Alias!

[dissention]

Who else watches it (besides Marissa)?!

The best show on television, dammit. They really need to bring back Lena Olin as Syd's mom, but until then, I'm happy that they're bringing on Isabella Rosselini, David Bowie, and Quentin Tarantino.

[darklinensuit]

Originally posted by dissention
Who else watches it (besides Marissa)?!

The best show on television, dammit. They really need to bring back Lena Olin as Syd's mom, but until then, I'm happy that they're bringing on Isabella Rosselini, David Bowie, and Quentin Tarantino.

I saw about five minutes of it once, where she was dressed as the geisha and running from shooters. I didn't really have a clue what was going on.
A friend of mine went to Denison when she was there and says Jennifer was a knockout back then, too.

- Jake

[dissention]

Originally posted by darklinensuit
I saw about five minutes of it once, where she was dressed as the geisha and running from shooters. I didn't really have a clue what was going on.
A friend of mine went to Denison when she was there and says Jennifer was a knockout back then, too.

- Jake

Yeah, it's the type of show where you have to have watched it from the very first episode for every minute it's on in order to understand it. Even then, there are no guarantees. I still don't know what K-Directorate actually does or what The Covenant does and I've watched every show since the beginning.

And Jennifer Garner is stunning. The woman could never look bad.

[darklinensuit]

I don't watch many dramas. I did watch 24 this season, but have missed it this season, and doubt I'd have a clue if I tried to watch again now.

- Jake

[dissention]

Originally posted by darklinensuit
I don't watch many dramas. I did watch 24 this season, but have missed it this season, and doubt I'd have a clue if I tried to watch again now.

- Jake

24 pales in comparison to Alias!

No, I've tried to watch it, but didn't like it too much. At least it gave Kiefer Sutherland a job, though. That's one more body out of the unemployment line.

[darklinensuit]

24 was great last season, though the final episode wasn't as good as the others - except for the last two minutes.

- Jake

[hayley]

That's funny- I recently started to watch ALIAS- I'm watching the first season DVDs and am about to start the second. I really like it- I also know from friends and watching episodes occasionally some of the big plot stuff that happens later, so it's not as much a surprise as I'd like it to be, but I enjoy it.

I'm a HUGE 24 fan- and I have to tell you, 24 is entirely different than ALIAS, and 24's better :-P It's the first show I've ever watched in my entire life where I literally find myself standing up and yelling at the television, or literally screaming in shock on occasion.

24 this season is still pretty darn good, btw- it started off very slow in the first five or six episodes, the plot seemed a bit silly and ludicrous, it didn't hold much water... lo and behold, the last two episodes SHOCKINGLY show you exactly why those first episodes seemed silly. 24 doesn't pander to their viewer, I love it!!

/end 24 rant!

[Josh2003]

I've never watched Alias, but Jennifer Garner graduated from Denison University, which is where I go now. I think she had the same theatre professor that I had last semester, and it is rumored that he had said she was a "mediocre" actress. But he's a hardass. So go figure.

[dissention]

Originally posted by Josh2003
and it is rumored that he had said she was a "mediocre" actress. But he's a hardass. So go figure.

Yeah, but they also said that Lucille Ball wasn't funny at all, that Camryn Manheim was too fat for any role, and that Meryl Streep couldn't act her way out of a paper bag. I think Jennifer Garner is a fantastic actress.

[dissention]

Originally posted by hayley
That's funny- I recently started to watch ALIAS- I'm watching the first season DVDs and am about to start the second. I really like it- I also know from friends and watching episodes occasionally some of the big plot stuff that happens later, so it's not as much a surprise as I'd like it to be, but I enjoy it.

That sucks that you know what happens!!! I never read any of the spoilers or anything, so that everything is shocking when I first see it. I mean, I was absolutely SHOCKED when it was revealed in the first season that Syd's mom was The Man.

I still think that Vaughn's wife, Lauren, is Sark's sister. But with Alias, she could turn out to be a man, for cripes sake.

[dissention]

Found this article, thought it was pretty good.

Alias
The Boston Globe
By Matthew Gilbert

Let's get real. Sure, 24 is the CIA drama that gets all the buzz, but Alias, so audacious and so plastic fantastic, is really the bee's knees.

24 baits you with the promise of post-9-11 terror suspense, then scrambles to make sense without looking too ridiculous. Alias never pretends to reality as it joyously celebrates the genre that brought us James Bond, Honey West, and, yes, Austin Powers. It's a comic-book explosion of global fashion, cloned villains, kickboxing babes, and fierce emotionality.

A season of 24 is work, as we follow agent Jack Bauer through a long day in real time. Alias, which entirely reinvented itself this season -- again -- is pure, crazy, spy fantasy fun.

Not that a viewer can't embrace both three-year-old shows, as they bookend the spectrum of TV secret-agent adventures. But Alias, which airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on ABC, deserves more of the loyal viewership and praise that 24 seems to automatically attract despite its thin acting, flat visuals and narrative insults.

Alias is definitely one of TV's overlooked but gifted children. Gifted, and wigged out -- and not just because heroine Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner) dons fabulous wigs to go undercover each week. Alias is brazenly, wonderfully nuts, as it breaks all the rules of straight dramatic television. It may be network TV's most rock-'n'-rollingest show because it refuses to settle into a grind -- sometimes refusing with flashy, narrative-shattering force. One of the handed-down rules of series TV is that you don't futz around with the premise -- or you futz carefully, lest you disorient viewers. It's the Law & Order philosophy.

And yet Alias creator J.J. Abrams has made a habit of futzing. This season alone, he began with a leap forward two years, which the blacked-out Sydney is struggling to remember. On the sloppy 24, which airs Tuesdays at 9 on Fox, this season's three-year leap forward is an excuse to leave last season's cliffhanger unaddressed; on Alias, the leap is now the central dramatic topic.

