History Series / Taken

* HostageSituation: In "God's Equation", Ray Morrison takes Charlie, Lisa, Dr. Harriet Penzler and the other members of the AlienAbduction therapy group (Dale Watson, Wilson Adams, Cynthia, Dorothy, Nora and Ben) hostage in the Department of Psychology building of Seattle Pacific University. He demands that whoever runs the UsefulNotes/{{FBI}}'s secret extraterrestrial project call Creator/{{CNN}} and go public with everything that they know about aliens so that people won't think that he's crazy anymore. If they don't do so, he threatens to begin killing the hostages. Complications arise for the UFO project when Allie arrives, putting her life in danger and threatening their plans.

* CharacterNarrator: The series is narrated by the nine-year-old Allie Keys in 2002. The identity of the narrator does not become entirely clear until the final scene of the sixth episode "Charlie and Lisa" but it was hinted at in several previous episodes. For instance, in "High Hopes", "Acid Tests" and "Maintenance", she speaks about her grandfathers during scenes showing Jacob and Jesse.

* SuperBreedingProgram: In the final episode "Taken", John explains the purpose of the aliens' experiment in crossbreeding over the course of three generations to Charlie, Lisa and Allie. [[spoiler: When Sally took him into her house and tended to him in "Beyond the Sky", his long dormant emotions were brought to the surface by this simple act of kindness. The aliens sought to combine their more highly evolved consciousness with the strength and power that humans draw from their emotions. Allie was the end result of their experiment, which John describes as an unqualified success. He tells Lisa that it is Allie's destiny to join the aliens and help them to come to terms with their latent emotions.]]

* RealityWarper: Though less powerful than most examples of this trope, Allie is the most powerful character in the series. Possessing the aliens' powers and a body that can handle the backlash, Allie has demonstrated powers beyond even the aliens' capabilities as while they can only manifest thoughts and memories that are limited to one or small groups of people within a small space or in their ship, [[spoiler: She can manifest an alien ship that can be touched, seen and entered and inside shows the occupants their memories and fears with one soldier entering being swarmed by insects, one who was nice to Allie being reunited with his deceased mother, the entire squad seeing various aliens that they open fire on and Mary encountering her grandfather Owen who Mind Rapes her into seeing what he saw with Jacob. She then makes the ship appear as if it has abducted her but in actual fact shapeshifts into General Beers and oversees her parents being taken out of camp. All of this seems to be the upper limit of her abilities as afterwards she is severely weakened and it takes some time for her abilities to return. Her powers also go beyond psychic prowess and mind tricks to control over space-time as when she is chased by Mary and Wakeman, Allie slows down time to cross the road without being hit by cars.]]

* TheReveal: [[spoiler: [[WhatIsThisThingYouCallLove Turns out aliens had long since suppressed their emotions]], which made them AboveGoodAndEvil. They came to Earth to study humans, and accidentally crashed. Because of Sally, John's emotions become... [[BuffySpeak unsuppressed]], and the aliens decided to attempt to breed emotion back into themselves -- hence, Allie]].

* TheSociopath: Owen Crawford, a ruthless and callous man who is willing to commit heinous crimes and acts to ensure his place in the UFO Project and find out what the aliens want. Besides possibly killing a father and his sons for finding the ship, [[spoiler:Owen beat his girlfriend Sue to death after she found the artifact to keep her quiet and blackmails his father-in-law Thomas Campbell into handing over the UFO Project by threatening to go public with said artifact, leading to Campbell to become a depressed alcoholic and die from cirrhosis of the liver.]] He is an abusive husband and father to Anne and Eric, threatening to send her to an asylum for her erratic and alcoholic nature, not to mention having an affair with Sally Clarke as a means to kidnap her hybrid son Jacob and favors his younger son Sam [[spoiler:due to Jacob showing him that he would die within Eric's presence, leaving him to resent and treat him poorly. When Anne finds the artifact, Owen murders her and one of his assistants Bowen in cold blood, and makes up the false story that Bowen had killed her and shot himself to his sons.]] When Jesse Keys and his father Russell come to the UFO Project to have their implants removed, Owen double-crosses Russell by containing Jesse and not appearing in person for his operation to save his own hide, leaving Dr. Kreutz and his soldiers to be driven mad by the implant and kill each other, even watching the poor doctor burn alive in front of him without a single emotion in his face. His only real redeeming quality is his love for his son Sam, however the circumstances leading to favoring Sam over Eric suggest he would have shown favor to either one of them [[spoiler:had it been one or the other in the vision Jacob showed him.]]

