Alphas Season 2 Episode 7

Spoiler Alert: Watch the episode first before reading on.

Alphas had a pretty interesting villain this week. The villain was able to control people, including people with alpha abilities. If you are familiar with Star Trek TNG, think Borg Queen being able to control all the drones in the hive. The catch was that the villain had to physically come in contact with each individual it plans to integrate into the hive.

And the villain was not really a bad guy. He was a social outcast, and he simply wanted to have friends. Near the end, there is a scene where he wants a girl to love him, but realizes that since she is under his influence, the love is not genuine. And instead of taking advantage, he agrees to cooperate with the members of Dr. Rosen's team. (I can't really call them the Alphas team since alphas is similar to the term mutant for those familiar with X-men comics. But maybe Dr. Rosen's team needs a catchy nickname - good alphas maybe - yelch)

It is not clear how season 2's main villain, Stanton Parish, - a Wolverine like alpha without the claws - who has fast healing powers and has been around for centuries (or at least a very long time), was able to control the kid with borg queen like abilities. The kid integrated him first, and then he started taking control over the drones, taking them away from the kid. Is it all a matter of will power? If that's the case, why can't other people - drones who have been integrated into the kid's hive, take over? Aren't there individuals with stronger will power than the kid? Or does Stanton Parish have more hidden abilities.

While the season tends to mimic team Professor X vs. team Magneto, I hope this TV series can keep exploring fresh hero/villain ideas. Stop showing mutants with powers we're already familiar with. Gary is pretty original since there was no internet at the golden age of comic books. But there are simply too many Nina-type characters on the show. Mind control must be a sought after ability.

The tv show started out well by introducing new mutant characters and abilities that haven't really been explored well in comic books. I remember an earlier episode in Season 1 where the villain they were trying to catch had the ability to take advantage of random events. But for some time, the show started becoming stale exploring the same stuff that X-men or Heroes have already gone through. Even Stanton Parish is a repeat of Heroes villain Adam Monroe (David Anders). This hive episode made me appreciate Alphas again. So I'll tune in as long as its fresh and interesting.