It's all relative
Oct. 20th, 2003 10:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwynI had a dream last night that involved Syd and Sark -- not really as a couple, but they were both in it, and I was in some kind of peril and it involved a weird hotel room, a strange little cafe, and lots of really cool clothes. I wish I could remember more of it, but I did something terrible to my neck in the first few minutes I was asleep, and ended up having one of the worst nights of my life -- neck in spasmy agony, hip hurting like hell, and my legs bothering me, plus unbelievable torrential rain (that has not abated) beating down on my window like herds of cattle.
Anyway. Alias left me more flummoxed than anything last night. I was especially left wanting by the conversation between Jack and Syd (the first one, where she was sitting with her not very carefully disguised Apple PowerBook). His comments about living in solitary confinement for a year and how it was Syd's strength that kept him going left me desperately requiring exegesis. He's so casual and blase about it, yet this is a pretty significant thing. No mattter how Joe Cool Jack can be, that's gotta affect a guy. I realize that it's Sydney's story, that this show is about her, but I confess I love stuff with SpyDad (and SpyMom, I miss her so), and something that would have such a huge impact on his life and his character has been passed off as if it was a vacation in Belize. I'd really like to see more about the aftereffects, but I have a feeling we won't -- that this is just a case of "well, we're moving on now, and it's all about Syd." I'm okay with that, but they've put Jack in an important position, particularly as he was the one person who didn't give up hope that she was alive; what happened to him because of that belief seems ripe with possibilities for story.
I'm not one of the people who wants Syd and Sark to get together -- I think the only way Syd could accept a guy like that in her life would be if he became tamed and "moral," and that's something that would sap the life right out of him -- but at this point I'd almost rather he do that than just show up for one scene and move on. It's hard with a large cast to give people enough time, but because everyone has to revolve around Syd, there's often not much chance to see the others. I think he totally knew who she was in that room, and has other cards to play first. But I loved Will, and he often didn't have much to do; I guess Sark will be this season's Will. And I keep saying this, but I'll say it again: If loving Weiss is wrong, I don't want to be right. He has become my favorite other character, I love how he interacts with everyone and he's funny and sweet. A guy like Vaughn or Sark I could never hope to get; a guy like Weiss is within my purview, and so he's more my ultimate guy than the others -- he seems ordinary, but he's extraordinary. I loved his loyalty to Vaughn last night, his desperation to help (and the fact that he fell asleep on the plane with all the briefing info in front of him).
Sometimes I love the over the topness of Alias. It's a lot like the over the topness of Nikita (the quick-change heroine, especially, who can shimmy into and out of a wet suit, plant a bomb or listening device, and then show up in another fabulous outfit instantly as if he hadn't just been underwater), and most of the time I love laughing at that. But that dive into the pool last night was just a little too much; surely such a long dive would have killed her in any normal swimming pool (not to mention ripped the damn diamonds off her leg). Stuff like that, when you let it get too crazy, starts to make the rest of the action harder to take. It's a fine line between fun unreality and turn off the TV unreality; at times they seem to be pushing that a bit this year. They seem to also be working very hard to make Lauren a bitch by having her yell at hubby; I'm not sure what the point of bringing her in and trying to create even the slightest bit of sympathy for her and her overbite is if you're going to yank the rug right out from under her in the first four eps. Between Sloane's sleazy machinations and insinuations, and the catfighting with Syd, and now the berating of her husband's work, they seem to be going into overtime trying to create an easy-to-get-rid-of character.
I realize right now the focus is on explaining those missing two years. But what I'd like to see is that there's proof those missing two years have happened to others, and what effect it had on them. We've had little hint of Vaughn's changes beyond his "I'm glad I moved on," there's not much sense of what's gone in inside Dixon, who was for a long time a kind of moral center to the show, we're missing any true effect on Jack, especially that year in solitary, and Marshall, whom I adore but who risks getting annoying, hasn't seemed to learn anything in two years (nor has the technology evolved much; that whole thing with the photo imaging last week was just lame -- in two years, think of the developments computer systems go through). I want to know that there really were two years missing, and if not, then a clearer sense of it being a dream world or alternate reality.
There's a lot of potential with the show, I'm just worried they might string it out too far. They have such a solid cast and good stories they could tell, so I'm hoping this is just a little bit of floundering about how to move it forward until sweeps (because that's what everyone does) and not an indication that everyone else's stories will take a back seat to Syd's constant anger and bewilderment. They should all have stories that relate to her situation; I hope Abrams will find a way to tell them.
