Anything but the Visqueen!
Dec. 1st, 2003 09:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwynWhat is it about huge sheets of plastic that seem to infiltrate nightmares in movies and TV shows? Does Visqueen have some kind of Jungian collective unconscious effect on most people, bringing out our darkest fears of semi-transparency, where we can half see our foes, half not see them? Or that we're going to be strangled (wrapped) in plastic? I wonder about this.
I can think of a number of times this effect has been used, most notably in Buffy, with Xander's clown nightmare (clowns and Visqueen! Now there's a nightmare, without anything else even needing to happen) and now our girl Syd. Or maybe it has some kind of Freudian significance, but since Freud's signifiers are usually somewhat contrived and silly, I'm hard pressed to figure it out -- probably some kind of fear of returning to our mother's wombs, or something. Whatever it is, sheets of plastic rule in the nightmare world of cinema.
Most of this episode left me a little more bored than I would have wished; it felt like they were padding it out so that they could have the "oh god" cliffhanger line. I especially resent all my action-packed over the topness being muffled so that David Cronenberg can mug and drag the show down. That whole sequence was a snooze, and somewhat irritating for me. I'd much rather have had less Cronenberg in favor of a brief but pointless appearance of Sark, for instance, or some I still really hate you eye sex between Sloane and SpyDaddy.
I love what they're doing with Jack, because I've quite fallen for SpyDaddy (though I was crushed to read the TV Guide article that said SpyMom won't be back this year; they were so very very hot together, and I'm kind of sad that it won't happen), and it's fun to see him loosening up a little in some respects, showing the traces of what's made him such a successful spy. But I think after last week's "my dad loves me so much, he hires a black ops team to rescue me from a government facility to the tune of three million dollars", anything less is going to seem like... well, less, particularly since this seemed to be all about Syd macking with Vaughn, outrageous dreams, and padding it out till the ending.
Though I recognize it's hard to sustain such a frantic pace, so you throw in things like dying (Syd seems to recover from having a needle the size of Texas jammed into her heart, and flatlining, so easily. They should teach that in school) and the hand and all that just to keep the interest up. But I find I often have less patience for that; I'm incredibly character-development driven, so I tend to like either the serious emotional issue storylines, or the really wild chases and capers and all that nonsense. That's what Alias has always done best, to me, and Cronenberg's appearance felt like so much wasted space. I'd have rather spent more time with Dixon having staredowns with Lindsey. I like seeing Dixon go head to head with the bad guys, and am really looking forward to seeing where this story goes with him, especially now that Uncle Arvin's duplicitousness will become a factor once again.
Since Sloane is the master of the triple and quadruple cross, I'm going to be interested in seeing how he sets up both the CIA folks and Lindsey, as well as how Sark will factor in (becuase you know he's gotta). There's a lot of interesting potential there, and I'm hoping they don't keep going for the special guest appearances that often sap the energy out of the show, like the Tarantino debacle and this appearance by Cronenberg. Sometimes, less is more, even on a show as frenetic and absurd as Alias. They've proven that time and again, where the quiet moments were the most memorable; I hope this isn't a sign that Abrams is trying to hard to push some kind of envelope to draw a different audience. But next week's sure looks like a hoot, and I miss Willage so very much.
I can think of a number of times this effect has been used, most notably in Buffy, with Xander's clown nightmare (clowns and Visqueen! Now there's a nightmare, without anything else even needing to happen) and now our girl Syd. Or maybe it has some kind of Freudian significance, but since Freud's signifiers are usually somewhat contrived and silly, I'm hard pressed to figure it out -- probably some kind of fear of returning to our mother's wombs, or something. Whatever it is, sheets of plastic rule in the nightmare world of cinema.
Most of this episode left me a little more bored than I would have wished; it felt like they were padding it out so that they could have the "oh god" cliffhanger line. I especially resent all my action-packed over the topness being muffled so that David Cronenberg can mug and drag the show down. That whole sequence was a snooze, and somewhat irritating for me. I'd much rather have had less Cronenberg in favor of a brief but pointless appearance of Sark, for instance, or some I still really hate you eye sex between Sloane and SpyDaddy.
I love what they're doing with Jack, because I've quite fallen for SpyDaddy (though I was crushed to read the TV Guide article that said SpyMom won't be back this year; they were so very very hot together, and I'm kind of sad that it won't happen), and it's fun to see him loosening up a little in some respects, showing the traces of what's made him such a successful spy. But I think after last week's "my dad loves me so much, he hires a black ops team to rescue me from a government facility to the tune of three million dollars", anything less is going to seem like... well, less, particularly since this seemed to be all about Syd macking with Vaughn, outrageous dreams, and padding it out till the ending.
Though I recognize it's hard to sustain such a frantic pace, so you throw in things like dying (Syd seems to recover from having a needle the size of Texas jammed into her heart, and flatlining, so easily. They should teach that in school) and the hand and all that just to keep the interest up. But I find I often have less patience for that; I'm incredibly character-development driven, so I tend to like either the serious emotional issue storylines, or the really wild chases and capers and all that nonsense. That's what Alias has always done best, to me, and Cronenberg's appearance felt like so much wasted space. I'd have rather spent more time with Dixon having staredowns with Lindsey. I like seeing Dixon go head to head with the bad guys, and am really looking forward to seeing where this story goes with him, especially now that Uncle Arvin's duplicitousness will become a factor once again.
Since Sloane is the master of the triple and quadruple cross, I'm going to be interested in seeing how he sets up both the CIA folks and Lindsey, as well as how Sark will factor in (becuase you know he's gotta). There's a lot of interesting potential there, and I'm hoping they don't keep going for the special guest appearances that often sap the energy out of the show, like the Tarantino debacle and this appearance by Cronenberg. Sometimes, less is more, even on a show as frenetic and absurd as Alias. They've proven that time and again, where the quiet moments were the most memorable; I hope this isn't a sign that Abrams is trying to hard to push some kind of envelope to draw a different audience. But next week's sure looks like a hoot, and I miss Willage so very much.
