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Taken is a Science Fiction miniseries made in 2002. It's about three families, beginning with Russel Keyes, an Air Force pilot who is abducted by aliens in the middle of a battle; Owen Crawford, an Air Force captain who is the first from the military to see the crashed alien spaceship; and Sally Clarke, a woman trapped in an unhappy marriage who meets a strange man in her shed. Three generations of conflict unfolds from these events, and we, along with the characters, slowly learn the motives behind the abductions that have been going on for almost a century.

Despite the overuse of cliches, it's actually pretty good. It focuses just as much on the characters as on the plot, as we watch them grow from children to adults.


This series contains examples of:[]

Cquote1

  I love you. Every day and twice on Sundays.

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    • When Jacob is about to Mind Rape somebody, he says "Look at me". When Ally is about to save her dad, she says "Look at me".
  • Mind Rape: Alien technology has a bad habit of inducing this.
Cquote1

  All your memories play at once. All your memories and all your fears.

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  • Naked First Impression: Charlie and Lisa first meet when the aliens coerce them into having sex with each other. Much, much less funny and erotic than it sounds.
  • Nobody Poops: Averted. At one point Owen holds a discussion with Those Two Guys while taking a piss.
  • Not So Stoic: Jacob, when he has to leave his mother.
  • Perma Stubble: Charlie grows some.
  • Pet the Dog: While he isn't evil so much as an industrial-grade Tin Man, Jacob's gesture for his dying mother is very heartwarming.
  • Power Incontinence: The aliens need to practice their natural psychic abilities, otherwise they kill humans. Half-humans need to be even more careful - they could accidentally kill themselves.
  • Power Nullifier: A minor example. The military develop a helmet that can stop the aliens tracking Ally.
  • Psychic Powers: Aliens and half-humans get them.
  • Psychic Nosebleed: Loads and loads and loads.
  • Reassigned to Antarctica: Actually carried out on the entire first team assigned to the crashed spacecraft (though to Iceland), then used as a threat for the rest of Owen's career.
  • Redemption Equals Death: Eric Crawford, Dr Wakeman
  • Retraux: Subtly used. The direction of each episode tried to mimic the direction of movies from the time period. For example, the first two episodes used older tungsten lights, while the later episodes used more modern lighting systems.
  • The Reveal: Turns out aliens had long since supressed their emotions, which made them Above Good and Evil. They came to Earth to study humans, and accidentally crashed. Because of Sally, John's emotions become... unsupressed, and the aliens decided to attempt to breed emotion back into themselves - hence, Ally.
  • Revolvers Are Just Better: A revolver sniper rifle shows up in episode 7.
  • Roswell That Ends Well: Played with. What the farmer found really was a weather balloon, but it crashed because of aliens.
  • Science Marches On: In-story example. As time passes, doctor's reactions to the devices in the Keys brains change.
  • Skepticism Failure: Tom realises that aliens are real after finding out his half-brother is half-alien.
  • The Spock: Jacob
  • Spot the Imposter
  • The Stoner: Jesse becomes this after Vietnam, as well as befriending one.
  • Those Two Guys: Bowen and Erickson, Owen Crawford's two closest lackeys.
  • Timeshifted Actor
  • Title Drop: The word 'taken' is used in place of 'abducted'.
  • Those Wacky Nazis: Dr. Kreutz is an ex-Nazi scientist. As a physicist he is more von Braun than Mengle, but he certainly doesn't have much problem with grusome medical procedures.
  • The Unfavorite: Eric, to Owen. Interestingly, Sam, the favoured son, hates his father. It turns out the reason that Owen ignores Eric is because when Owen got Mind Raped by Jacob, he saw how he died, with Eric standing over him.
  • The Unfettered: Owen Crawford really wants to find out what's up with the aliens.
  • Unperson: Owen did this to his minions to force them into working for him.
  • Villain Protagonist: The Crawford family.
  • "Well Done, Son" Guy / The Unfavourite: Eric Crawford. Owen barely acknowledges his existence.
  • Wife Husbandry: The relationship between Wakeman and Mary Crawford: she and her "Uncle Chet" had wanted to sleep together since she was thirteen.
  • Wise Beyond Their Years: Ally.
  • World War II: Where it all starts. Russel gets abducted in the middle of an air battle.
  • Zero-G Spot: The mating of the two Half Human Hybrids who produced Allie.