Friday, May 26, 2006

Some Answers? I think not!

BTW- SpyChat tonight! 6pm PDT, we are going to discuss the holes.

This was posted by Kristin at E! Online. All I have to say is...nice try! The black type are my comments.

Your Lingering Alias Questions--Answered! After Monday night's fantastic series ender (hahaha, right!!), many of you fellow fans posted on our message boards the unanswered questions still weighing heavily on your minds. Truth be told, I really wanted answers to some of them, too, so I e-mailed executive producer Jeff Pinkner, who graciously emailed right back the following answers.

Q: In the finale, did Irina say, "Rambaldi is alive," "Rambaldi is love" or Rambaldi "is life"?A: "Rambaldi is life...Through him we can live forever."

Q: What was the horizon?A: The horizon was the Rambaldi-designed glass sphere that activated the pedestal in his tomb and then received the liquid from the hovering red ball. Pretty sure the Horizon in "Maternal Instinct" was something long and flat that fit in a small cloth cover. Who are they trying to kid?


These are pictures of the Horizon in the vault in Vancouver- not a sphere! In the top picture is looks square even!

Q: Did Irina fall on the sphere? In the final shot, one hand was bent behind her back after she fell. Could she have squished the ball but then have been resurrected by it? It did take a while to work on Sloane. A: No, the ball rolled away, presumably recovered by Syd, who would have had it destroyed. The Sphere rolled away? Um, it was sitting on the glass window- the same one Irina fell through- so that means the ball had to have gone down with her, right?

Q: Given the actions of Nadia at the end of the show, was she truly just a figment of Sloane's imagination/conscience?A: She was his conscience. I think killing Nadia--whom he deeply loved--caused some sort of emotional/psychotic rift for Sloane. Why all the sudden would Sloane's conscience disappear? That makes no sense!!

Q: Is Sloane going to live forever under a rock, or is he eventually going to die?A: Sloane is immortal, living forever buried 200 feet beneath the earth. Good!

There you have it. The classified intel. (I'm gonna miss saying that.) Unfortunately, Jeff wouldn't tackle whether the highlighted letters in the city names or the number 47 meant anything, so I'll have to harass JJ Abrams next time I see him.

Man, that was a sorry attempt to answer any questions!

40 comments:

SKlaft said...

Thats pathetic. The tough questions were not even posed, like: "Why in the world was Irena's personality and character completely changed from every other season?"
or
"How is it that eternal life was the proposed end of Rambadli's work when Sloane vehemently beat another guy to death insisting that it was more than that?"

In a small defense of the sphere being the Horizon, (I know I've said this before) the thing Irena stole in Maternal Instinct was probably a manuscript of some sort describing the hiding spot for the sphere which Irena proceded to track down on her own.

Its a figure of speach called 'metonomy of the adjunct' where the actual thing is naming that which leads to the real thing. It's like when we say, "the world" and we actually mean all of the people in the world, not the earth itself. The container for the contained. In this case, it is the description of the location of the Horizon being spoken of as the actual Horizon.

Girlscout said...

I suppose. It just bothers me so much that Monica Breen and Alison Schapker, the writers of the finale, didn't just do the homework- I mean really!! It's called the Bible, every show has one- the manual of all things contained in the show- all the secrets. All they had to do was fit everything together!

blah said...

i kind of thought like lhaaheim does, that somehow irina assembled the ball horizon with the box horizon.

Girlscout said...

Sorry, I ain't buying it. If that were true they would have mentioned it. At least Irina would have mentioned assembling the sphere.

And why was the location of the Horizon written on the SD-6 map? Did Sloane know all along where the Horizon was? I don't get it. What was the point of Sydney hypnotisted? It was almost like they had this great idea and then it didn't pan out, so they said oh hey, the Horizon location is on the map of SD-6. It's so random. And they had her on the boat and what was all the baby stuff? The crib and nursery Jack and Renee found and all the flashing lights on the ultrasound?

blah said...

i agree gs, the whole 'horizon' episode was all werid now that we have no answers to explain it. the whole sd-6 map was about the people and branches of the alliance, people and places. but not things. so why would the cia have put that on there? it dosn't make sense.

