Alias 11/10/02 (1 Viewer)

[Patrick Sun]

Another good solid episode, good to see the father-daughter teamwork in action while at bitter odds with each other. Things don't look so good for Vaughn. Sloane has to be out of his mind by now. When does it rain in Los Angeles?

 

[MikeAlletto]

I love this show. This has got to be one of the best shows on tv. I can't wait till there are enough episodes that they can start putting them on DVD! They better not kill off Vaughn though. I still think he's related to Sydney some how. You all think Sloans wife is really still alive or is someone screwing with him? Can't wait till next week!

As far as the raining goes, weren't they still in Washington? Wasn't it thundering and raining when Sydney was driving the senators limo?

 

[Michael Reuben]

When does it rain in Los Angeles?

They just endured a 3-day drenching that set records.

M.

 

[Joseph S]

Sloane has to be out of his mind by now.

Well he didn't look too happy when Syd stuck something in his back immediately after she demonstrated in HD for us the "cover your breasts" pose. Sloane is gone!!!!! or maybe not...
Thank goodness for HiPix. I was able to watch the Sopranos live and this on HiPix. Both in HD. Not a bad night for TV. Both shows were fantastic.
Looks like next week is the 3wk cliff hanger. They're running some awful movie about those miners the week after. Then comes Thanksgiving time, then the other holidays, and back to the "Alias returns in 7 weeks" followed by "Alias returns in 5 weeks with the conclusion of the episode you waited 7 weeks to see." :frowning:

 

[Joel Mack]

They're running some awful movie about those miners the week after.

Speaking of which, when did they start shooting this thing? The second they pulled 'em out of that hole?

 

[Joseph S]

Speaking of which, when did they start shooting this thing? The second they pulled 'em out of that hole?

No, they had already shot the whole thing except the ending by that point. They added the unnamed miner in post production.

 

[Elizabeth S]

I think Emily is still alive.

 

[Michael Martin]

Stunned by yet another fantastic episode. I really liked that Syd did not get to say to Vaughn what she wanted...he obviously wanted to know, but had enough discipline and concern for their working relationship to let it go.

The Sloane/Emily storyline is fascinating. So was last night proof that Emily is actually among the living? It could be argued that Sloane's sighting of Emily was hallucinating (or perhaps someone paid to look like Emily) and someone had her disinterred secretly and stole the body.

Hmmm.

However, I am already concerned for the show's longevity. This actually ties into Patrick's thread about Ed last week, and about most good TV shows in general. Very, very few shows - even the great ones - can have 8, 9 or 11 consistently good seasons. I'd really like to see shows have 3, 5 and/or 7 year limits. This would do a few things:

1. The shows would end on a high note, with the storytelling still good and characterization consistent and believable.

2. No jump the shark episodes to shock a dying series into life.

3. Producers and writers would be forced to actually plan out story arcs and characterization, rather than being so utterly arbitrary ("Friends," anyone?).

Just my own .02.

 

[John_VI]

Lone voice of dissent, here. I was somewhat diasppointed by this episode. There was lots of good tension between Jack and Syd, which was written and acted beautifully. Some of the stuff between Syd and Vaughn was pretty good. Will begging for a job is LAME!!! I think that could have been written much better. Vaughn's impending demise (NOT) looks like it will be a serious stretch (it was not diagnosed the first time, now he's sick and there's an antidote that requires killing Sloan? Come on!!). And Syd's kidnapping of the Senator was interesting, but then her frenzied rambling to the Senator to try to save her mother and father was weak, forcing her to come up with a lie which can easily be disproved. And I'm still uncomfortable that Syd is getting so much exposure to this Senator. She's a double agent, fer cryin' out loud!!!! The secrecy of her ID should be sacrosanct!! And the Emily thing is getting a bit weird. The best scenario (IMHO) is that she is really dead and sombody (like Jack) is seriously screwing with Sloan - which would be cool. But the other scenario - which, knowing TV is probably what will happen - is that she's alive and has been a double agent for years, and that her cancer was faked, and that she's Irena's partner, and that she's really Vaughn's mother, and that Sen. Douglas is her current love slave, and.... Well, you get the idea. The Emily story line scares the crap out of me for what it could do to the overall quality of the show.

