Alias Thoughts
May. 23rd, 2006 12:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
newnumber6So, Alias is over and I've watched the final episode. It was disappointing. They claimed to answer every questions, but, well, they didn't. I liked the final fate of Arvin Sloane and Jack Bristow, but that's about all of it I liked. Everything else rang false. Rambaldi's master plan. The resolution with Syd's mother. It's like they decided they'd solve all the mysteries with Rocks Fall, Mysteries Moot. It felt like they put some token nods to continuity (the 'without having seen my Skys over Mount PlotDeviceo') but otherwise just wanted an an ending, and any one of them would have been good enough. Didn't care for it. at all.
However, Alias really hasn't been anywhere near its old self since mid Season 3, so it's not terribly surprising. I've had feelings for a while about what went wrong, but I've never really organized them (and to be truthful, they're still not all that organized, but I have a very disorganized mind). But now that the show's over I'm going to post my thoughts on The Top 5 Ways Where Alias Went Wrong. (some spoilers here too of course)
This is ordered roughly chronologically (some of them are a bit difficult to place though), so neither #1 or #5 is necessarily the worst offender.
1) End of Cliffhangers
This is arguable... hell, even I'm not 100% sure I agree with it myself. But the thing that first hooked me on Alias was the constant cliffhangers that were resolved in the teaser of the next ep. This had two positive functions: at the end of every episode, you instantly wanted to see the next, and at the beginning of each ep, you were pretty much guaranteed action right away. It also had a negative effect - it could turn off new viewers who were, with every episode, presented with a cliffhanger. Alias attempted to solve problem 1 while keeping benefit 2 by doing the 'start at an action scene, then backtrack and show how they got there', but that gets annoying really quick. Also there was a good half season or so where every episode was a pointless, forgettable, stand alone plot, except for sweeps. After what came before, that just doesn't cut it.
2) The Vanishing Irina Derevko
This really isn't the fault of any of the producers at Alias AFAICT... apparently the actress who playing Irina just wouldn't come back for some years. I think it left the producers scrambling, trying to figure out what to do, keeping her off panel, coming up with ridiculous things like Jack Bristow had her killed, etc. I almost think they would have done better to simply recast. Yeah, it's horrible, and Lena Olin was great in the part, but it was too important an element to just let drop. You can even work a change of appearance into the storyline somehow. Not the ideal solution but I could tell for a while the show was floundering.
3) Sloane's Escape Clause
Yes, Arvin Sloane is an important part of the mythos, but something the actor said in an interview always stuck with me... he said he was guaranteed a role as a regular character long as Alias was running. I think that was a mistake. Sure, don't kill him off, but in some seasons he should not be in every episode, or even most of them. Have him disappear for a while and show up running things or something.
The problem really is more accurately about writing based on the actors rather than what makes sense. I'll give you another example. Marshall. Marshall should NEVER go on missions. Except in cases where he's the only one who can do something and he has to be on site, or it's a life or death situation, his position should be in the rear with the gear. But there were so many annoying times where Marshall showed up on a mission playing an undercover role on a job that anybody could have done. And worse, he did it reasonably well.
The finale was another example. Marshall sent out to get one of the photographs of Prophet 5? WTF is that all about? Obviously they did it because Marshall's a fun character and they wanted to give the actor something fun to do with him on a mission, but it makes no sense. Marshall stands out, he gets flustered, he says the wrong thing, he is NOT someone you send into a mission with unless all other options are exhausted. Likewise we get something where both Dixon and Sloane are working with each other, when each of them killed the respective wives of the other. Sure they pay lip service to not liking the arrangement or Dixon doing it to keep an eye on Sloane, but come on, the only reason they did it is because the actors for Dixon and Sloane are regular characters.
Which leads me directly to my next problem..
4) Goodguy Sloane... or IS HE?!!?!?!1/!?!!/1?!
