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gwynSorry. I had to say it. And if you never saw William Shatner's brilliant performance about, what? four, five years ago? on the MTV movie awards, where he played all three major roles in Seven (Pitt, Spacey, and Freeman) in their little spoof, then of course that title will mean nothing. But it was all I could think about when I saw Alias last night.
Because what's not fun about a head in a box? It always increases the tension and gives everyone a chance to act grieved, yet terrified and disgusted. (One of my all-time favorite scenes in La Femme Nikita was when a bad guy presents Michael with a head in a box, the only remaining piece of one of Michael's fellow agents. Michael looks in the box, and says simply, "thank you.") And of course it was fun that the head was in a porno theatre.
With that bit, and the return of Sark, it reminded me what's been missing a bit from the rest of these first two episodes, and that I'm hoping the show will bring back with more force: a sense of humor about its own over the top ridiculousness. It was always good about winking at the absurdity of its premises, but so far this season seems to be trying to act as if it's a serious show about real spies and covert organizations. Even with the buffoonish enemy of the NSC guy, there hasn't been the tongue-in-cheekness we've come to rely on underneath the earnestness. They even managed to completely eradicate Sark's sark-asm last night, which must have been pretty hard to do; hopefully his being out of confinement will give him the necessary room to get back to his Sarky old self. Because I love the little bastard, I do.
And oh, the hint of detante between Spy Daddy and Spy Mommy! Even in chat text, there's still something there -- instead of "I will kill you," we got "I miss you, too." What happened in those two years to make Jack say that, when, as Sloane pointed out, he swore never to trust Irina again? I want to see this way more than Syd's missing years -- holy cow, what a setup! Spy mom jolted that series into the stratosphere last year; I desperately want her back, making everyone jumpy and getting Jack hot under the collar.
Speaking of Sloane. In the past, I had no deep-seated desire to see that much of him. I loved scenes like last night with Jack, where these two old stage pros are acting it out, showing us their great chops. But the emphasis placed on him and his search for the Rambaldi device never hit much of a story chord with me, and I could never understand why we got to see so much Sloane skin, yet never got to see Sark skin or Vaughn or Will skin. But he's growing on me, partly because of the way they've reinvented his character -- or have they? Jack said nearly the same thing he said to Irina last year, and his protectiveness about Syd regarding Sloane is not unlike his protectiveness regarding her mother last year. Watching Sloane push Jack's buttons, seeing him kind of ooze around with his oily calm, could be fascinating, especially in light of what Dixon said. What is his motivation? There's a thoughtfulness and attention to detail in his character that could be interesting -- he was able to reel off things like "the president's wife is a vegetarian, see that she's taken care of" for the dinner plans, so if he's that detail oriented, that focused on the needs of others and able to plan ahead for any eventuality... what could he be cooking up? This actually intrigues me in a way that Sloane's character was never able to intrigue me before.
And down to Syd and Vaughn. Well, frankly, despite his declaration (and he made it sound reasonable), I do still think the contrast between Jack's belief in Syd's ability to survive something, and Vaughn's lack of belief, is interesting, and I wonder if they'll continue to draw that line. I don't have an automatic knee jerk response to the wife. As much as I'm a shipper for those two, at this point I think Syd would be much better off either spending time with Weiss, who deserves a hot babe like her because he's funny, or a little bad-boy redemption with His Blondness. Don't mope, get some action, girl!
The only thing I did have a knee jerk response to was the cliche of the support group, and how Our Heroine is Strong. Gah. This has become such a cliche of the hero who finds the support group full of schmucks and doesn't need them to cope that I want to throw things at the TV when they do this. Try something different for a change. It's old. But much more than last week, I see some possibilities for the show. Last week felt like too much of an extension of the bad writing idea to move the show forward in time. I still felt like there was nothing significantly different about the show or the people other than the experiences we've been told about, but at least it looks like they might step it up a bit more now. For me, it seems as if Abrams is just paying lip service to the two years thing through job descriptions, but I'm hopeful he'll use a potentially interesting background to give us more resonant story lines. Looking forward to more.
And if you want to see what I did with part of my weekend, head over to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
merryish's journal. I joined my buds feochadn, movies_michelle, and merryish to watch them carve pumpkins (I have jack trauma, I can't do the carving thing -- shudder) and have dinner and watch Halloween and H20, the latter of which I'd never seen. Much fun, and in my enjoyment of their pumpkins, it was pointed out that I sounded like an art critic, so I did just that -- I wrote up art criticism for each piece of jack o lantern art. It's me at my creative worst. I especially like the Section One under-eye torture scars underneath the middle pumpkin's eyes.