But I'll maintain my high hopes. I still love this series more than the Sopranos, and I'm a BIG Sopranos fan.

 

[Jason Seaver]

I wasn't too fond of this one, either. One of the problems with doing a highly-serialized show like "Alias" is that you get episodes like this one, which seems to be all connective tissue and very little meat. Very little seemed to actually happen, and what I guess was the main story - Irinia manipulating Sydney into saving her - fell completely flat without Lena Olin.

Victor Garber's really getting a chance to shine, though, isn't he? As good as he was last year, he was something of a cipher; the way Irina is able to drive him absolutely nuts is a welcome (and entirely believable) counterpoint to the controlled personality we were first introduced to.

 

[Ken Chan]

I was wondering if they even used Lena Olin's calf in that one shot?
Emily's missing body does not mean she is alive.
I would agree with Michael that longevity is overrated. It also makes it very clear how many seasons' worth of DVDs you have to get
//Ken

 

[Jeff Kohn]

I thought the ep was OK, but more and more I found myself getting distracted by stupid stuff; the writers for this show may be good at the action and character drama parts, but they don't know jack about writing a high-tech spy thriller, they get so many details totally wrong. I know this isn't supposed to be a documentary or 100% realistic, but some things are just stupid. The idea that the Rombaldi device Syd destroyed was the source of that virus seems pretty stupid to me. And excuse me, but if you have two possibly contaminated patients, you wouldn't put them in the same room!! I mean come on, this is a contageous virus, right? So if turns out that one of them was infected and the other wasn't, you're putting the latter at unnecessary risk just so they could have a few sentimental lines of dialog together? Like I said, I don't expect 100% complete accuracy, but that's just lazy writing. And don't get me started about some of the Bond-like gadgets that tech guy comes up with...

 

[Michael Martin]

And don't get me started about some of the Bond-like gadgets that tech guy comes up with...

Hee hee! For me, this is half the fun of the show. I know that most likely none of the gadgets real (or realistic), but I'm OK with that. A super realistic show based on real spying would most likely be pretty boring - a lot of it would be the spies sitting around doing research or waiting for something to happen.

Alias is actually very close to a comic book translated to TV - just without the costumes and mutant powers.

 

[Marc_Sulinski]

I also have a hard time believing that the Senator would have sent Jack to prison (this is ignoring the fact that the senator would even know of the existence of these double agents).

Since Jack is a double agent ad SD-6, wouldn't it seem odd when he just stopped showing up for work? This puts Sydney in the position of having to explain his absence. I would think that this would certainly blow their cover.

 

[Jeff Kohn]

Hee hee! For me, this is half the fun of the show. I know that most likely none of the gadgets real (or realistic), but I'm OK with that. A super realistic show based on real spying would most likely be pretty boring - a lot of it would be the spies sitting around doing research or waiting for something to happen.

I agree with you to some extent, and I don't have any problem with the concept of high-tech spy gadgets; I think they're used well in the Bond movies for the most part. But the gadgets in Alias get really ridiculous, especially when it comes to computer hacking, etc. For me, stuff like this should at least have a grain of authenticity to it, as opposed to being complete fantasy.

I also agree with the others about the Senate sub-committee plot; no way double agents would expose themselves like that (or be expected to). And Syd's blackmail lie was just a little too convenient how it nicely wrapped everything up and got us back to status quo.

 

[ChadM]

I really like the show and will continue to watch because of J Garner, however the shows writing has taken on a Melrose (or should I say Felicity) like quality.

 

[Joel Mack]

or should I say Felicity

Interesting...

 

[Marc_Sulinski]

I don't know if anyone else noticed this, but during the previews for next week's episode, the narrator said something to the effect of Sydney must save the "man she loves" referring to Vaughn. I know that they have some feelings for each other, but I was not aware that Sydney was in love with Vaughn. Am I now supposed to assume this is true?

 

[MikeAlletto]

Yeah I heard that too Marc, thought it was a very strange promo.