Haven't we seen this about a million and one times before--something dramatic, exciting and totally unexplained happens in the teaser and then
Alias spins the clock back a couple of days so we can all be shocked, stunned and surprised at the events leading up to what we see unfolding on-screen. In this case, we're all supposed to be stunned and on the our edge of our seats that Vaughn would shoot Dixon. But surely, he must have a good reason for it, we say to ourselves. Let's go along for the ride!
Now, there are times when I've been irritated by Alias, but there are few times when I've honestly been itching to hit the fast-forward button. Until this week.
For one thing, I could care less about Vaughn's search to find his father--a plotline that thankfully appears to have come to an end. I just didn't buy Michael Vartan's "I'm so angry" act. This is the guy who goes undercover and puts his feelings aside every week, but yet his disdain for what he has to do here surfaces through? Was it an act? It didn't seem like Vaughn was putting on much of an act. And this is a man who changed identities in the field as often as Sydney does--he should be better at it. Oh, but he gets in a zinger on the blonde is practically tearing off her clothes for him. "This is the second time the CIA has rejected you." Good to know Vaughn speaks for the entire CIA in this matter.
So, Vaughn has to go up against the CIA to recover an artifcat that is Rimbaldi in origin. Just as I think I might get interested, this one just goes paint by the numbers and fails to engage my interest. Part of it is that Vaughn has little to do in the show. I figured out this week that I don't care anything about the character and I haven't for a while now. Had he gone rogue, that might have been interesting, but honestly, he's just no where nearly as much fun as Jack, Sloane or Marshall. Heck, even Weiss is more interesting that Vaughn and he barely gets half the screen time Vaughn does. Is it just me or did this whole storyline seem like a ploy to get Michael Vartan an Emmy nod? Let's have him run the gamut of emotion and get him and Emmy. Well, if this is what he does, I wouldn't expect an early call.
Meanwhile, Nadia is off visiting her evil Aunt Katya in prison. Katya uses Nadia to bring Syd to see her (Katya) and then reveals that--mommy dearest didn't want to have you killed Syd. Katya knows who it was--the answer is hidden in a clock, which Syd picks up and then surf on the Net at work to find out--golly, it's Slaone. But just as we think--ha, ha, he really is evil, we have the final reveal in which Joel Grey is also calling himself Sloane and is also hot for the Rimbaldi stuff. Everyone say it with me here--g'huh?!?
This little twist could have been nice had it not come completely out of left field. The best plot twists are those that you find out and you go--oh so that explains it all. For example, season two of
Farscape. Crichton starts acting strange and we aren't sure why until about two-thirds of the way into the season we find out--by the way, Scorpius planted a chip in Crichton's head to spy on him and it's slowly driving him mad. Then you go--oh, that explains all these things that happened until now and it works as a plot twist. On
Alias, they pull stuff out of the air and expect us to just buy it because they told us to. The writers are not working for anything here and it shows.
posted by Michael Hickerson at 4/15/2005 03:15:00 PM |
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