Alphas

Alphas is a Sci-Fi (I won't call it Sy-Fy) Channel series whose first season is now available on DVD and Netflix streaming. Created by Zak Penn and Michael Karnow, the show follows a team of superhumans who work for the government solving crimes, tracking down other Alphas, and opposing a terrorist group called Red Flag. While the show does have promise, the writing breaks little new ground. If you’ve ever read X-Men, the setup and plot elements are familiar — just trade “Mutant" for "Alpha," then lose the costumes. There’s a team of good Alphas and a team of bad Alphas. Their ideological difference is X-Men versus The Brotherhood of Mutants. Rather than quickly setting their universe apart from Marvel's, Alphas mistakenly wastes a lot of episodes and focus on the team investigating crimes and tracking down the superhuman-of-the-week. Despite some cleverness, this is tedious syndication-fodder. The “crimes” follow the CSI/NCIS plot formula but with superpo