Sloane should never have given up on Rambaldi except as a ruse (so Season 3 is acceptable), and under no circumstances should he have been working with the Alias crew after SD6 was taken down on any terms other than a 'deal with the devil' type episode. The plot line where they all worked together under Sloane at APO was STUPID AND SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN ALLOWED. You can play with the idea that Sloane might be a good guy by playing with the idea that Rambaldi's works might have a grand destiny, but beyond that, no.
The whole Sloane-Leading-APO was a BAD idea, for reasons mentioned above. The idea that the other characters came to trust him again is even dumber. He's SLOANE. Not having anything they can pin on him is an excuse for not killing him on sight, perhaps, but not for working with him. Unless they were working with him and they ended every sentence directed towards him with 'you murdering scumbag' or some other insult. That could have been fun for a bit. But working with him with restrained but polite tension? No. Dumb.
5) Everybody's got secrets... including Marshall who's a nazi SS officer whose brain was transplanted into a geeky tech guy with Rambaldi tech acquired during WWII!
Well, okay, I made that one up, but I was almost certain that if we went one more season we would have learned that. Everyone does not need a secret mysterious origin. Vaughan should not have a different name and be connected to a group interested in the whole Rambaldi thing since before he was born. It made me want to throw things at the screen. Even his 'my father may not be dead' plot was stretching it, but I could have been okay with it.
No. Everyone does not need a secret backstory. No. I know you're struggling with finding things to do, but you went too far. Prophet 5 was also a bit crappy. Introducing a previously unmentioned even older organization interested in Rambaldi just feels like a copout. Use the ones you have or create new ones out of the main players of old ones, but not somebody who's been supposedly involved in things in the beginning.
-
And, aside from my top 5, some more general thoughts here (again, spoilers):
I noticed Alias lost the Love around mid Season 3. The setup for Season 3 was great (You've been missing for two years), but the resolution wasn't the greatest, and in particular Vaughan's wife was probably the first violation of rule 5. Worse, the backstory never really seemed to make sense. I'd almost rather, as hackneyed as it sounds, that she was turned towards evil over the course of the season. But particularly there was this fake tension where it looked like she was about to be found out by Vaughan, but you knew it wasn't going to happen because it wasn't the right time in the season. Season 4 was floundering. Nadia wasn't a terribly good idea anyway, but she was tolerable, but they'd lost direction seriously when they turned away from the whole Rambaldi thing - not that it couldn't have used a rest, but it just turned into a boring 'threat of the week' show that I just didn't care about. If they were going to put Rambaldi on the backburner, they needed something really catchy that they could hang their proverbial hat on. And of course, as mentioned, the whole APO debacle.
Whoever thought up "Rambaldi's device creates zombies! ZOMBIES IN RUSSIA!" should be hit over the head. That was just dumb. If you're going to do that do it all the way and make the last season of Alias about surviving a growing zombie apocalypse. I still maintain that would have made a better season.
Still, despite Garner's pregnancy and the whole Vaughan's Connection to Prophet 5 crap, I think they did a few clever things with Season 5. One, the whole Rachel thing. Having Sydney take down, essentially, another SD-6 full of people who think they were working for the CIA was a great idea, and executed fairly well (of course, Sloane should have been the one running it, rather than working with APO), and then recruiting Rachel to do stuff while Garner couldn't was also nice. The return of Anna Espinosa was welcome and I almost thought they were going to use her doubling as Sydney to get around the whole Mount Plotdevico problem, but they didn't... though I think that might have been better, maybe even if they did it say a year earlier and had Garner play two roles (although I would have loved to see Gina Torres be Anna Espinosa more often and that would have precluded that), so then we truly could have got a sense of Rambaldi's prophecy that the prophecy could have referred to either Syd or Anna depending on how you interpretted it. In particular, having Syd go undercover as Anna as Syd should have lasted more than a couple episodes, as it would have been a nice return to the whole idea of her being undercover _constantly_ that was a key component of the first season and a half. But working with what they had, they did a decent job.
