Monday, June 13, 2005

WELL, FOR STARTERS, MY NAME ISN'T KIM COSMOPOLITAN: Thanks for the introduction, Adam. I’ve been looking forward to joining the exalted ranks of ALOTT5MA contributors for a long time.

As Adam noted, I believe that the work of J.J. Abrams has gotten short shrift on the otherwise fulsome and incisive television coverage around here. What does that mean? It’s time to bring the Alias. And the Lost. And no doubt a bunch of other stuff. But definitely the Alias.

If you don’t watch Alias yet, let me get you up to speed on what you’ve missed for the last four seasons. (No, there is too much. Let me sum up.) Sydney Bristow is a spy. And so’s her dad, and her mom, and her fiancé (but not her dead fiancé), and her half-sister, and those of her best friends who haven’t died two or three times or else been forced into the witness protection program. Oh, and there’s a guy named Milo Rambaldi – a 15th century inventor, prophet, and all-around MacGuffin. (That’s it for the back-story. TWoP will, of course, be happy to provide you with more detailed reenactments of each and every episode.)

So here we are. Hanging out for the summer after J.J. Abrams’s cliffhanger du jour. Traditionally, J.J. gives good cliffhanger:

Season One: “Mom!?”
Season Two: “You’ve been missing for almost two years.”
Season Three: “Sydney, you were never supposed to have found this.”
Season Four: “Well, for starters, my name isn’t Michael Vaughn.”

Only one of these has been a clunker so far: Season 3. After a fantastic set-up, the ABC honchos delivered an ultimatum: ATTENTION J.J.! PLEASE MAKE THIS SHOW MORE ACCESSIBLE TO THE LAW-AND-ORDER-CROWD-THAT-DOESN’T-WISH-TO-FOLLOW-PLOT-ARCS-SPANNING-MORE-THAN-A-SINGLE-EPISODE. IN EXCHANGE FOR THIS FAVOR, WE WILL GIVE ALIAS THE PRIMO SLOT RIGHT AFTER THAT OTHER KICKASS NEW SHOW YOU’RE CREATING FOR US. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER. NOW GO SCREW UP YOUR CLIFFHANGER. So a top secret CIA document about a project initiated on Sydney’s date of birth and run by Jack Bristow (almost certainly intended to include further insight into the brilliant Project Christmas that so tantalized us and Will Tippin back in Season Two) somehow became a document explaining simply that Jack had killed Irina Derevko, Sydney’s mom, in 2004. Uh huh.

Which brings us to the latest season-ending HUH? Vaughn isn’t Vaughn? Then who is he? And perhaps more importantly, does J.J. himself know, or are he and a gaggle of Alias writers sitting off in a conference room for the summer saying, “Ok, what if he’s actually his dad, BILL Vaughn, and he drank some of that Rambaldi green stuff to transform him into an eight-year-old so he could protect The Chosen One from the Messenger?” “No, I’ve got a better one: maybe the real Michael Vaughn died in the Big Red Ball of Goop Incident from the Season One finale and Sloane used the DNA duplicating device from Season Two to turn someone into a new Faux Vaughn to keep an eye on Sydney!” “Wait, what if he’s actually a fourth Derevko sister?” “Dude, what if Vaughn is actually Rambaldi??”

Personally, I think there are a number of paths they could take to give this cliffhanger a really satisfying resolution. The thing that concerns me is that most of them require a whole lot of knowledge of the Alias universe, which isn’t the path that the ABC brass have been looking for from the show. Then again, rumors abound that Season Five will be Alias’s last. So if you’re already a lame duck, why not make the show’s curtain call the kind of complicated, convoluted dance that the party faithful will love? Tell us what the hell Arvin Sloane, Jack Bristow, and Irina Derevko have really been up to for all these years. Bring back Francie/Allison. Let’s see Sark and the purloined test tube of green goo (said green goo may be necessary to deal with Jen Garner’s unfortunate-on-so-many-levels pregnancy, anyway). Bring back Will Tippin and let him get to the bottom of Project Christmas. Get Kendall off that island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean for a little while. And no one actually thinks that Lauren is dead, do they?

I guess it’s time to see whether there’s a subset of ALOTT5MA’s readership that actually cares about Alias. So who’s this not-Vaughn guy, anyway? And how would you like to see J.J. handle Season Five? Remember, J.J. and the gang are hanging out in that conference room, looking for inspiration wherever they can get it. Perhaps they'll find it here.

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