And does anyone know how long is too long of a story to post in LJ? I see stuff about frequency and length in the FAQ, but it doesn't really address what I'm interested in -- posting a fic in the journal that might be more than just a few thousand words. Have people used their journals to post more than just flash fics or drabbles or whatever, and did you split the posts up if it's long? Or can you really slap, say, a 6,000+ word story in it without creating a lot of reading problems? I'm just curious about others's experiences.
Anyway. Alias left me more flummoxed than anything last night. I was especially left wanting by the conversation between Jack and Syd (the first one, where she was sitting with her not very carefully disguised Apple PowerBook). His comments about living in solitary confinement for a year and how it was Syd's strength that kept him going left me desperately requiring exegesis. He's so casual and blase about it, yet this is a pretty significant thing. No mattter how Joe Cool Jack can be, that's gotta affect a guy. I realize that it's Sydney's story, that this show is about her, but I confess I love stuff with SpyDad (and SpyMom, I miss her so), and something that would have such a huge impact on his life and his character has been passed off as if it was a vacation in Belize. I'd really like to see more about the aftereffects, but I have a feeling we won't -- that this is just a case of "well, we're moving on now, and it's all about Syd." I'm okay with that, but they've put Jack in an important position, particularly as he was the one person who didn't give up hope that she was alive; what happened to him because of that belief seems ripe with possibilities for story.
I'm not one of the people who wants Syd and Sark to get together -- I think the only way Syd could accept a guy like that in her life would be if he became tamed and "moral," and that's something that would sap the life right out of him -- but at this point I'd almost rather he do that than just show up for one scene and move on. It's hard with a large cast to give people enough time, but because everyone has to revolve around Syd, there's often not much chance to see the others. I think he totally knew who she was in that room, and has other cards to play first. But I loved Will, and he often didn't have much to do; I guess Sark will be this season's Will. And I keep saying this, but I'll say it again: If loving Weiss is wrong, I don't want to be right. He has become my favorite other character, I love how he interacts with everyone and he's funny and sweet. A guy like Vaughn or Sark I could never hope to get; a guy like Weiss is within my purview, and so he's more my ultimate guy than the others -- he seems ordinary, but he's extraordinary. I loved his loyalty to Vaughn last night, his desperation to help (and the fact that he fell asleep on the plane with all the briefing info in front of him).
Sometimes I love the over the topness of Alias. It's a lot like the over the topness of Nikita (the quick-change heroine, especially, who can shimmy into and out of a wet suit, plant a bomb or listening device, and then show up in another fabulous outfit instantly as if he hadn't just been underwater), and most of the time I love laughing at that. But that dive into the pool last night was just a little too much; surely such a long dive would have killed her in any normal swimming pool (not to mention ripped the damn diamonds off her leg). Stuff like that, when you let it get too crazy, starts to make the rest of the action harder to take. It's a fine line between fun unreality and turn off the TV unreality; at times they seem to be pushing that a bit this year. They seem to also be working very hard to make Lauren a bitch by having her yell at hubby; I'm not sure what the point of bringing her in and trying to create even the slightest bit of sympathy for her and her overbite is if you're going to yank the rug right out from under her in the first four eps. Between Sloane's sleazy machinations and insinuations, and the catfighting with Syd, and now the berating of her husband's work, they seem to be going into overtime trying to create an easy-to-get-rid-of character.
I realize right now the focus is on explaining those missing two years. But what I'd like to see is that there's proof those missing two years have happened to others, and what effect it had on them. We've had little hint of Vaughn's changes beyond his "I'm glad I moved on," there's not much sense of what's gone in inside Dixon, who was for a long time a kind of moral center to the show, we're missing any true effect on Jack, especially that year in solitary, and Marshall, whom I adore but who risks getting annoying, hasn't seemed to learn anything in two years (nor has the technology evolved much; that whole thing with the photo imaging last week was just lame -- in two years, think of the developments computer systems go through). I want to know that there really were two years missing, and if not, then a clearer sense of it being a dream world or alternate reality.
There's a lot of potential with the show, I'm just worried they might string it out too far. They have such a solid cast and good stories they could tell, so I'm hoping this is just a little bit of floundering about how to move it forward until sweeps (because that's what everyone does) and not an indication that everyone else's stories will take a back seat to Syd's constant anger and bewilderment. They should all have stories that relate to her situation; I hope Abrams will find a way to tell them.
And does anyone know how long is too long of a story to post in LJ? I see stuff about frequency and length in the FAQ, but it doesn't really address what I'm interested in -- posting a fic in the journal that might be more than just a few thousand words. Have people used their journals to post more than just flash fics or drabbles or whatever, and did you split the posts up if it's long? Or can you really slap, say, a 6,000+ word story in it without creating a lot of reading problems? I'm just curious about others's experiences.