It's just sad that they completely dropped the ball on Rambaldi (I'd almost prefer the idea I've heard since S1... that Rambaldi was Sloane who, at the end of the series, travels back in time in a Rambaldi machine to fulfill his destiny and create a time loop) and Syd's mother (Truth Takes Time. But I guess I'll just kill you cause you're in my way and I don't have the time anymore.). I just hope Lost doesn't suffer from the same problems.
However, Alias really hasn't been anywhere near its old self since mid Season 3, so it's not terribly surprising. I've had feelings for a while about what went wrong, but I've never really organized them (and to be truthful, they're still not all that organized, but I have a very disorganized mind). But now that the show's over I'm going to post my thoughts on The Top 5 Ways Where Alias Went Wrong. (some spoilers here too of course)
This is ordered roughly chronologically (some of them are a bit difficult to place though), so neither #1 or #5 is necessarily the worst offender.
1) End of Cliffhangers
This is arguable... hell, even I'm not 100% sure I agree with it myself. But the thing that first hooked me on Alias was the constant cliffhangers that were resolved in the teaser of the next ep. This had two positive functions: at the end of every episode, you instantly wanted to see the next, and at the beginning of each ep, you were pretty much guaranteed action right away. It also had a negative effect - it could turn off new viewers who were, with every episode, presented with a cliffhanger. Alias attempted to solve problem 1 while keeping benefit 2 by doing the 'start at an action scene, then backtrack and show how they got there', but that gets annoying really quick. Also there was a good half season or so where every episode was a pointless, forgettable, stand alone plot, except for sweeps. After what came before, that just doesn't cut it.
2) The Vanishing Irina Derevko
This really isn't the fault of any of the producers at Alias AFAICT... apparently the actress who playing Irina just wouldn't come back for some years. I think it left the producers scrambling, trying to figure out what to do, keeping her off panel, coming up with ridiculous things like Jack Bristow had her killed, etc. I almost think they would have done better to simply recast. Yeah, it's horrible, and Lena Olin was great in the part, but it was too important an element to just let drop. You can even work a change of appearance into the storyline somehow. Not the ideal solution but I could tell for a while the show was floundering.
3) Sloane's Escape Clause
Yes, Arvin Sloane is an important part of the mythos, but something the actor said in an interview always stuck with me... he said he was guaranteed a role as a regular character long as Alias was running. I think that was a mistake. Sure, don't kill him off, but in some seasons he should not be in every episode, or even most of them. Have him disappear for a while and show up running things or something.
The problem really is more accurately about writing based on the actors rather than what makes sense. I'll give you another example. Marshall. Marshall should NEVER go on missions. Except in cases where he's the only one who can do something and he has to be on site, or it's a life or death situation, his position should be in the rear with the gear. But there were so many annoying times where Marshall showed up on a mission playing an undercover role on a job that anybody could have done. And worse, he did it reasonably well.
The finale was another example. Marshall sent out to get one of the photographs of Prophet 5? WTF is that all about? Obviously they did it because Marshall's a fun character and they wanted to give the actor something fun to do with him on a mission, but it makes no sense. Marshall stands out, he gets flustered, he says the wrong thing, he is NOT someone you send into a mission with unless all other options are exhausted. Likewise we get something where both Dixon and Sloane are working with each other, when each of them killed the respective wives of the other. Sure they pay lip service to not liking the arrangement or Dixon doing it to keep an eye on Sloane, but come on, the only reason they did it is because the actors for Dixon and Sloane are regular characters.
Which leads me directly to my next problem..
4) Goodguy Sloane... or IS HE?!!?!?!1/!?!!/1?!
Sloane should never have given up on Rambaldi except as a ruse (so Season 3 is acceptable), and under no circumstances should he have been working with the Alias crew after SD6 was taken down on any terms other than a 'deal with the devil' type episode. The plot line where they all worked together under Sloane at APO was STUPID AND SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN ALLOWED. You can play with the idea that Sloane might be a good guy by playing with the idea that Rambaldi's works might have a grand destiny, but beyond that, no.