* TimePassageBeard: In "Jacob and Jesse", eleven years after his last appearance, Russell has a long, straggly beard as he has spent most of the last decade drifting around the country trying and failing to stay one step ahead of the aliens.
* TimeshiftedActor: There are numerous examples given that the series takes place over 58 years and features three generations growing up:

* TheVietnamVet: In "Acid Tests", it is revealed that Jesse joined the US Army under the pseudonym Frank Pierce and commanded a unit in Vietnam. When his unit came under attack from the Viet Cong in a temple in the Quảng Ninh Province, the aliens abducted Jesse in order to protect him. In his absence, 27 of his men were killed. Jesse became addicted to heroin after the war because of the guilt that he felt over not doing more to save his men when he knew that the aliens would not let anything happen to him.

* NotSoDifferentRemark: [[spoiler: The aliens are similar to humans, both physically and biologically. In "Maintenance", Dr. Franklin Traub compares this to the similarities to a human and a fruit fly, to which Dr. Wakeman replies, "Maybe that's the point."]]

** Also in "Beyond the Sky", Sally gives John one of the star shaped earrings left to her by her grandmother. She keeps the other one, wearing it as a pendant. In "Jacob and Jesse", Sally passes it on to Jacob as he leaves Lubbock to attend the Greenspan School after [[FakingTheDead she, Tom and Becky fake his death]]. In "Charlie and Lisa", Jacob gives the pendant to Lisa [[spoiler: shortly before his death]]. When John returns to Earth in "John", he shows the earring that Sally gave him in 1947 to Lisa as proof that he is her grandfather. In the final episode "Taken", John passes the earring on to Allie as he thinks that her great-grandmother would have wanted her to have it. When Allie tells her as much, Lisa gives her daughter her pendant, reuniting the two earrings for the first time in 55 years. [[spoiler: After Allie joins the aliens, she leaves one of the earrings behind and keeps the other one, sending the message to her parents that she will be back one day.]]

** In "Jacob and Jesse", Jacob possesses the ability to show a person all of their memories and all of their fears. He first uses it on a bully named Travis as his physical weakness means that he has no other way to defend himself. After Owen kidnaps him in the hope of using him to power the alien ship, Jacob subjects him to the same treatment. The experience traumatizes Owen, haunting him for the rest of his life. In "Acid Tests", [[spoiler: it is revealed that he saw his own death from a stroke on May 4, 1970 as a result of Jacob's psychic powers and that he was always so contemptuous of his son Eric as he knew that he would be with him when he died.]]

** In "John", [[spoiler: Mary asks the image of her grandfather Owen what he saw when he was mind raped by Jacob. Owen then tells her to look at him and she sees all of her memories and all of her fears as the real Owen did in 1959. Mary later tells Dr. Wakeman that she also saw how everything with Allie and the aliens will end.]]

* TheMole: In "God's Equation", Dr. Harriet Penzler, who runs Lisa's AlienAbduction therapy group, is an agent of the UFO project. She keeps them updated on Lisa's activities and Allie's progress and informs them that Charlie has arrived on the scene. In "Dropping the Dishes", Dr. Penzler reveals the truth to Charlie and Lisa, telling them that the project led her to believe that what was doing was in their interest as well as Allie's.

