Sci-Fi's 'Spielberg Presents Taken': close encounters of the worst kind

A couple of months ago, the U.S. government instituted new rules for organic-food labeling. The idea is to let shoppers know how much they are getting of the real thing: 100 percent, 75 percent, maybe some.

TV and film carry no such production guidelines. When viewers see the name Robert Redford or Tom Hanks as "executive producer," there's room to speculate on their degree of contribution to the result.

That brings us to the artfully phrased "Steven Spielberg Presents Taken," the 20-hour miniseries debuting at 9 tonight on Sci-Fi Channel. "Taken" airs nightly through Friday, then again Dec. 9-13.

The colossal demand on audiences during the holiday season means this probably wouldn't stand a chance without the distinctive passion of science-fiction fans and the Spielberg label that promises skilled storytelling and classy schmaltz.

But "Taken" — at least, the parts Sci-Fi Channel shared with critics — delivers neither. Aside from a hard-working cast and cool set design, this saga of alien abduction, government conspiracy and tangled family relationships doesn't match a good season of "The X-Files."

How could that be? Like a jar of so-called natural peanut butter, the ingredients for "Taken" get more revealing as you read past the splashy brand name. For example, the actual writer of the series is Leslie Bohem, whose chief past accomplishments are "Nightmare on Elm Street: Part 5," "Twenty Bucks" and "Dante's Peak."

You may recall "Dante's Peak," the B-flick tale of a town teetering on molten destruction. Pierce Brosnan keeps warning the complacent inhabitants and greedy corporation of impending doom — which he knows is coming because the love of his life just happened to be killed by a volcano.

The plot is instructive, because the same devices resound in "Taken": cheap sentiment, unlikely coincidence and people who do some really dumb, illogical things just to keep the action going.

Since tonight's pilot hadn't arrived by the time of this column (always an encouraging sign), we can only offer details beginning with tomorrow's Episode 2. They're enough.

First, however, a little background. "Taken" is a multi-generational epic that follows three families' persistent involvement with aliens from World War II forward:

• The Clarkes are a Texas clan whose matriarch has a fling with a handsome alien; the yield is a little boy with mysterious powers. The family will continue to intermingle with aliens as the story goes along.

• The Keys are unwilling participants in the aliens' scary study of humans. They get probed a lot, a legacy handed down from grandfather to father to son, and they also come in for lots of hostile government interest.

• The Crawfords are the designated bad guys. Through careers in the military and secret government operations, they aim to simultaneously uncover the aliens' secrets while advancing their power-mad careers.

In a summary from Sci-Fi Channel, viewers are promised that all of this ends in a final confrontation among the families that will have — naturally — global consequences.

"Taken" has 10 directors, one for each episode. It's a tricky approach and may partly explain why even individual installments have a shaky, uneven feel, like a patchwork quilt with loose stitching.

Episode 2 was directed by Breck Eisner, whose previous credits are mostly commercials such as Budweiser "Powersurge" and Rold Gold's "Pretzel Boy." For you conspiracy enthusiasts, his father is Disney chief Michael Eisner.

The main thrust of Episode 2 is to develop the levels of alien and government interest that originated in Episode 1.

It's the 1950s, and much of the action centers on the next generation of the alien-plagued Clarke and Keys families: two adolescent boys, Jesse and Jacob.

Jesse (James Kirk) is the offspring of a World War II hero whose plane was taken by aliens during battle. Capt. Russell Keys (Steve Burton) survived the encounter, but other squadron members subsequently died. The aliens are curious about this, so Russell gets grabbed and probed a lot.

Now it's Jesse's turn. In a rare fine moment of disturbing imagery, the young Jesse sees the squirrel of a bedtime tale grow to monstrous proportions and take him to a spacecraft, where he is ruthlessly examined.

At the same time in Texas, young Jacob Clarke (Anton Yelchin) is learning to use the skills given him by his alien sire. Mother Sally (Catherine Dent) is building a machine to communicate with his dad in outer space, which makes her a bit of a mark when the unscrupulous Capt. Owen Crawford (Joel Gretsch) arrives pitching woo.

See, Crawford is in charge of the military's alien-investigation program — and he wants to harness Jacob's mental skills to power an alien spacecraft he's got stashed away.

All this leads to some of the silliest moments in Episode 2, if not science fiction.

To establish Crawford's evilness, there's an early scene where he tries to power the alien craft by putting twin-sister psychics in it. We're told anyone who's in proximity to the ship more than 20 minutes will have their brains fried, but he just leaves them in.

After the failure, Crawford screams in frustration that these were two of the most gifted psychics on the face of the planet. Not very sound science or science fiction.

It's no surprise that "Taken," like much science fiction, is short on character development and lacks emotional complexity. What's unforgivable is that it repeatedly breaks the cardinal law of the genre: Set up your own internal logic, no matter how fantastic, then stick to it.

As for Spielbergian input, the series is rife with lost boys seemingly abandoned (but not really) by their fathers. Family is destiny, though loneliness may be the ultimate condition.

Otherwise, it's hard to think Spielberg participated in this disjointed project. Even the thematically bifurcated "A.I.: Artificial Intelligence" had continuity and dazzling stylistic execution.

What's easier to conclude is that "Taken" is merchandising of a crasser type: Slap a well-known moniker on a production under the enticingly vague "presents" and hope people buy it.

The voice-over narration for "Taken" is done by a character seen later in the series, a little girl named Allie Keys (Dakota Fanning).

At the conclusion of Episode 2, she solemnly advises viewers, "What matters is, people believe." You get the feeling she's not talking about aliens.

Kay McFadden: 206-382-8888 or kmcfadden@seattletimes.com.