SKlaft said...

You're right GS

The whole of season 5 is entirely random junk, like they just gave up.

Its so sad, it literally makes me sick. I almost wish the big red ball over S'vogda was the finale.

Girlscout said...

Oh, I am so sick of everyone blaming ABC. After a season like season 4 and the beginning of season 5, it's no wonder they cancelled the show. "Oh, ABC didn't give them enough time" or "oh ABC should have kept them in their old time slot." Well, if Alias writer had delivered, Alias probably would have stayed on Wednesday's with Lost and stayed on the air.
Now, I love Alias- the old Alias seasons 1-3 and 4-ish. They worked as a unit, connecting and tracing back. I will go with Robby, season 5 was a hogpog.

There are no anwers to figure out Liz, the writers didn't give us any and making something up to make ourselves feel better isn't something, I think any of us wants to use to justify the horrific ending. We just have to love the old Alias and forgive season 5. Don't get me wrong, there was some stuff I loved about season 5. But,something went wrong and we just have to move on. Now its kinda of a game about finding out where the writers messed up.I like that game, it makes me feel smart, hahahaha.

Girlscout said...

Technically, Alias is JJ's brainchild. We came up with it, he had the whole thing mapped out and yes, perhaps placing a little blame on him for somewhat abandoning his baby seems right- but, the man is a genius- we was working on Lost and several other shows and he put the faith in Jeff Pinkner and the Alias wrtiers to do the right thing. If they had done their job- time or no time- then maybe it all would have turned out differently. Its the simple principle of being true to the show, the genre and asking questions. The writers didn't do that, they tried too hard to do that, and what we got was a 17 episodes floating around with no real purpose or meaning.

Girlscout said...

They should have asked the real questions- how did Sloane, Irina, Sydney and Nadia get wrapped up in this? How did Irina and Sloane know their children would be involved? It started with the mystery of Rambaldi and how everyone was connected and it ended it Sloane under a rock and a Irina falling through a sky light. How come the fight between the Chosen One and the Passenger wasn't explained? How come we never learned what all the scribblings Nadia did under the influence of the green fluid were about? How did Elena get involved in Rambaldi? They had so much material and they wrote a show with lame material. They could have gone so many different ways and this was the way they went? Sorry, I am still very bitter about how unAlias the ending was.

blah said...

i'm sorry to say gs, but i completely agree with lhaaheim. I've loved this past season. only because it didn't fit exactly with the rest of them, i still loved it. but i can see why u feel the way you do.

Girlscout said...

Liz,

It's not that its not welcome- this is a forum for people to talk about whatever they want, even if they liked, hated it or didn't care. I am allowed to have my feelings the same as anyone hear. And of course I invested alot in this show- there was tons to invest in. 5 years worth of story- I think the other writers in here would agree- it comes down to content and story- that's all I am talking about.

blah said...

i think we all just need to start over and think this all over. this is a very stressfull time right now because there are so many unanswerd questions and therefor we are all getting quite annoyed by it. i know i am.

Anonymous said...

At the risk of making GS even angrier, i'll have to agree with lhaaheim about the time constraints. Surely they couldn't have hyped up P5 so much, made them look so powerful, giving Nadia her life back and all, if they were all to be killed in about 10 seconds at the hands of Peyton.

Same with the Cardinal, etc, but before i ramble, would anyone know when exactly they did reduce the number of eps to 17?? Was it during that mid-season break at the end of last year?

blah said...

yes, it was during the hiatus.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the quick reply darkalias!

Yeh, so if it was during the hiatus, that could have severely messed things up in regards to time, and maybe they had to get rid of the new stories they were trying to bring out this season, to end the series by resolving the issues that were there from earlier seasons. Which they managed to do pretty badly of course.

Girlscout said...

