Wednesday, December 06, 2006

100

Hi Ya'll,

Sorry for the lack of update. I will be watching the 100th episode "There is only one Sydney Bristow" tonight and then tomorrow, we are going to break the blog wide open. I love this episode for two reasons-

1. Will Tippin (My own personal hero)
2. Baby Iz

Okay, three reasons-
3. Ana Espinoza (She's bad ass!)

Stay tuned...

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

And what a fine tribute to Sydney Bristow! No taking her for granted and someone who will always be there.

What about the jump out of the train to save Will. *sigh*

Anonymous said...

I second the Espinoza love! What a fun character. So glad they brought her back. And the kiss on the window? Perfect.

Page48 said...

I just finished watching episode 4.22, which I like to call "One Night in Svogda" (my tribute to the Paris Hilton film of a similar name), and now I have to decide whether I want to walk that Season 5 plank one more time so soon after the painful first run.

If you want an appreciation of how badly Irina's scriptwriter lost the plot in 5.17, just drag out the Svogda episode one more time. These are two different women. In Svogda we see an Irina that loves her family, albeit in a completely f***ed up (non-traditional, if you prefer) sort of way. This is a woman who gently prodded Vaughn to come clean with Sydney if he wanted their marriage to work, and who promised to be a witness to Sydney's wedding. This is a woman who displayed concern for the welfare of her daughters' safety, knowing the implications of Rambaldi's prophecy.

In other words, this was a sympathetic Irina, the polar opposite of 5.17's cold-as-ice mass-murdering, daughter-killing bitch. I like the warm and fuzzy Irina (the one who iced her evil sister Elena with a close range shot to the forehead) much better than 5.17's twisted psychopathic Irina. This is just one reason why I fear a return engagement with Season 5. There are other reasons.

And yes, there really is Only One Sydney Bristow, and I want her back.

uncle111 said...

page48,
I've watched S5 4-5 times now. It has dulled some of my original malreaction. The episodes after the break are some of the best of the series. The final hour, however, remains as devistating as ever. But watch it anyway! More than once. It will end up being therapy.

Anonymous said...

I agree, Uncle. The cream for me was watching all the actors surpass what the writers wrote. I still have not watched the finale from its initial first run, though. So you are doing a lot better than me.

page48: What are your other reasons?

SRM said...

page 48 I definitely see where you're coming from. I just recently watched the S4 finale and agree that the Irena from that episode is a completely different woman from the S5 finale. I'm watching my S5 DVDs and I just finished the 5th episode, so I still have a ways to go, but I'm curious to see how I'll react to the ending eppies the 2nd time around, we'll see...

Looking forward to your articles GS! :)

Page48 said...

dlove,

Other things about Season 5 that make me squeemish would include Nadia's ridiculous death and subsequent ghostly resurrection. Bringing Nadia back from her Svogda hangover just to shove her head through a coffee table and turn her into the Ghost of Christmas Past still doesn't set well with me. I was never a huge Nadia fan but she served a purpose in the Rambaldi story. Using her silly death as a catalyst to fire up the "endgame" smacked of "let's just get this over with" to me.

The lack of Vaughn all season was not a popular move with me. I guess personal lives enter into these things but my Alias includes Vaughn.

I thought Sloane conducted very little meaningful business in Season 5, at least until the end. I like to see Sloane wheel and deal. Brooding about a cure for Nadia (who he later left laying in a pool of blood on his floor without even calling for medical help) was a waste of Sloane's talents. Sloane needs to be in charge of something, SD6, APO, something.

I thought Jack's "death" (I'm still in denial) was gratuitous, a needless act to jerk that last tear out of Alias fans, as if we didn't have enough to mourn.

Wasting our time with "The Cardinal". Nuff said on that one.

Tom committing suicide, apparently losing the will to live, was another gratuitous death, for the sole purpose of giving us that "moment" between Tom and Rachel. She would have said yes. Nobody on the planet has a greater survival instinct than these agents. Can you picture Sydney giving it up like that?

And, above all else, I fear another go-round with Season 5 because of the finality. The network's gassing of the best show ever, while much lesser shows are allowed to go on forever. Can anyone say ER? It would be a lot easier to accept the flaws in Season 5 if they were just setting up a great Season 6.

Truth be Told (ooooh, there it is), I don't need Nadia or Tom to get my Alias rush, so dispensing with them is no biggie for me. Killing Jack and Irina does not make for comfortable viewing and leaves a nasty Season 5 taste in my mouth.

Girlscout said...

I agree 100% Page- about everything- Nadia's death, Jack's death, Irina, lack of Vaughn, lack of Sloane's wheeling and dealing. All the things that ARE Alias were absent in season 5. Sydney almost faded into the background for me- remember how powerful she was in season 1, 2, and 3? She lost that in season 4. The girl who was never jaded by her job became jaded and it makes me want to crawl into bed and watch old eppies of Felicity. Yeah, Felicity.

Page48 said...

Oh yeah, GS, I remember Sydney when she rocked.

