Taken (TV miniseries)

Taken
Genre	Drama Science fiction
Creator	Leslie Bohem
Starring	Joel Gretsch Ryan Hurst Anton Yelchin James Kirk Steve Burton Dakota Fanning Desmond Harrington Andy Powers Catherine Dent Terry Chen Matt Frewer Adam Kaufman James McDaniel Heather Donahue Emily Bergl Gabrielle Rose Eric Close Michael Moriarty Julie Benz Jason Gray-Stanford
Country	United States
Language	English
Original channel	Sci-Fi Channel
Original run	December 2, 2002 (2002-12-02) – December 13, 2002 (2002-12-13)
Running time	877 minutes
No. of episodes	10

Taken, also known as Steven Spielberg Presents Taken, is a science fiction miniseries which first aired on the Sci-Fi Channel in 2002 and won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Miniseries. Filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, it was written by Leslie Bohem, and directed by Breck Eisner, Félix Enríquez Alcalá, John Fawcett, Tobe Hooper, 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.

The show takes place from 1947 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 Keys who are subject to frequent experimentations 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. Reception was positive, and the series won a Emmy Award.

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 garnered criticism. 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.^[1]

Actors appearing in the program include Julie Benz, Emily Bergl, Terry Chen, Steve Burton, Eric Close, Heather Donahue, Dakota Fanning (who narrates, as well as starring as Allie Keys), Matt Frewer, Joel Gretsch, Ryan Hurst, Adam Kaufman, Ryan Merriman, Michael Moriarty and Anton Yelchin.

Characters

Main article: List of characters in Taken

Synopsis

Taken spans five decades and four generations, and centers on three families: the Keys, the Crawfords, and the Clarkes. Nightmares of abduction by extraterrestrials during World War II haunt Russell Keys; the Roswell incident 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 in 1947, but the ship collided with a weather balloon and crashed, 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 and takes the Artifact. 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 2001, 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 and 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 implants also served as tracking devices, to allow the aliens to abduct their human test subjects wherever they may be. The implant was placed 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.

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.