Because what's not fun about a head in a box? It always increases the tension and gives everyone a chance to act grieved, yet terrified and disgusted. (One of my all-time favorite scenes in La Femme Nikita was when a bad guy presents Michael with a head in a box, the only remaining piece of one of Michael's fellow agents. Michael looks in the box, and says simply, "thank you.") And of course it was fun that the head was in a porno theatre.
With that bit, and the return of Sark, it reminded me what's been missing a bit from the rest of these first two episodes, and that I'm hoping the show will bring back with more force: a sense of humor about its own over the top ridiculousness. It was always good about winking at the absurdity of its premises, but so far this season seems to be trying to act as if it's a serious show about real spies and covert organizations. Even with the buffoonish enemy of the NSC guy, there hasn't been the tongue-in-cheekness we've come to rely on underneath the earnestness. They even managed to completely eradicate Sark's sark-asm last night, which must have been pretty hard to do; hopefully his being out of confinement will give him the necessary room to get back to his Sarky old self. Because I love the little bastard, I do.
And oh, the hint of detante between Spy Daddy and Spy Mommy! Even in chat text, there's still something there -- instead of "I will kill you," we got "I miss you, too." What happened in those two years to make Jack say that, when, as Sloane pointed out, he swore never to trust Irina again? I want to see this way more than Syd's missing years -- holy cow, what a setup! Spy mom jolted that series into the stratosphere last year; I desperately want her back, making everyone jumpy and getting Jack hot under the collar.
Speaking of Sloane. In the past, I had no deep-seated desire to see that much of him. I loved scenes like last night with Jack, where these two old stage pros are acting it out, showing us their great chops. But the emphasis placed on him and his search for the Rambaldi device never hit much of a story chord with me, and I could never understand why we got to see so much Sloane skin, yet never got to see Sark skin or Vaughn or Will skin. But he's growing on me, partly because of the way they've reinvented his character -- or have they? Jack said nearly the same thing he said to Irina last year, and his protectiveness about Syd regarding Sloane is not unlike his protectiveness regarding her mother last year. Watching Sloane push Jack's buttons, seeing him kind of ooze around with his oily calm, could be fascinating, especially in light of what Dixon said. What is his motivation? There's a thoughtfulness and attention to detail in his character that could be interesting -- he was able to reel off things like "the president's wife is a vegetarian, see that she's taken care of" for the dinner plans, so if he's that detail oriented, that focused on the needs of others and able to plan ahead for any eventuality... what could he be cooking up? This actually intrigues me in a way that Sloane's character was never able to intrigue me before.
And down to Syd and Vaughn. Well, frankly, despite his declaration (and he made it sound reasonable), I do still think the contrast between Jack's belief in Syd's ability to survive something, and Vaughn's lack of belief, is interesting, and I wonder if they'll continue to draw that line. I don't have an automatic knee jerk response to the wife. As much as I'm a shipper for those two, at this point I think Syd would be much better off either spending time with Weiss, who deserves a hot babe like her because he's funny, or a little bad-boy redemption with His Blondness. Don't mope, get some action, girl!
The only thing I did have a knee jerk response to was the cliche of the support group, and how Our Heroine is Strong. Gah. This has become such a cliche of the hero who finds the support group full of schmucks and doesn't need them to cope that I want to throw things at the TV when they do this. Try something different for a change. It's old. But much more than last week, I see some possibilities for the show. Last week felt like too much of an extension of the bad writing idea to move the show forward in time. I still felt like there was nothing significantly different about the show or the people other than the experiences we've been told about, but at least it looks like they might step it up a bit more now. For me, it seems as if Abrams is just paying lip service to the two years thing through job descriptions, but I'm hopeful he'll use a potentially interesting background to give us more resonant story lines. Looking forward to more.
And if you want to see what I did with part of my weekend, head over to
merryish's journal. I joined my buds feochadn, movies_michelle, and merryish to watch them carve pumpkins (I have jack trauma, I can't do the carving thing -- shudder) and have dinner and watch Halloween and H20, the latter of which I'd never seen. Much fun, and in my enjoyment of their pumpkins, it was pointed out that I sounded like an art critic, so I did just that -- I wrote up art criticism for each piece of jack o lantern art. It's me at my creative worst. I especially like the Section One under-eye torture scars underneath the middle pumpkin's eyes.
