Every once in a while, a show is born that makes you realize that network TV doesn't have to be all bad -- that network TV can produce, almost despite itself, a fun and interesting show. An example of this is ABC's Alias, now in its fourth season. I've only just gotten through season one, however, so that's what I'm concerned with. The next two seasons are coming, and with the speed this show's plot moves, there could be 5000 twists by then.
Alias is a bizarre combination of angst-filled young adult melodrama (like Felicity, or Seventh Heaven. There are better examples but I can't think of them because they suck, and I don't like to strain to think of things that suck) and total shocking spy madness. In the pilot episode, the scene is set up plot-wise: Sydney Bristow was recruited by SD6, which she thought was a friend of the CIA, to do spy stuff. When she told her cornball fiance' Daniel this she didn't specify that the info was
on the down-low so the goof calls and leaves a message on her answering machine which SD6 intercepts. The next thing you know, Daniel is dead in a bloody bathtub and SD6 is going after Sydney. Syd eventually gets back into SD6, only thjs time as a double agent working for the real CIA. So, SD6 gives her ridiculous missions to get stuff and then she tells the CIA and they give her counter-missions to steal the stuff for the CIA or make copies of it or somesuch. The craziest part of the plot in Season One is this dude named Rambaldi who was a "prophet" in Europe in the 1500's(?). He was excecuted, but not before he could plant all sorts of interesting information all around the globe, like a giant cave in Argentina and a vault in the Vatican. And what are the characteristics of being a Prophet, according to the Alias writing staff?
1) Foreseeing technology from the far future, like cell phones and red-ball hoverment devices (don't ask -- I've seen it, and I know no more than you).
2) Writing things down in invisible ink that can only be seen when you brush the paper with a solution you invented.
3) Planting things all over the globe so that the Alias people could have someplace to send Syd, therefore providing the building blocks of a spy show
4) Picking a totally random number and making it important, such as 47.
5) Making Nostradomus-like cryptic statements that can be interpreted in any number of ways.
6) Apparently, not being filled with the Spirit of God and making pronouncements, like we'd always thought.
side note: 6) is a swipe at the writers for something they did that is completely understandable: mis-defining the word "prophet" to mean, "mystical dude who sees into the future." The word they're looking for is seer, not prophet. These days, with the confluence and intermarriage between all spiritual ideas, it appears to us that Old Testament Prophets and Nostradomus-esque fortune tellers are the same thing. In fact, they are opposed to each other.
Here are the main characters in Alias, and how they fare in Season One:
Sydney Bristow is the main character of the show and its principal protagonist. She is the only one whose motives aren't in question (besides possibly whitebread CIA zilch Vaughn, but that's only because he's such a horrible character and actor that all nuances are lost), and it is through her that we learn about all the missions and craziness. Her strengths: beating people up, lying to people, executing complex plans. Her weaknesses: Killing (people are killed semingly every episode; nice Sydney never voluntarily kills anyone), having appropriate emotional reactions. Let's see, let me name all the things that have happened to her in Season One: Her fiance' is murdered; she has about 2000 fistfights; one friend breaks up her engagement; another friend finds out about her spying and is tortured; she gets reinvolved with a fleeb from her past who turns out to be a deadly evil assassin, and then unwittingly kills him; she thinks her dad is a former KGB hitman, later finds out it was actually her dead mother; she figures out her mom is actually still alive; she almost sees her SD6 flunkie partner and friend killed; she is tortured not once but twice; she is interrogated by the FBI, who think that she's going to overthrow the government; she is interrogated by SD6, who rightly think she's a double agent; she does the "which color wire do I cut" thing on a ticking nuclear bomb; one of her friends (who happens to be the wife of her hated enemy) is dying of cancer; and so on. But my point is, the biggest emotional reaction we get from her is when 4 CIA guys she just met were blown up. This girl can take anything, but blow up people she barely knows and she might just have an old-fashioned freak-out. Anyway, she's great, and Jennifer Garner is great, and they have a contest each week among the wardrobe people to come up with the most absurd, tight, and flashy undercover outfit, and then they have her fight some dudes in it. This is great TV, even if it is directed by the guy from "Thirtysomething".
Michael Vaughn, Syd's CIA "handler", is a fleeb, as I said before. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what annoys me about him. He's clearly meant to be hunky and all-American and nice and studly and a love interest for the flashy Ms. Bristow, but something doesn't add up. He's going for "serious CIA hunk" and ending up with "Keanu" for some reason. As far as the character itself goes, he's like the good CIA guy, as I said before. He always seems out of his league. And the ponderous love storyline between him and Sydney that they want so bad to be the next Ross/Rachel starcrossed people thing is a complete failure, mainly because they clearly don't have any idea what to do with it. They even have Syd sleep with a different, even more fleeby, guy in the second half of season two, in order to delay everything. The Syd/Vaughn relationship might just be kryptonite for this show, and the writers know it.
Jack Bristow, Syd's "father", is also a spy working undercover for the CIA at SD6. He's constantly saving Sydney and her friends from undue scrutiny and stinky death at the hands of SD6 director Arvin Sloane. He's like the hero of most of the episodes, even though his shadowy past and emotionless lifestyle keep everybody from liking him. One of the things the show set up early on is the evolving relationship between Syd and her father Jack, and how eventually trust and (dare we say it, Felicity?) love develops between them. He's always figuring out ways to get stuff done, and he's well acted to boot. I can't think of a scene in which I didn't like him.
Dixon, Syd's SDC partner, thinks that SD6 is a division of the CIA, just like Syd once did. Syd is constantly subverting his plans, and he was constantly not noticing until he fought a burka-wearing Syd and stabbed her in the arm. The writers are very careful to paint Dixon as a good guy whose suspicions of Syd are extremely reluctant. He's also the unhippest black man on the planet -- his pants may as well be held on with safety pins attached to his shirt. He's the guy who gets to go with Syd on all these silly dress-up missions, and you haven't lived until you see an unhip black man try to pass himself off as eurotrash. Dixon is a ton o' fun, but they don't put him in every episode, mainly because he's not a threat to get into Syd's flashy wardrobe, so to speak. More Dixon and less Collection of Fleeby White Guys with RidicuHair, I say.
Arvin Sloane is the main bad guy of the first season(not counting Syd's KGB mother, who never appears, or any of the other SD6-equivalent agencies). He has two weaknesses, make that three: He loves his cute dying wife Emily, he seems to view Sydney as a daughter, and he will believe anything James Bond tells him (Roger Moore has a great cameo that nearly redeems the second half of the season). Most of the suspense especially in the first half of season one centers on keeping Sloane from knowing the Bristows are double agents. If he doesn't know by now, he should have his spy license revoked (maybe Sydney putting a bug in his safe at home should have tipped him off). But if he knows he never lets on, and eventually his character develops and softens and then finishes with him poisoning his wife to advance his career and his obsession with Rambaldi's FunVentions From the Future. There's always a twist or two regarding him in every episode, so just when you feel like you know him, he does something opposite of what you think he'll do. This guy just gives the general impression of being up to something, which is a good thing for a bad guy to have. The problem is he often comes across as being likable, which is good for character development reasons but kind of undercuts the tension at times.
stay tuned for part 2: more characters.