I'm not angry. Come on guys, do I ever get angry? I get inspired. And sure time restraints is a factor- but if they built up P5 so much, why not use them to fuel the finale instead of killing them off, you know what I mean? I really wanted P5 to be the bad guy, I thought they had all the answers- about BV and Irina, about Sloane and Vaughn. And when they died, I was like WAITTTTTT!!! You got my answers!! hahahaha

Anonymous said...

Yeh i know what you mean GS, and i wouldn't have minded if it had ended up with P5 being the all powerful entity, but it might have diminished the evilness of Sloane and Irina or something. I'm just clutching at straws here..

Girlscout said...

No, your right Coup, they could have drawn away from Sloane- I think it would have been cool if Sloane was their anonymous leader and turned the tables on them- maybe he started the whole project back in the day

SKlaft said...

Wieghing-in again...

At least Season 4 had a little continuity. Even the less involved stories were well written. They dropped the ball with thier explanation of what was in the papers Sydney found at the end of S3, and the reach into sci-fi got pretty heavey, but over all, it stayed togteher with the rest of the previous seasons.

Season 5 not only failed to do even that, but also offered a ton of new information which it never resolved or even attempted to explain. I do not blame anyone for feeling bitter about the way it ended. I'm not really that bitter, just critically disgusted that we have to force plausable explanations into the end on issues that just don't make sense like the role of DiSantis, the nursury, Irena's character change, and the inexplicable resemblance of P5 to the Alliance.

Maybe we can come up with something, but we shouldn't have to. Like GS said, there was a lot more material for the writers to work with and they chose the easy way.

Frankly, I am embarassed that I went so nuts over episodes like "Mockingbird" and "There's Only One Sydney Bristow" because now I know that those episodes were just patchwork.

I'm the first one to say we should try like mad dogs to find the plausable explanation to things, but I simply cannot deny it when the flaws take away from the integrity we expect from the show and the respect that it deserves.

Girlscout said...

BRAVO ROBBY!! You hit it all on the head!! I too found some good stuff in season 4, I loved the eppy with Syd infected and how she could hear the people she loves saying bad things. It was a great play on her insecurities. I loved Marshall in the field and the episodes with Roberts and the possibility of BV being alive. Loved them.

blah said...

now that i know that many people feel the way i do, i think its safe to say that it wasn't our show that went wrong, it was the writers. they didn't do their work, they didn't do all they could have done, they screwd with everything. and maybe it was because of the time frame they had left, or maybe it wasn't, but either way, i am every disappointed.

blah said...

btw, i also loved season four. the new relastionship with nadia, the vaughn/vaughn sr story, arvin cloane, sophia/yelena, awsome.

Girlscout said...

Oh yeah, I loved Nadia and her part in season 4. Love love the sister mission episode "I haved those boots Bitch." hahahah

SKlaft said...

To have such great material, and for us to have defended the tack the show had taken when Vaughn was "killed" ...to realize that all the detractors against the show at that time were almost right...

I'm mortified.

Anonymous said...

But robetron, it's fair enough to say that eps like "There's Only One Sydney Bristow" and "The Horizon" were bad now since they didn't conclude what was brought up in them, but at the time, when we saw what might come out of it, we were all pretty excited.

Then again, considering that the writers knew that the # of eps were reduced AFTER that hiatus, any ep like "There's only one..." seems wasted.

Girlscout said...

Right coup, even before the hiatus, even during the summer the writer had to be a little weary about the show maybe being cancelled. Why open new cans of worms when the old ones are all baited?

Girlscout said...

Thanks Starbucks mom! You are soooo right!!

SKlaft said...

Say, GS...
Isn't Monica Breen and Alison Schapker the two writers you talked about a long time ago, that they almsot never do the show justice? Someone said that once, that there was a pair of writers or directors that do poorly with the show. I wonder why they were even tapped to do the finale?

Girlscout said...

I mentioned them before. They did a few eppies I didn't particularly like.

Shablagoo! said...

Hi

Ive recently come out of lurking mode and published some observations about the finale and certain meta plot elements on the show which some of the people in the comments for that post have found interesting/stimulating.

