feeling listless

TV One of the problems with great tv shows ending up on Sky is that the freeviewers amongst have to wait for the dvd to catch up. I've only just seen series three of JJ Abrams' Alias, and I can absolutely see why the series lost some fans. Clearly by the end of the second series, the drama had reached a pinnacle. After heartstoppingly dumping its originally premise mid-way then building twist upon twist through to a climax which brought together all of the threads which had built during the previous two years, and a mindbending cliffhanger, it was difficult to see were else the show could go, how it could build.

The first initial conundrum of series three was promising - where had Sydney Bristow been for two years? This seemed enough to sustain a good few episodes, perhaps the whole season, as tiny details would be built up until a final shocking revelation. Other interesting ideas including how the rest of the characters had changed over time - with Dixon in charge and Vaughn outside the CIA and married, the world of the show was turned on its head. Then slowly, almost as though the producers either didn't trust their own initial instincts or were getting stupefying pressure from the tv network to conform, the series unravels.

Sydney's mystery is answered in a whole episode mid-season. It's a throwaway, as though the show's created its own spoiler reel. Vaughn as a civilian teacher offered the prospect that would be seeing his old life in much the same way Will might in previous seasons - wanting to help but his hands tied. But suddenly he's brought back, making that initial revelation of his civilian hood pointless. Rather than making his new wife Lauren a nice person and so a much greater threat emotionally, she rather tediously turns out to be a double agent (kick ass certainly but a cliché).

Damagingly, with the excising of a home life for Sydney (or any of the cast) and any kind of 'civilian' character, the action and story become a closed shop. We're no longer seeing what our heroes are fighting for. Their fictional lives have become a treadmill with the audience frequently not given a breather from what is increasingly a convoluted, confusing story, burning through more plot than some series might have for it's entire run. It's a formula, but in places it's exhausting and importantly lacks jeopardy. The whole series seems have become a giant retcon, forever turning what we thought we knew on its head. Which would be fine if the writer didn't seem to be making it up as they go along.

The most successful episodes are mostly stand alone. Abrams himself sites the Ricky Gervais episode as his favourite, and it's mine too, probably because it's funny and cool in a way which the rest of the season isn't. Gervais' character has a strong back story (see also John Hannah in year one) and and for once the rest of the rest of the cast feels dimensional, not puppets to the plotline.

But still the series is watchable and that's because the actors are still breathing life into every scene. Jennifer Garner absolutely deserves her Emmy for continuing to make Sydney a loveable character even when all she's called upon to do is discover some more exposition and kick some bad people. But everyone else is grand, especially Greg Grunberg who's not given nearly enough work to do considering that his character Weiss is certainly the funniest character (Marshall's too cartoony for my taste). Also Victor Garber continues to make Jack Bristow the coolest man on television. No really.

I hear that in season four there is a move towards a standalone episode approach and a reintroduction of a semblance of a home life for Sydney. I hope so. Some of my favourite scenes in the opening two seasons hardly featured spies at all and were about the moments in between. It would be good to see more of those.