''Taken'', also known as ''Steven Spielberg Presents Taken'', is an American
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imagination, imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, Paral ...
miniseries
A miniseries or mini-series is a television series that tells a story in a predetermined, limited number of episodes. "Limited series" is another more recent US term which is sometimes used interchangeably. , the popularity of miniseries format ...
that first aired on the
Sci-Fi Channel from December 2 to 13, 2002. Filmed in
Vancouver
Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. Th ...
,
British Columbia
British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include ...
,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...
, it was written by
Leslie Bohem, and directed by
Breck Eisner,
Félix Enríquez Alcalá
Félix Enríquez Alcalá (sometimes credited as Felix Alcala) (born March 7, 1951 in Bakersfield, California) is an Argentinean-American film and television director.
Career
Alcalá's first major breakthrough came in 1991 when he was hired by ...
,
John Fawcett John Fawcett may refer to:
*John Fawcett (theologian) (1739–1817), British theologian, pastor and hymn writer
*John Fawcett (of Bolton) (1789–1867), composer/musician
*John Fawcett (organist) (1825–1857), his son, English organist
*John Fawce ...
,
Tobe Hooper
Willard Tobe Hooper (; January 25, 1943 – August 26, 2017) was an American director, screenwriter, and producer best known for his work in the horror genre. The British Film Institute cited Hooper as one of the most influential horror fi ...
,
Jeremy Paul Kagan,
Michael Katleman, Sergio Mimica-Gezzan,
Bryan Spicer, Jeff Woolnough, and
Thomas J. Wright. The executive producers were
Leslie Bohem and
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg (; born December 18, 1946) is an American director, writer, and producer. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, he is the most commercially successful director of all time. Spi ...
.
The show takes place from 1944 to 2002 and follows the lives of three families: the Crawfords, who seek to cover up the Roswell crash and the existence of aliens; the Keyses, who are subject to frequent experimentation by the aliens; and the Clarkes, who sheltered one of the surviving aliens from the crash. As a result of the decades-long storyline, not a single actor or character appears in every episode of the series, though the voice of
Dakota Fanning
Hannah Dakota Fanning (born February 23, 1994) is an American actress. She rose to prominence at the age of seven for her performance as Lucy Dawson in the drama film '' I Am Sam'' (2001), for which she received a Screen Actors Guild Award nomin ...
(who narrates as well as stars as Allie Keys) is in every episode. Reception was positive. The series won the
Emmy Award for Outstanding Miniseries and was nominated for the
Golden Globe Award for Outstanding Miniseries or TV Movie.
When the show was launched, the Sci-Fi Channel used the simultaneous establishment of the organization Coalition for Freedom of Information in its promotion campaign. Both the Sci-Fi Channel and the Coalition for Freedom of Information are clients of
Washington, D.C. public relations firm
PodestaMattoon, and this apparent co-mingling of clients was criticized. The Coalition for Freedom of Information is a group which seeks the release of classified governmental UFO files as well as scientific, Congressional, and media credibility for the study of this subject.
Actors starring in the series include
Joel Gretsch,
Steve Burton,
Eric Close,
Heather Donahue,
Matt Frewer
Matthew George Frewer (born January 4, 1958) is an American-Canadian actor, singer and comedian. He portrayed the 1980s icon Max Headroom (character), Max Headroom in the 1985 TV movie and 1987 Max Headroom (TV series), television series of the s ...
,
Catherine Dent,
Ryan Hurst,
Adam Kaufman,
Karen Austin
Karen Austin is an American actress. She played Lana Wagner on the sitcom '' Night Court'' in 1984. Her film appearances include '' Summer Rental'' (1985), '' Jagged Edge'' (1985), and '' The Ladies Club'' (1986).
Career
Austin first gained not ...
,
Julie Benz
Julie Benz (born May 1, 1972) l is an American actress. She is known for her roles as Darla on '' Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' and ''Angel'' (1997–2004), and as Rita Bennett on '' Dexter'' (2006–2010), for which she won the 2006 Satellite Aw ...
,
Tina Holmes
Tina Holmes (born in New York City) is an American television and film actress, known for appearing as Maggie Sibley in '' Six Feet Under''.
Early years and education
Holmes grew up in New York City and Connecticut. She attended Yale Unive ...