Have a read and let me know what you think. I guess my main overall contention is the show may be over, but story isn't over by a long shot and the ending was deliberately ambiguous should JJ ever return for a spin off movie or sequel. I suspect if JJ had written the story and with a view to no further sequels we'd have less ambiguities. As it is I hope/suspect he has unfinished business with Alias and the writing staff were told what they could or couldn't do in the finale.

Don't you think it was strange how there was a very brief flashback to Rambaldi's era in S1 and yet we never saw his face? Could it have been that we'd have recognised him? Its either a discarded plot thread or one thats yet to be fulfilled.

Also if had Alias continued with JG leaving and the events of ep 17 unfolding as they did, I suspect as some form of continuity there would have been a Rambaldi component eventually which might have explained some of his uncanny prophecies. Tom after all was targeted by the 'Cardinal'. Perhaps an anti-Rambaldi secret society within the Vatican, which once sheltered Rambaldi and then turned on him, knew something about Tom and Rambaldi. After all why did Tom send a message to the Cardinal? Was he a member of this society who left/betrayed it? A large and misguided Catholic anti-Rambaldi conspiracy could have filled the void left by the 12. Again their persistence and agenda would mean they had access to previously unknown plot device/Mcguffin prophecies?! Unfortunately the show was stopped so we'll never know unless it pops up in a sequel.

Back to the post in question:
I have to agree some of Alias s5 doesn't hang together. As much as I enjoyed the finale it would have easily stretched to another episode! The whole thing with Irina & the Rambaldi ball and the nuclear missiles at the end was incoherent!

If I had any problem with S4 the Sloane clone arc should have been spread across the entire season. S4's structure was a bit crazy having the first half as stand alones and then the second as nearly all Rambaldi!

Elena obviously thought she was the chosen one, the Passenger prophecy was fulfilled with Nadia's coma and death almost as soon as she came out of it. Interestingly, the box in s3 which contained the Sphere of Life, perhaps a prototype of the Horizon, had Irina's name on it. Rambaldi knew who the real villian was who'd try to pervert his creations and at the same time spurs her own belief in her destiny to this end. This goes back to my theory that Rambaldi's key propheices are self fulfilling because they are relatively exacting and written in hindsight. This indicates Rambaldi comes from the future and probably has access to somebody like Sloane at this later time. Again check out my comments and hypothesis in the ep 17 thread. I contend amongst other things that Rambaldi manipulated events in the 15th Century to begin a circle of events which will ultimately create the context for his appearance in the 15th Century from a later time by using Irina, Sloane and Sydney as proxies.

Anonymous said...

I think I can answer one of your questions, GS. The "flashing lights" during the ultrasound is nothing but a Color Doppler Ultrasound... the sound waves are converted into colors to show the blood flow (blue if the blood goes away from the transducer, and red if it goes towards the transducer. To sum it up, it's used to monitor the fetus and the placenta blood flow. Syd had some problem with her placentar circulation which could have affected her child.

Marcello (a medical student, in case you were wondering)

By the way, did you read my comment on the sphere in ep. 17? What do you guys think?

Angela said...

No one has mentioned something I thought of immediately when I saw the floating red ball again--

Wasn't it in season four when Sloane took Nadia to Mongolia or someplace and they found a "chapel" with a glass floor and a "sphere of life" in a fancy carved box? And Nadia refused to walk on the glass floor, so Sloane did, murmuring that he was chosen, and he took/caught the ball only to fall through the floor and end up in a cavern with glass shards sticking out all over him?

When I saw the finale, I saw the glass ball (again,) the glass floor (but with Irina this time), and even the same sounds of spider-webbing glass as Irinia lay there and Sydney called, "take my hand."

I didn't for one second think that the glass sphere was the Horizon because we'd seen it before--and the shape WAS all wrong.

Bottom line for me--I liked the finale, but it was far from perfect or logical. Felt like the writers rushed things together using retreads and things we'd already seen.