Episodes

#	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date
1	"Beyond the Sky"	Tobe Hooper	Leslie Bohem	December 2, 2002 (2002-12-02)
A mysterious extraterrestrial race, simply referred to as the Alien Visitors, comes to Earth to perform a genetic experiment of monumental proportions upon the human population. The Aliens arrive in the midst of an air battle over Germany during World War II, abducting B-17 pilot Captain Russell Keys and his entire crew. Russell loses all memory of the incident, retires a highly-decorated war hero, settles down with his childhood sweetheart Kate, and has a son named Jesse. Eventually, Russell realizes he is still periodically being abducted and, desperate for answers, tracks down the sole surviving member of his bomber crew, Lieutenant Lou Johnson. Johnson, in his final moments, makes him realize the "German doctors" experimenting on them were Aliens using their abilities to disguise themselves. Not wanting to bring the Aliens down upon them, he abandons his family and flees for his life. Meanwhile, in Roswell, New Mexico, Captain Owen Crawford discovers a crashed saucer, which is soon retrieved and becomes the initial subject of a "Project" intent on discovering the Alien Visitors' purpose on Earth, which is headed by Colonel Thomas Campbell, Owen's superior. After Owen is frozen out of the investigation, he is given a mysterious Alien Artifact, seduces and marries Anne, daughter of Colonel Campbell, and uses both the artifact and the marriage to blackmail Colonel Campbell. He gets promoted to Major and becomes leader of the Project. Owen attempts to locate the fifth member and only survivor of the spaceship crew. This alien, in human disguise and calling himself "John", enjoys a relationship with the lonely Sally Clarke, who sheltered him (despite learning of his true nature) and ended up pregnant by him.
2	"Jacob and Jesse"	Breck Eisner	Leslie Bohem	December 3, 2002 (2002-12-03)
The episode opens with Kate Keys reading a bedtime story to her 7-year-old son Jesse. Jesse falls asleep and Kate converses with her husband, Sheriff Bill Walker. Jesse wakes up to noises outside and encounters an Alien, disguised as a character from his bedtime story. The Alien beckons Jesse and he is thus taken for the first time. Russell Keys, hoping to find a way of evading the Alien Visitors' countless intrusions upon his life, ekes out a meager existence as a drifter, and his efforts are soon shown to be in vain. On one of his many abductions, he sees his 12-year-old son Jesse. Russell later approaches Jesse at his old home, much to the chagrin of Kate and Bill. They escape together on Christmas Eve, but Jesse is soon taken by the Alien Visitors and Russell is left at the mercy of Bill and the police. Meanwhile, Owen Crawford has attained the rank of Colonel and continues being overall head of the Project at Groom Lake (Area 51). He is using increasingly amoral methods and teaming up with unscrupulous characters in his mission to discover the secrets of the Alien Visitor's experiments. His research centers on the captured saucer, though all attempts to make the vessel fly fail, leaving him in dire straits with the Eisenhower administration. Meanwhile, Sally is alone with her half-human, half-Alien son Jacob and desperately searches for a way to contact John. Her efforts are soon discovered by Owen, who goes undercover, and schemes his way into Sally's confidence in order to enlist Jacob's aid before the Project is shut down. Jacob possesses Alien Visitor abilities, and instantly realizes Owen's intentions for him. When Owen makes his move, Jacob uses those abilities to send Owen into a horror-induced panic attack, driving him away. Tom and Becky, upon retrieving Jacob, agree with Sally to send him away for his own safety, and fake his death in case Project agents return for him.
3	"High Hopes"	Sergio Mimica-Gezzan	Leslie Bohem	December 4, 2002 (2002-12-04)
President John F. Kennedy is threatening to shut down the Project, as he believes the Aliens are not as dire a threat as Owen Crawford is making them out to be. With 30 days to prove otherwise, and having failed to previously recruit Jacob Clarke in his attempts to activate the crashed Alien Visitor ship, the pressure is beginning to mount. Anne, Owen's wife, becomes increasingly unstable and threatens to expose his Project secrets. Hoping to give their superior some peace of mind, Marty Erickson and Howard Bowen, Owen's subordinates and lackeys, go in search of Jacob, despite his supposed death. In the end, they fail because of Jacob's abilities (which he uses despite warnings by the Alien Visitors to avoid them, lest they degrade his health). Irate that the Project is relegated to an office-based department by Kennedy, Owen arranges the death of Bowen and Anne. Meanwhile, Jesse Keys, still being abducted by the Alien Visitors, reunites with his father and talks him into finding and approaching Owen for help. With Owen's desperation for proof of the Alien's true intentions, it results in fatal consequences for Russell. This episode marks the deaths of Anne Crawford and Russell Keys.
4	"Acid Tests"	Bryan Spicer	Leslie Bohem	December 5, 2002 (2002-12-05)
When Owen Crawford is finally ruined by Tom Clarke's revenge efforts, his legacy passes onto his sons Eric and Sam. While Eric is a staunch believer in his father's activities and holds a leadership position on the Project, Sam believes the Alien Visitors are merely a cover story for the government's own illicit activities on the unsuspecting population, and as such, the two brothers find themselves in opposite positions. When Sam finds the Artifact, he learns and accepts the truth, but he believes the opposite of Eric and their father: namely, that the existence of the Alien Visitors should be known by the entire world. Upon reading in a newspaper that symbols found in a newly-discovered Native American mummy tomb match those on the surface of the Artifact, Sam journeys to Alaska to gather additional information on the Aliens. While there, he encounters an Alien-human hybrid named Lester, who has been living in seclusion in a shack. In the shack is a young girl, Wendy, who disappeared from her mother's sight and became injured, Lester having cared for her since. The townspeople eventually go after Lester, but not before Sam brings Wendy safely out of Lester's shack into her mother's arms. One of the townspeople sets the shack on fire and Sam, wanting to save Lester's life, tries to convince Lester to come with him. In the process, Sam accidentally uncovers Lester's face and after looking into his eyes becomes frozen in fear; both burn to death within the shack. Meanwhile, Jesse Keys, now a Vietnam veteran, returns home addicted to heroin and is haunted by his Alien Visitor-manipulated past and his military career. He eventually finds peace with the nurse Amelia, who helps him get over his addiction. This episode marks the deaths of Owen and Sam Crawford, and the birth of Mary Crawford.