,
Willie Garson,
John Hawkes,
Jason Gray-Stanford
Jason Gray-Stanford (born May 19, 1970) is a Canadian film, television and voice actor. He is best known for playing Lieutenant Randy Disher in the Emmy, SAG and Golden Globe-winning TV program ''Monk'' and for voicing the role of Raditz in '' ...
, Andy Powers,
Ryan Merriman
Ryan Earl Merriman (born April 10, 1983) is an American actor. He began his career at the age of ten and has appeared in several feature films and television shows. He is best known for a handful of Disney Channel original movies and for portr ...
,
Michael Moriarty
Michael Moriarty (born April 5, 1941) is an American-Canadian actor and jazz musician. He received an Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award for his first acting role on American television as a Nazi SS officer in the 1978 mini-series ''Holocaus ...
,
Michael Jeter
Robert Michael Jeter (; August 26, 1952 – March 30, 2003) was an American actor. His television roles included Herman Stiles on the sitcom '' Evening Shade'' from 1990 until 1994 and Mr. Noodle's brother, Mister Noodle, on the '' Elmo's World' ...
,
James McDaniel, James Kirk, and
Dakota Fanning
Hannah Dakota Fanning (born February 23, 1994) is an American actress. She rose to prominence at the age of seven for her performance as Lucy Dawson in the drama film '' I Am Sam'' (2001), for which she received a Screen Actors Guild Award nomin ...
.
Characters
Synopsis
''Taken'' spans five decades and four generations, and centers on three families: the Keyses, the Crawfords, and the Clarkes. Nightmares of abduction by
extraterrestrials
Extraterrestrial life, colloquially referred to as alien life, is life that may occur outside Earth and which did not originate on Earth. No extraterrestrial life has yet been conclusively detected, although efforts are underway. Such life might ...
during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
haunt Russell Keys; the
Roswell UFO incident
The Roswell incident was an event that occurred in 1947, pertaining to the recovery of mundane metallic and rubber debris from a military balloon that crashed near Corona, New Mexico by United States Army Air Forces officers from Roswell Arm ...
transforms Owen Crawford from ambitious Air Force captain to amoral shadow government conspirator; and an alien visitor impregnates an unhappily married Sally Clarke. As the decades go by, the heirs of each are affected by the machinations of the aliens, culminating with the birth of Allie Keys, the final product of the aliens' experimentation and the key to their future.
The Artifact
The "Artifact" is a mysterious device connected to the aliens. The Artifact was initially on one of the alien ships flying over
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surf ...
on July 2, 1947, but the ship collided with a spy balloon and
crashed
"Crashed" is the third U.S. rock single, (the fifth overall), from the band Daughtry's debut album. It was released only to U.S. rock stations on September 5, 2007. Upon its release the song got adds at those stations, along with some Alternativ ...
, and most of its crew died. The Artifact itself was thrown clear of the ship and left half-buried in the ground. It was found and retrieved by Sue, a local woman who was the estranged girlfriend of ambitious Air Force Captain Owen Crawford.
Sue, seeing the small scrap of metal had alien writing on it and hoping it would rekindle her relationship with Owen, takes it to him. Owen, who is being phased out of the investigation into the crashed alien spaceship (which itself was retrieved), brutally murders Sue. Owen then shows the Artifact to his superior, Colonel Thomas Campbell, and blackmails him into promoting him to Major and making him head of the Roswell UFO Investigation Project.
Over the next 50 years, the Artifact remains in the possession of the Crawford family, and acts as the guide to each member's efforts to understand the aliens' mission on Earth.
The Artifact's true nature isn't revealed until 2002, when the head of the Project, Mary Crawford, discovers new writing is still being formed on the Artifact's surface. This reveals to the government that the Artifact is the recording device of the aliens' great genetic experiment: to create a hybrid being possessing the aliens' powers and more-evolved consciousness as well as humankind's emotional core, which will lead them to the next step in their evolution. It has been continuously recording the events of the aliens' experiments over the decades since its arrival on Earth.
When the hybrid Allie Keys departs with the aliens, the Artifact is teleported away with them.
Implants
As part of their experiment, the aliens abducted thousands of innocent humans (exactly 46,367), mostly at night or while on airplanes, in order to find suitable breeding pairs and humans compatible with their DNA, to begin the process of creating the ultimate hybrid of human and alien. The aliens placed implants in an area of the brain that made it impossible to remove without killing or inflicting critical brain damage on the person (at least by the standards of human science). The implants also had a hand in manipulating a person's memories following their abduction, and served as tracking devices, to allow the aliens to abduct their human test subjects wherever they may be.