Best thing about the finale was Jack's action--time and time again he'd been unable to stop Sloane from hurting Syd, but this time he did it for keeps. :-)

P.S. Girlscout, if Alias were a novel, the editors would have a field day with it! Too many inconsistencies! But that's what happens when you're "published" as a serial instead of writing the entire thing first. (Yet Dickens seemed to manage it . . . I suppose that's reason enough to stick with ONE main writer.)

Angie

Desiree said...

That was the worse explanation for the finale I have ever read. Who was the idiot that picked those questions to ask Jeff? What a waste of an opportunity! Anyway, I haven't posted in awhile because I just felt like everybody was still venting and writing really big posts but I just wanted to say that I love the idea of dissecting Alias and the process that it takes to create a masterpiece. Kendra I hope that you plan on taking this info and writing an absolutely fabulous show that you can sell to anyone besides ABC and then make millions on it. On a side note I think it would be fun to do an Alias version of the Oscars....you know with our fave lines, monologues, scenes etc....Maybe the person with the winning entry gets a Tshirt or something fun like that! Maybe that will help us look at the rest of Alias and focus on the things that were good in Alias.

Jess said...

desiree-

I have had the same approach as you, just kind of sitting back and taking it all in. I agree that we need something positive and light hearted to remind us of all the ALIAS moments we loved. I think the idea of the Alias Oscars would be fun!

Girlscout said...

OOOOOH Des, I love the ALias Oscar idea
Let me get working on a plan. hahaha

Anonymous said...

good idea des, that would be cool if gs and our other blogmasters could come up with something awsome (which they will). good idea.

uncle111 said...

At the risk of being accused of whipping a dead horse:
We did say before this episode that what they obtained at the bank in Canada was probably instructions, part of a map or something lioke that, since it seemed to be flat. So, I think robetron has the best out for them on that. Now, does anyone have a picture of the Sphere of Life? Seems to me that it looked an awfully lot like what in this episode was the Horizon. Now, if this globe type object was designed to collect and hold Rambaldi's immortality fluid, it seems to me that Sphere of Life would be an appropriate name for it. The Sphere of Life, though was supposed to hold Rambaldi's consciousness.

I think we just have to settle for the realities of human nature. JJ started the series, but he got wrapped up in a number of other projects and had to turn Alias over to others. I know from experience that the only person who cares as much about a project as much as the creator of that project is....no one! Once JJ bailed on Alias it was doomed. Then, once ABC announced it was over, whho left holding the bag really cared? They were looking around for the next job/project and did the best they could to wrap things up without looking like they couldn't care less.

And, we are the Alias addicts. They are just hired help. We probably know a whole lot more of the details of the show than they do, so we catch all the flaws. NOBODY wants to see the flaws in their work, or be told about them. Well, we say too bad- be grown up about it and take a little pride in your product. It's like they were doing the magician's trick of throwing a lot of things at you to distract you enough to get the punch line in without you noticing how they did it, except that the punch line was there was no punch line, just a good-bye.

Anonymous said...

Yes it is all about time but if the writers hadn't wasted so much time on the newbies then we would have had better storylines of our old cast. They just tried to do too many things in Season 5 then when they found out it was the last season they just dropped everything from the first half and tried to make something up for the last 8 episodes but that didn't even work. Oh yeah Jeff Pinkner said their whole world would be reconstructed in ep. 101 and it sure was into crap. But I still love Alias it just irritates that the writers were so lazy. Just look at 24 and Battlestar Galactica they have direction and don't leave gaping plot holes i'm not say they don't have any but at least they answer questions. I think if we had had their writers the show would have been much better cuz they actually care.

Anonymous said...

Ihaaheim yeah i can agree with that haha i do place most of the blame on jj lol he shouldn't have abandoned it waaaaaaah.

That's true about 24 and BSG but with 24 the seasons don't really run into eachother like Alias's did but now with Season 5 setting up 6 on 24 it should be interesting can't wait. I thoroughly enjoyed the first half of the finale if they could have just kept the same pace for the final moments then i would be happy it went from a bullet train to a turtle in like 5 mins. :)

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