5	"Maintenance"	Félix Enríquez Alcalá	Leslie Bohem	December 6, 2002 (2002-12-06)
Eric Crawford manipulates and blackmails his way into the head office of the Project; he continues investigations into the Alien Visitors' activities on Earth. Eric continues his pursuit of Jacob Clarke and Jesse Keys, hoping for answers about the Aliens, and enlists the aid of eccentric scientist Dr. Chet Wakeman; he also seduces Becky Clarke. Meanwhile, Jesse realizes the Alien Visitors are still taking him, and he seeks aid in finding a way to escape their manipulation before they come for his son Charlie. His efforts not only prove futile, but also attract the attention of the Project, and his efforts to defend his son from the Aliens leads them to drive him completely insane. Charlie and Amelia are forced to hide from the Project and leave him behind. This episode marks the death of Sally Clarke, the last of the major first generation characters.
6	"Charlie and Lisa"	Thomas J. Wright	Leslie Bohem	December 9, 2002 (2002-12-09)
Over the next sixteen years, Charlie Keys (Adam Kaufman) and Lisa Clarke (Emily Bergl), the latest generation of their respective families, become increasingly important in the Aliens' plans. They soon attract the attention of the Project, which is resurrected when the government realizes the Aliens are a true danger. The Alien Visitors bring Charlie and Lisa together by abducting them. Manipulated by the Alien's telepathic powers, Charlie and Lisa have sex and Lisa becomes pregnant. The two are then returned to Earth with no memory of the encounter; and both are finally left free of the Alien's manipulation as their part in the alien's experimentation is over. Lisa gives birth to her daughter Allison, or "Allie" (Dakota Fanning). The Aliens shift their attention towards overseeing the child's development, which in turn draws the Project's attention. This episode marks the deaths of Jacob Clarke and Jesse Keys, and the birth of Allie Keys.
7	"God's Equation"	Jeremy Kagan	Leslie Bohem	December 10, 2002 (2002-12-10)
Charlie Keys desperately seeks answers to his family's manipulation by the Alien Visitors, while Lisa Clarke enjoys a musical lifestyle and shares a special bond with her daughter Allie. All are unaware that they are under surveillance by the Project, with a special focus on Allie. Mary Crawford, now in a leadership position in the Project under her father (who she sees as weak and not up to the job), correctly believes her to be the centerpiece of the Alien Visitors' experiments. Allie displays almost God-like abilities, and Mary Lays the groundwork for her capture by the Project. Eventually, the truth is learned by Charlie and Lisa, but they are unable to act as they find themselves in a hostage situation along with Allie. Allie uses her superhuman intelligence and inherent calming abilities to solve the crisis. After sending her parents and their comrades to safety, she surrenders herself to the custody of Mary and Wakeman in exchange for her parents' lives. This episode marks the death of Eric Crawford (the last of the major second generation characters).
8	"Dropping the Dishes"	Jeff Woolnough	Leslie Bohem	December 11, 2002 (2002-12-11)
The military, at the direction of the imperious and xenophobic General Beers, arrives and claims custody of Allie. They set up a trap on an abandoned North Dakota farm for the aliens, intending to bring one of their ships down to interrogate the Visitors about their experiments. While Wakeman is allowed to travel with the military, Mary is effectively frozen out, but she resolves to use the Artifact to work her way back into the inner circle. Charlie and Lisa frantically search for their daughter, evading Project agents intending to "tie up loose ends". They succeed in tracking Allie down, but not before her contact with the Artifact summons an Alien Visitor ship, which is promptly shot down.
9	"John"	John Fawcett	Leslie Bohem	December 12, 2002 (2002-12-12)
Mary and a group of soldiers are dispatched into the crashed alien Mothership to seek an audience with the aliens. Nothing is achieved because the ship re-activates, dispatches the humans, and departs, taking Allie along. Just as it seems the military has failed in its mission, it is discovered that Allie has used her powers to deceive them. On the run with her parents from the military and their civilian aides, Allie is approached by an old acquaintance of the Clarke family, who offers his help: the alien "John".
10	"Taken"	Michael Katleman	Leslie Bohem	December 13, 2002 (2002-12-13)
With the military in hot pursuit, Charlie, Lisa and Allie rendezvous with Tom for aid in leaving the United States altogether, with John providing much-needed help in evading Project agents. While awaiting transportation to Buenos Aires, the fugitives seek sanctuary in the old Clarke farmhouse, where the experiment began. John is forced to depart, giving Allie a chance for a normal life. The military tracks them down and surrounds the farmhouse. They are thwarted when a large collection of the "Taken" and other people associated with the Clarke and Keys families arrive to defend Allie, who in turn provides them with the peace of mind they have been seeking. That evening the military launches into action. To avoid bloodshed Allie forsakes her place with her parents and any chance of life on Earth. She uses her abilities to summon the Alien visitors, whose armada of Motherships arrive and teleport her away, their experiment on Earth concluded. The Project disbands and the military retreats, their mission a failure. Mary Crawford is arrested for her crimes and Charlie and Lisa mourn the loss of their daughter. When they find one of the Clarke star-earrings in the field where Allie vanished they are heartened by the prospect that Allie will return one day. This episode marks the death of Chet Wakeman and is the series finale.

Reception

References

1. ^ Baard, Mark (25 October 2002). "Outing UFO Clues Good for Ratings". Wired. http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2002/10/56004. Retrieved 3 January 2009. 

External links

• Official wiki hosted by Wikia
• Taken at AllRovi
• Taken at the Internet Movie Database
• Taken at TV.com