Oui, Nikita

USA’s stylish action series, “La Femme Nikita,” has developed a loyal fan base in its first season.

The thriller, based on the 1990 cult French film and the uninspired 1993 American remake, “Point of No Return,” already has spawned numerous Web sites and fan clubs. Australian actress Peta Wilson plays Nikita, the street girl turned government agent/pawn.

She has quickly become the femme du jour, gracing the pages of numerous magazines and making the talk-show rounds. There’s even talk of holding “La Femme Nikita” conventions. And the series has gained even more momentum since moving in June from Mondays to Sundays, where it airs in a first-run programming block that includes “Pacific Blue,” “Silk Stalkings” and “The Big Easy.”

Executive consultant Joel Surnow (“The Equalizer,” “Miami Vice,” “Nowhere Man”) is thrilled with the reception, even if it is on a smaller scale than for a hit on one of the major broadcast networks. “It’s kind of great being a little underdog show--a little cable show--that doesn’t have huge expectations,” he says. “It’s really been neat.”

Wilson’s Nikita is a young woman who, while living on the streets, was wrongly accused of murdering a cop and forced into a new life as an operative of a ruthless, secret government organization known as Section One. If Nikita doesn’t follow orders, she’ll be terminated.

Roy Dupuis plays the enigmatic agent Michael, who becomes Nikita’s trainer and mentor. Alberta Watson is Madeline, the cool, mysterious master strategist, and Eugene Robert Glazer is Operations, the efficent bureaucrat who operates Section One.

The series wasn’t an easy sell. In fact, USA turned down the original pilot script, which was very close in concept to the feature films: Nikita was a punkish killer given a second chance by becoming an assassin for a covert government agency.

“USA had done a show a couple of years before that had a very dark lead,” Surnow says. “They were nervous about ‘Nikita’ being too dark. [USA said], ‘If you have a woman who is a killer and ends up being brought into this organization and kills, it’s too dark.’ ”

So Surnow came up with a new concept. “I pitched them on the idea of making her an innocent who was at the wrong place at the wrong time,” he says, “and then has to survive by pretending to be the person she isn’t. She wouldn’t be an assassin. She will be killing, but that’s not her job. She’ll be killing just as if a cop would kill if he had to.”

“Nikita,” Surnow maintains, marks the first time on TV “where you have a female action hero. It’s not ‘Police Woman,’ where she’s more cerebral. She’s actually twisting guys’ necks and kicking and shooting and killing. It’s a real person. It’s a James Cameron female action hero. It’s like a Linda Hamilton [in “The Terminator”] or a Ripley from ‘Aliens.’ ”

Casting Nikita was arduous. Surnow read more than 250 actresses from all over the world. “It’s a really hard part to cast because you have to have many different opposing qualities. You have to have vulnerability. I felt that American actresses weren’t quite right for this part. The English actresses are a little more delicate.”

The blond, blue-eyed Wilson had a “rawness” about her that Surnow loved. “She grew up in tribal New Guinea for the first 10 years of her life with an Army colonel father,” Surnow says. “I think that’s still in her. It’s really great for the character.”

Wilson says the experience of living in such a primitive area is “ingrained” in her bones and her blood. “I think I was much more in touch with the Earth [then]. Had I not had that time in New Guinea, it wouldn’t be so easy [to shoot] under the pressure I am under. It takes 7 days to shoot an episode and we shoot 10 pages a day.”

The actress was fresh out of drama school when she was cast as Nikita. “I did an audition where I just terrorized the office,” she recalls. “I came in a mess, with no makeup on, in character like I was doing a play. After we did the audition, I acted like a normal person, which just blew them away. There are many actors out there who are just as good as me, if not better, who were waiting desperately for this break. What a great thing.”

Though Nikita struggles with her life in Section One, Madeline lives and breathes the organization. In a recent episode, viewers learned that when she was a child, Madeline pushed her sister down the stairs and killed her because she wanted her doll.

“Everyone thinks I’m so evil,” Watson says, laughing. “I never think of this role that way. She’s just doing her job well. I think for Nikita there is a lot more gray area. I think for Madeline, it is black and white. You just do the job. This is a comic strip [character].”

As the season has progressed, Surnow says, the series has become more of an ensemble piece. “I think in the beginning we were trying to sell her,” he says.

“Now we are more involved in all the characters. The whole idea of Section One has become a bigger deal than it was at the beginning. At the beginning we were dealing with [Nikita saying], ‘Oh, my God, I’m stuck in this organization, what do I do now?’ Now it’s, ‘I’m in the organization. I have moral issues about certain things I have to do, but we are all part of the team.’ ”

The second season, which begins in January, will explore different issues. “If the first season was a movie, that movie would be her trying to get out of Section One,” Surnow says. “The second season will be more about her and Michael. That’s all I’ll say about it now.”

“La Femme Nikita” airs Sundays at 10 p.m. on USA.