A brief Alias history, shorn of a bazillion subplots: The original setup had Sydney as both a grad student and a CIA agent -- actually, a CIA double agent, spying on the evil organization SD-6. But last season, in one dazzling hour, the show purged all the double agentry, as Sydney and her father (Victor Garber), also a CIA agent, brought down SD-6. Also last season, Abrams introduced Sydney's mother (Lena Olin), a former KGB spy and terrorist. And he topped off the changes by employing the wackiest, boldest of daytime soap devices, murdering a beloved character, Francie, and replacing her with a vile doppelganger played by the same actress (Merrin Dungey).

Meanwhile, Abrams flouted conventional TV wisdom last season by allowing Sydney and her Big Flirtation, CIA handler Michael Vaughn (Michael Vartan), to become a beautiful, happy couple. But this season, Abrams turned it all around again: With Sydney missing for two years, Vaughn got married to someone else, a National Security Council agent named Lauren Reed (Melissa George).

OK, so the show is not as relevant as 24, which plays on current events. Alias is about as weighty as The Man From U.N.C.L.E. But as 24 and TV's other counterterrorism drama, Threat Matrix, try to milk our anxiety about domestic attacks after Sept. 11, they often wind up seeming pat and simplistic in their convenient solutions.

Alias is just good old carefree escapism, and proud of it. None of the plot complications much matters, as the writers give us weekly jolts of action and suspense, with Sydney flying to Rome or Madrid dressed as a hooker, a maid, or a bohemian, able to speak the local tongue, smack down an army of enemies, and carry some wicked gadgetry.

But like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Alias is more about the lead characters' emotional turns in each episode. Often, Sydney's CIA adventures seem to have a metaphorical relationship to her inner life. Last season, all of the spy activity played out like an externalization of Sydney's conflict over her estranged parents, an almost Freudian struggle as she bounced between them. This season, Sydney's CIA work is to stop a nefarious group called the Covenant, but it's really about another covenant -- the one Sydney had with Vaughn before her two-year disappearance, and the one Vaughn has with Lauren now. Each week, she deals with Vaughn's betrayal of their bond.

Of all the empowered young women on TV right now, and there are quite a few as programmers reach out to the young female demographic, Sydney is by far the coolest. While 24 is laughably trying to promote Kim Bauer from damsel in distress to counterterrorism agent, Sydney has already saved the world a few dozen times and survived a tooth extraction, electroshock treatment and a Taser gun. She's amazingly resilient, yet she remains emotionally alive, able to shed almost weekly tears.

And Garner, so wholesome and yet sexy, moves from fists to feelings effortlessly. Compared with her versatility, Kiefer Sutherland's Jack Bauer on 24 is a statue that grunts. Like her show, and like her character, Garner knows how to turn on a dime. You won't be watching the clock when she's in action."

[dissention]

Bump for Marissa!

[GardenStateGirlie]

I think I need to fix me a drink and bring me a nebutal. Ho****. That was CRAZY. I knew Lauren was no good because they HAD to throw in something to bring Vaughn and Sydney back together. It was only a matter of time. I have a feeling you'll find that Lauren is some relation to Sark...wouldn't really surprise me with your theory there. Now we know she's either a double agent or she was told by the DOD to kill Lassire (sp? whatever. lol). I found myself going, INFORMATION OVERLOAD tonight when she found out the last two years of her life...I like to take things and piece them together and figure out what will happen next...it was just spilled out in a rather strange fashion but I loved it anyway. The fact that SHE took away her memory? That was good stuff. Okay, respond my other Alias nerd friend

[dissention]

CONTAINS SPOILERS!!!!!

All I did throughout the show was sit on my couch with my hand over my mouth saying "What the fuuuuuuuuccccccc..."

I was STUNNED!!! It explained so many goddam things, you're right, it was information overload! I thought that Weiss was involved, but when we found out it was Lauren at the very end, I was jumping up and down. Do you think Sark got away with any of the DNA and eggs? He must've. JJ said that Sark has a *huge* story coming up, so look out for it. I am still convinced that Sark and Lauren are related.

The only thing that confused me was whether or not Sloane was involved with the Covenant and what happened. Did he know all along and was in cahoots with them to get Rambaldi's DNA?

The previews for next week are so aggravating. We all know that Vaughn and Syd will NOT get back together anytime soon, Lauren is here for awhile to wreak havoc. That bitch! And when we found out that Dixon knew all along about Syd; priceless!!!

Next week Syd's aunt (Irina's sister) joins the show for a few episodes and her and Jack are supposed to "go at it"...if you catch my drift. I read that some S&M type stuff will happen...

[GardenStateGirlie]

Originally posted by dissention
Do you think Sark got away with any of the DNA and eggs?

The only thing that confused me was whether or not Sloane was involved with the Covenant and what happened. Did he know all along and was in cahoots with them to get Rambaldi's DNA?

Absolutely he got away with the DNA and eggs. They're going to run with this storyline for a while OR, take it for another loop and have it reappear later. At any rate, it's far from being over.

I have a feeling last night when she was trying to destroy everything she may have missed something. Did you notice the eggs on the screen behind the lab equipment? It almost seemed as though the fertilization was complete (again, could be wrong on this one but I found that a little odd).

On the subject of Sloane, I have no idea what to make of that. He was never mentioned in Syd's missing two year period so he very well could have been involved but then again, he may not have been. I'm sure we'll find out sooner or later the part he played in all of that...they did allude to Sloane having a vested interest in Rambaldi when they spoke of Sark so it seems they don't want you to forget, Sloane was the one who wanted all of this to begin with, IMO.

I wish Alias was on everynight.