The implants remained undiscovered until 1962, when Russell Keys' head was x-rayed to determine the cause of his seizures. The doctors treating him initially believed it was a tumor, but his son Jesse, suspecting it might be related to the aliens, demanded he have the same x-ray, and a similar implant was discovered.
Hoping to find a way to neutralize the implants and be free of the aliens' interference, Russell and Jesse arranged a meeting with Colonel Owen Crawford. Russell, in private, offered up his implant in order to save his son from grave harm, despite knowing it would most likely lead to his death to have it removed. Owen accepted, and Russell was escorted to a secret surgery facility. Upon his arrival, Russell realized Owen had betrayed him, but he was overpowered by the guards and sedated. The project's doctor successfully removed the implant from Russell's brain. Seconds later, it was revealed that the implant exerts some form of negative psychic effect on human minds. The scientists and guards were driven insane. One guard fires his machine gun at nearby oxygen tanks, causing the entire trailer to explode, killing Russell, Kreutz, and all within.
Learning from their mistakes, the UFO Project took precautions while retrieving and analyzing more implants from other test subjects or from their corpses. Eventually, a sophisticated tracking system was created by Doctor Chet Wakeman, which was used with great effect in tracking down abductees. Essentially, the implants give off a tracking signal based on the frequency of the basic element hydrogen, which once discovered made it relatively easy for the government's UFO project to track the abductees as well.
The aliens kept using the implants as part of the experiment, ultimately using them to bring the Clarke and Keys families together to produce Allie Keys.
After John taught Allie how to remove the implants, she used the ability on everyone that came to protect her at the farmhouse so they wouldn't be taken anymore, and would no longer be afraid.
Aliens
The Roswell Gray aliens depicted in the series are about as large as a child, but possess incredible psychic powers. According to Dr. Wakeman, they do not even originate from our dimension or plane of reality, though while here they are subject to our physical laws (accidentally hitting a weather balloon during a storm was enough to make the Roswell saucer crash). Their "technology" is so far advanced that it is essentially an extension of their minds, capable of being reformed at will. The aliens can also create utterly realistic hallucinations in humans, and often use this to try to interact with abductees. Sometimes they get a bit confused however, and re-use mental projections for one family member on another.
The reason the aliens are abducting humans is part of their hybridization experiment. When the aliens initially crashed in Roswell, it was just a scouting mission. However one surviving alien, "John", evaded capture by the army and (after assuming a projection of human form) was given shelter by Sally Clarke until he was retrieved by another ship. As Dr. Wakeman eventually pieces together, and the alien "John" confirms, Sally's simple act of kindness awoke an echo of something long dormant in the aliens. They had evolved to be millions of years in development ahead of humans, but the evolutionary tree is a branching path, so in the process they had evolved away from some of their more "primitive" aspects, such as emotions. John's encounter with Sally made the aliens realize they had evolved away from emotion and morality, and even with this knowledge they could not simply re-attain it. Therefore, the aliens decided to hybridize themselves with humans to try to recover these qualities that they had lost. While their abductions were considered frightening and invasive by humans, John explains that the entire problem was that the aliens simply had no concept of "good" or "evil", and were incapable of making such a value judgement.
Unfortunately, long-term contact with the aliens and their extra-dimensional technology leads to various health problems in most humans. For reasons even the aliens aren't quite sure of, the Keys family is genetically able to be unaffected by these problems. Sally Clarke did not possess these genetic traits, and thus her hybrid child fathered by John was unable to fully harness his alien powers. All of this culminated in Allie Keys, the daughter of Charlie Keys and Lisa Clarke, who was capable of fully using her alien abilities.
Production
The series had a reported budget of $40 million.
Episodes
References
External links
*
*
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, title = Awards for ''Taken''
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{{EmmyAward Limited Series
{{Satellite Award Best Miniseries
{{Saturn Award for Best Television Presentation
{{TCA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Movies, Miniseries and Specials
2000s American science fiction television series
2002 American television series debuts
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Roswell incident in fiction
Television series by DreamWorks Television
Alien abduction in television
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