Alias & 24 X 4 (1 Viewer)

[stewart borland]

It must be getting close to that time of year when I ask the same question... should I get the next / another season of these 2 shows.

My 'blind buy instinct' is yes to Alias but no to 24 (as for me it seems to 'fade' quicker somehow) I know what I mean but I'm finding it hard to explain :b :b

Am I right in thinking these have both aired over there, or am I asking too early this time?

 

[Alex Wagner]

I think 24 was better than Alias this season.

Alias took a long time to get going.
While 24 was pretty exciting throughout the entire season.

but you should still get both cause they are both great season of great shows

 

[TravisR]

I love 24 and Alias but without a doubt 24 was much better than Alias was this year. Not every episode of 24 was great but some of the episodes were among the best they have ever made. There were some truly exciting and tense episodes in there. And while I thought Alias was better than some fans gave it credit for and it had some good moments, it was still nowhere near 24.

I still plan on buying both of them though

 

[Daniel-M]

I see you live in Scottland, where i presume 24 is released August 8th, just like England. And who knows when Alias 4 is coming, anywhere. Heard October in R1-land but who knows. I have yet to see 24 though but the last part if Alias 4 was great

 

[Scott Kimball]

"24" was exceptional last season. More consistently good than all other seasons to date.

"Alias": season one was excellent. Season two was good. Season three was okay. I stopped watching completely mid-way through season 4.

-Scott

 

[Adam_ME]

24 Season 4 was fun. Stupid(even by this show's standards), but fun. Definitely worth picking up, especially if you enjoyed Season 3 which was inferior to this year.

Alias Season 4 is a different matter. I think the show was a lot more consistent this year versus Season 3 which was just dreadful in the second half. The problem is it was consistently mediocre. The storyline never went anywhere until the very end, and by then, most people stopped caring. Even the return of one particular character felt anticlimactic. Great cliffhanger though.

 

[stewart borland]

How disappointing:frowning: I haven't kept close to any threads on either and haven't watched them on our satellite channel as the advertisements and the weeks wait spoil both shows for me. Last I read Alias was supposed to be back to normal with the return & full focus of the director(?) (forgotten his name for the moment!!)

Scott or Adam, could you tell me more about what was wrong with season 4 of Alias? Is it really a complete no go?

On the plus side, 24 sounds like a must have

Thanks for the thoughts so far.

 

[MaraKM]

Stewart, have you already watched Season 3 of Alias? Knowing your opinion of that season would help in advising you on S4

 

[stewart borland]

Yes, I've got 1-3 of both.

For Alias I'm with the majority really. I thought first was best, second was OK and third not so good, but I still thought it was wachable.
With the style of 24 I was thinking it might look more 'tired' by season 4 with 24 episodes on the same plot/story, while Alias could have different story lines with occasional arcs flowing through it... but from the comments so far I guess I was wrong (again :b )

 

[Adam_ME]

Ok first of all, I don't know how much input J.J. Abrams had on Season 4, but I doubt it was much. He was awfully busy with Lost(which itself is starting to look like it's going nowhere much like Alias) and M:I-3 which finally got the greenlight from Paramount.

Secondly, without going into any spoiler territory, what really killed Season 4 for a lot of fans was how the serialized storytelling format of previous years was completely abandoned. It was almost entirely standalone. The cliffhangers came back a little towards the end of the season, but barely.

Plus the situation it thrust the characters into became way too far-fetched, even for a show like Alias. I know J.J. Abrams wanted to recapture what worked about the show in Seasons 1 & 2, but the whole APO idea was dumb. Plus, what really made the show so gripping in its early years was the way Sydney had to balance her personal life with her profession(which was even more complicated considering she was a double agent). All of that's gone now.

I guess what I'm saying with all of this is that Alias hardly resembles the show it used to be.

 

[MaraKM]

I was a huge fan of Alias S1 & 2, and bitterly disappointed by S3 -- absolutely hated it. Season 4, I found to be an improvement. It didn't repair all of the damage done in S3 as far as character assassination and screwing up their own continuity, but it did somewhat.

As for what's wrong with S4 -- it's mostly the same sort of things that were wrong with S3. Bad writing. I don't know how to explain it without spoilers.

But I think if you didn't give up on it with S3, you should go ahead and blind-buy S4. There are some good bits (Victor Garber, my love for Spy-Daddy knows no bounds). The cliffhanger of the finale was more of a "Huh? sigh." than a "OMG! WTF!" for me, but I'll still be tuning in next year to see how they write their way out of it.

edited to add -- total agreement with Adam's post above

 

[Eddy-C]

Alias season 4 was a definite improvement over Season 3 for me. Alot more episodes are watchable in it adn Victor Garber/Ron Rifkin have never shone brighter than in this year.