** Three generations of the Clarke family, Sally, Jacob and Lisa, all express their affection for their children using the same phrase: "I love you. Every day and twice on Sundays."

* ArmorPiercingQuestion: In "Dropping the Dishes", Allie says to Mary, "Your grandfather wasn't a very happy man. Why are trying so hard to be like him?" Mary is very disturbed by the question and is left atypically speechless.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Over the course of the series, a total of 25 actors playing 24 characters are listed in the opening credits. Creator/AntonYelchin and Creator/ChadDonella are credited for playing the child and adult versions of Jacob Clarke. Creator/DakotaFanning (Allie) is the only one credited for every episode. There are also numerous recurring and one-off characters who play significant roles.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Over the course of the series, a total of 25 actors playing 24 characters are listed in the opening credits. Creator/AntonYelchin and Chad Donella are credited for playing the child and adult versions of Jacob Clarke. Creator/DakotaFanning (Allie) is the only one credited for every episode. There are also numerous recurring and one-off characters who play significant roles.

* TheVoicless: There are two black men in the cafe in "High Hopes", but only the one who turns out to be a medical student speaks. His friend never says anything.

* NotSoDifferent: [[spoiler: The aliens are similar to humans, both physically and biologically. In "Maintenance", Dr. Franklin Traub compares this to the similarities to a human and a fruit fly, to which Dr. Wakeman replies, "Maybe that's the point."]]

* WiseBeyondTheirYears: As demonstrated by her narration of the first six episodes before her formal introduction, Allie is an extraordinarily wise, intelligent and insightful nine-year-old due to her part alien heritage and the accompanying PsychicPowers. Her grandfather Jacob also exhibited these characteristics to a lesser extent. Allie has a far better understanding of life and human nature than people several times her age. For instance, in "God's Equation", her mother Lisa's bandmate Denny tells her that when he wakes up every morning, all that he can see is the end of the day. As a result, he doesn't see the point of even getting up in the morning. Allie then asks him if he thinks about the end of a song when he is performing. He says that he has to focus all of his attention of the part of the song that he is playing or he would never get through it. Without Allie saying anything, Denny then realizes that she is telling him to adopt the same attitude to life. Later in the episode, Allie is able to defuse the HostageSituation by helping Ray Morrison to realize that he is so angry at the world because he was [[DomesticAbuse sexually molested]] when he was eight and it was easier to blame aliens for everything bad that had happened to him than to face his problems. She then allows the UFO project to take her into custody in order to protect Charlie and Lisa and prevent a bloodbath, even though she was more than powerful enough to escape. In the final episode "Taken", [[spoiler: Allie makes the difficult decision to join the aliens [[IJustWantToBeNormal in spite of her almost overwhelming desire to be a normal little girl]]. She knows that it is the only way to prevent people from being killed in the confrontation between the military and the abductees who came to protect her. Allie also has the wisdom to realize that Charlie and Lisa's plan to escape to UsefulNotes/SouthAmerica will not work since the government would only find them again.]]

** In "God's Equation", [[spoiler: Ray Morrison holds the other members of his AlienAbduction therapy group, Dr. Harriet Penzler and later Allie hostage, accidentally shooting Charlie in the process. After Allie helps him to realize that he is angry because he was [[DomesticAbuse sexually molested]] as a child, he lets the hostages go. He apologizes to Charlie for having shot him in "Dropping the Dishes" and joins the other group members in protecting Allie from the government in the final episode "Taken".]]

* DomesticAbuse: In "God's Equation", it is revealed that Ray Morrison was sexually molested by a man in a shed when he was eight years old.

* AliensMadeThemDoIt: In "Charlie and Lisa", [[spoiler: the aliens abduct Charlie and Lisa and force them to have sex, resulting in their daughter Allie being conceived. This is the aliens' ultimate goal: the creation of a viable hybrid.]]