She looked so young in that first episode, taking that first CIA call in the cemetery. As an aside, it occurs to me that Danny died because Syd told him she worked for the CIA, but, it wasn't until she stood on top of Danny's grave, that she was officially drafted into the CIA.

Sydney was at her best when her world was black and white. Vaughn good, Sloane bad. CIA good, SD6 bad. Season 4 turned that upside down when Sloane became her boss again. Sydney's strong sense of right and wrong made this arrangement more painful to her than when Suit and Glasses was pulling out her tooth. Adding to her frustration was having to tone down her hatred of Sloane for Nadia's sake.

No wonder Sydney became jaded. She put everything on the line to take Sloane down and now, even Vaughn, her emotional rock when she had no one else to talk to, was taking his orders from Arvin Sloane. The world must have looked very different to Sydney Bristow in Season 4 than it did when she and Vaughn were going over her counter-missions in Season 1. She must have wondered if the madness would ever end.

I remember Sydney when she rocked and I miss her.

I've never seen a minute of Felicity. Someday I'll download an episode just to see JG pre-Alias.

SKlaft said...

May I just add a little to the comment on two Irenas?

The S-4 closer was the real Irena. That's what makes the series closer so hard to swallow (okay, not the only thing, but one of them). Her character melded and developed perfectly as a woman who had been a spy all her life realizes that her daughter(s) followed in her footsteps, a notion that scared the life out of her. She struggled within herself to maintain two agendas the whole time. One: aquire power and influence within the world of espionage in order to obtain the Rambaldi artifacts. Two: Get Sydney out of the line of fire and save her from a life of sorrow, the only life Irena herself had known; and protect her daughters from the harm she fear would come upon them. This Irena we see very breifly from behind the two way glass. She didn't know how to do both things, so she did the best she could, making sure the Doctor's drugs would not harm the baby, and ensuring Syd's safety during the plecenta previa incident. Then came "Maternal Instinct." That's when the writers knew the show was closing, so they gave us a half-baked explanation of "truth takes time," while still behaving like a heartless criminal. This, of course led to the Irena of 'the end.' The woman who decided to work (again!) with Sloane after he had killed her second daughter; then, when Syd shows up (miraculously) to stop her meniacle plans, she decides to fight it out 'to the death.' WHAT?!

Danger: a swift dream-like tangent follows.

I say... it was second double, loyal to Prophet 5, who took control of Irena's assets shortly after P5 learned that Irena left Sydney alive to escape. P5 thought it poetic justice to put her back in that same spider hole out of which Nadia and Syd saved her in s4. We could see her again in the movie where Syd rescues her again, and she confesses that there were 6 Irena double made, and now that two are dead, they need to hunt down the remaining 4.

(Project Helix solves everything...) Jack could have survived unconscious in an Egyptian hospital, where they took him after they began digging in the ruins of the cave and found him - no bullet wounds, no harm from falling rocks (Hmm.. let's say rambaldi-juice.) They would have also found a few dead workers with the heads beaten in by an unknown assailant. No one else was found in the dig.

Meanwhile, Sark has been secretly deputized and has been working as a Narc for the new black-ops group run by none other than Michael Vaughn. This time, there is no congressional oversight, no answering to the higher-ups in the CIA. Now Syd has to deal with the complications of trying to be the softhearted mom she wants to be, but 'the job' makes her hardened. The neighbors with a "playdate" don't know what she and Vaughn do, so its back to keeping secrets from her freinds. Sometimes it is comforting for her to continue to have a confidant in Dixon, her partner in the field, and whose daughter babysits the little Bristow-Vaughns.

Oh, and now that the baddies are gone, Will comes back to be a field-trained agent, but prefers to work in the office as an analyst. Yet, he cannot tell his new wife what he does for a living, and spending so much time with Syd, and having Vaughn for a boss is extreemly difficult.

There's all sorts of tension, and plenty of story left to tell.

-R.

Anonymous said...

Robetron,
you are my new hero. I want you to start writing episode recaps for "Alias Redeux". Not season 6 but a whole new Alias story! It might give us all a shot in the arm after our re-living the death of Alias with Season 5 out. Please think about it. You are really on to something!
Jennifer

SKlaft said...

Sounds like fun, Jennifer. What do I do?

R.

Anonymous said...

Robetron,
you could write up an episode and email it to Kendrah. She was kind enough to post some of my essays on the blog for all to read.

Kendrah, would you mind if you had a new guest blogger? Robetron's ideas on how Alias could continue sound like something I am dying to read.
Jennifer

Girlscout said...

Hi Bonkers, Robby knows the door is always open to him. he does have some great ideas, I would love a piece to post. With my busy schedule, its hard to find time to watch eppies anymore, reading is easier. Come on Robby, please the masses!

SKlaft said...

By popular demand, I'm working on it. I'll have to do it in chapters. Every episode hasseveral chapters, and to do it right, I will have to deal with the details at length, which would take more room than a short blog can hold. Maybe chapters or partial chapters will work?