You Only Live Twice: Goodbye, "Alias"
ABC has announced that the current season of "Alias," the show's fifth, will be its last. This is not a surprise, since the show has seen better days, both creatively and in terms of ratings. However, I come not to bury "Alias," but to praise it.
Despite changes to its cast and tweaks of its format, "Alias" has stayed true to its title -- a show about secret identities. Every main character was living some kind of lie, consciously or not. At first it was about Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner) balancing her typical twentysomething life with a clandestine spy career, which itself involved double agency. Depending on how you count it, that's three lives right there, not including the menagerie of disguises she wore week in and week out.
So on one level "Alias" was about Sydney struggling to regain a normal life after her recruitment into the CIA, which turned out to be a recruitment into a worldwide criminal organization called the Alliance, only posing as the CIA. Sydney's allies were her father Jack (Victor Garber), also a double agent; her CIA handler and secret crush Michael Vaughn (Michael Vartan); and her colleagues Marcus Dixon (Carl Lumbly) and Marshall Flinkman (Kevin Weisman), neither of whom knew their employer's secret.
That part of the show was straightforward James Bond-style espionage fantasy, done with panache and wit. However, "Alias" went a step further, giving Sydney's normal life equal treatment. Sure, Sydney struggled with lying to her friends on a regular basis about her business trips, and in that respect her angst was reminiscent of Buffy Summers'. Still, Buffy's social circle was fully integrated into her adventuring life, and Syd's wasn't.
Halfway through the second season, though, SD-6 was overthrown, and all the good guys came to work for the CIA. (My heart still breaks a little every time I see Dixon and Marshall being arrested by CIA stormtroopers.) They united against former SD-6 head Arvin Sloane (Ron Rifkin), who was on a quest to assemble a quasi-mystical machine built by an ancient visionary named Milo Rambaldi. Along the way Sydney's "real life" was shattered as well, with her roommate Francie (Merrin Dungey) replaced by an evil doppelganger, and her other best friend Will (Bradley Cooper) forced into the witness-protection program. As much of a sea change as this was, it reinforced a rule established from the first minutes of the first show -- once the spy life touches your loved ones, it changes them forever, and almost never for the better. Back then, Sydney's fiance was killed after she revealed her secret life to him; so in Season Two, the spy life picked up the spares.
Moreover, Season Two introduced Sydney's long-lost mother, herself the leader of a rival criminal organization, as a mysterious informant with shifting and often questionable loyalties. Played by Lena Olin, Irina Derevko exuded sensuality and menace in equal parts, and when she vanished at the end of the year, fans pleaded for her return.
It was not meant to be, though, at least not in the third season. Picking up with Sydney having lost two years to amnesia, Sloane apparently rehabilitated, and Vaughn married, Season Three was a somewhat frustrating exercise in prolonging the inevitable return of the status quo. Indeed, Season Four found the show going back to basics, with Sydney, Vaughn, and company welcoming Sydney's newfound sister into the spy fold.
So far Season Five feels like "Alias: The Next Generation," with Jennifer Garner's pregnancy necessitating the introduction of a few new spies. On the surface it looks like the Robert Patrick/Annabeth Gish seasons of "The X Files," but the common denominator of secret identities remains. In fact, to me the integration of new characters into the motifs and patterns of the show has been more seamless than replacing Mulder and Scully -- but as with that show, the core characters of "Alias" can't be replaced.
Of course, the cast deserves a lot of credit for keeping these characters fresh. Despite her character's constant frustrations with the spy game, Garner hasn't gotten as strident or one-note as Sarah Michelle Gellar did in the later seasons of "Buffy," and I can't say enough about the quiet intensity Garber, Rifkin, and Lumbly bring to their roles. Bradley Cooper was reliably funny playing what could have been a marginal character, and likewise Kevin Weisman continues to be entertaining beyond the bounds of a goofy geek.
Therefore, it's probably fitting that the show go out as it came in, with Sydney mourning the death of another fiance and having to take down another Alliance-like criminal web. Garner's pregnancy has prevented the show from doing much of the old wig-and-accent shenanigans which earned Sydney the nickname "Spy Barbie," but I hope that changes in time for the finale. It wouldn't be "Alias" without all-out, over-the-top antics -- and if Syd has to go over the top to get that fabled normal life she's craved, so much the better.
