One of ALPHAS is now available on UK DVD: Alphas - Season 1 [DVD]: Amazon.co.uk: David Strathairn, Ryan Cartwright, Warren Christie, Azita Ghanizada, Laura Mennell, Malik Yoba, Erin Way: Film & TV