The whole Sloane-Leading-APO was a BAD idea, for reasons mentioned above. The idea that the other characters came to trust him again is even dumber. He's SLOANE. Not having anything they can pin on him is an excuse for not killing him on sight, perhaps, but not for working with him. Unless they were working with him and they ended every sentence directed towards him with 'you murdering scumbag' or some other insult. That could have been fun for a bit. But working with him with restrained but polite tension? No. Dumb.
5) Everybody's got secrets... including Marshall who's a nazi SS officer whose brain was transplanted into a geeky tech guy with Rambaldi tech acquired during WWII!
Well, okay, I made that one up, but I was almost certain that if we went one more season we would have learned that. Everyone does not need a secret mysterious origin. Vaughan should not have a different name and be connected to a group interested in the whole Rambaldi thing since before he was born. It made me want to throw things at the screen. Even his 'my father may not be dead' plot was stretching it, but I could have been okay with it.
No. Everyone does not need a secret backstory. No. I know you're struggling with finding things to do, but you went too far. Prophet 5 was also a bit crappy. Introducing a previously unmentioned even older organization interested in Rambaldi just feels like a copout. Use the ones you have or create new ones out of the main players of old ones, but not somebody who's been supposedly involved in things in the beginning.
-
And, aside from my top 5, some more general thoughts here (again, spoilers):
I noticed Alias lost the Love around mid Season 3. The setup for Season 3 was great (You've been missing for two years), but the resolution wasn't the greatest, and in particular Vaughan's wife was probably the first violation of rule 5. Worse, the backstory never really seemed to make sense. I'd almost rather, as hackneyed as it sounds, that she was turned towards evil over the course of the season. But particularly there was this fake tension where it looked like she was about to be found out by Vaughan, but you knew it wasn't going to happen because it wasn't the right time in the season. Season 4 was floundering. Nadia wasn't a terribly good idea anyway, but she was tolerable, but they'd lost direction seriously when they turned away from the whole Rambaldi thing - not that it couldn't have used a rest, but it just turned into a boring 'threat of the week' show that I just didn't care about. If they were going to put Rambaldi on the backburner, they needed something really catchy that they could hang their proverbial hat on. And of course, as mentioned, the whole APO debacle.
Whoever thought up "Rambaldi's device creates zombies! ZOMBIES IN RUSSIA!" should be hit over the head. That was just dumb. If you're going to do that do it all the way and make the last season of Alias about surviving a growing zombie apocalypse. I still maintain that would have made a better season.
Still, despite Garner's pregnancy and the whole Vaughan's Connection to Prophet 5 crap, I think they did a few clever things with Season 5. One, the whole Rachel thing. Having Sydney take down, essentially, another SD-6 full of people who think they were working for the CIA was a great idea, and executed fairly well (of course, Sloane should have been the one running it, rather than working with APO), and then recruiting Rachel to do stuff while Garner couldn't was also nice. The return of Anna Espinosa was welcome and I almost thought they were going to use her doubling as Sydney to get around the whole Mount Plotdevico problem, but they didn't... though I think that might have been better, maybe even if they did it say a year earlier and had Garner play two roles (although I would have loved to see Gina Torres be Anna Espinosa more often and that would have precluded that), so then we truly could have got a sense of Rambaldi's prophecy that the prophecy could have referred to either Syd or Anna depending on how you interpretted it. In particular, having Syd go undercover as Anna as Syd should have lasted more than a couple episodes, as it would have been a nice return to the whole idea of her being undercover _constantly_ that was a key component of the first season and a half. But working with what they had, they did a decent job.
It's just sad that they completely dropped the ball on Rambaldi (I'd almost prefer the idea I've heard since S1... that Rambaldi was Sloane who, at the end of the series, travels back in time in a Rambaldi machine to fulfill his destiny and create a time loop) and Syd's mother (Truth Takes Time. But I guess I'll just kill you cause you're in my way and I don't have the time anymore.). I just hope Lost doesn't suffer from the same problems.
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no subject
Date: 2006-05-23 11:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-24 12:42 pm (UTC)But who knows, maybe it'll percolate in the back of my mind and I'll decide to write up something more concrete.