Despite changes to its cast and tweaks of its format, "Alias" has stayed true to its title -- a show about secret identities. Every main character was living some kind of lie, consciously or not. At first it was about Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner) balancing her typical twentysomething life with a clandestine spy career, which itself involved double agency. Depending on how you count it, that's three lives right there, not including the menagerie of disguises she wore week in and week out.
So on one level "Alias" was about Sydney struggling to regain a normal life after her recruitment into the CIA, which turned out to be a recruitment into a worldwide criminal organization called the Alliance, only posing as the CIA. Sydney's allies were her father Jack (Victor Garber), also a double agent; her CIA handler and secret crush Michael Vaughn (Michael Vartan); and her colleagues Marcus Dixon (Carl Lumbly) and Marshall Flinkman (Kevin Weisman), neither of whom knew their employer's secret.
That part of the show was straightforward James Bond-style espionage fantasy, done with panache and wit. However, "Alias" went a step further, giving Sydney's normal life equal treatment. Sure, Sydney struggled with lying to her friends on a regular basis about her business trips, and in that respect her angst was reminiscent of Buffy Summers'. Still, Buffy's social circle was fully integrated into her adventuring life, and Syd's wasn't.
Halfway through the second season, though, SD-6 was overthrown, and all the good guys came to work for the CIA. (My heart still breaks a little every time I see Dixon and Marshall being arrested by CIA stormtroopers.) They united against former SD-6 head Arvin Sloane (Ron Rifkin), who was on a quest to assemble a quasi-mystical machine built by an ancient visionary named Milo Rambaldi. Along the way Sydney's "real life" was shattered as well, with her roommate Francie (Merrin Dungey) replaced by an evil doppelganger, and her other best friend Will (Bradley Cooper) forced into the witness-protection program. As much of a sea change as this was, it reinforced a rule established from the first minutes of the first show -- once the spy life touches your loved ones, it changes them forever, and almost never for the better. Back then, Sydney's fiance was killed after she revealed her secret life to him; so in Season Two, the spy life picked up the spares.
Moreover, Season Two introduced Sydney's long-lost mother, herself the leader of a rival criminal organization, as a mysterious informant with shifting and often questionable loyalties. Played by Lena Olin, Irina Derevko exuded sensuality and menace in equal parts, and when she vanished at the end of the year, fans pleaded for her return.
It was not meant to be, though, at least not in the third season. Picking up with Sydney having lost two years to amnesia, Sloane apparently rehabilitated, and Vaughn married, Season Three was a somewhat frustrating exercise in prolonging the inevitable return of the status quo. Indeed, Season Four found the show going back to basics, with Sydney, Vaughn, and company welcoming Sydney's newfound sister into the spy fold.
So far Season Five feels like "Alias: The Next Generation," with Jennifer Garner's pregnancy necessitating the introduction of a few new spies. On the surface it looks like the Robert Patrick/Annabeth Gish seasons of "The X Files," but the common denominator of secret identities remains. In fact, to me the integration of new characters into the motifs and patterns of the show has been more seamless than replacing Mulder and Scully -- but as with that show, the core characters of "Alias" can't be replaced.
Of course, the cast deserves a lot of credit for keeping these characters fresh. Despite her character's constant frustrations with the spy game, Garner hasn't gotten as strident or one-note as Sarah Michelle Gellar did in the later seasons of "Buffy," and I can't say enough about the quiet intensity Garber, Rifkin, and Lumbly bring to their roles. Bradley Cooper was reliably funny playing what could have been a marginal character, and likewise Kevin Weisman continues to be entertaining beyond the bounds of a goofy geek.
Therefore, it's probably fitting that the show go out as it came in, with Sydney mourning the death of another fiance and having to take down another Alliance-like criminal web. Garner's pregnancy has prevented the show from doing much of the old wig-and-accent shenanigans which earned Sydney the nickname "Spy Barbie," but I hope that changes in time for the finale. It wouldn't be "Alias" without all-out, over-the-top antics -- and if Syd has to go over the top to get that fabled normal life she's craved, so much the better.
posted by Tom Bondurant @ 11:05 PM
1 Comments:
Some good points about the show, Tom, especially the last season seeing Syd losing another fiance and having to bring down another alliance.
But this last season has been so cliched and fomulaic to me. It's been almost unbearable in many respects. Syd is still getting all costumed up even when she's pregnant and still doing field work? Aye-yi-yi!
I'll probably continue to watch the rest of this season out of continuity and because Abrams says that the series won't end like other series typically do, so that has me interested.
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