Damn. This was a great show. I just picked up all five seasons on DVD and have made my way halfway through the first season. You can see some of the influence Alias has had on Lost (both series were created by J.J. Abrams).
Want in interesting afternoon? Watch an episode of Alias and an episode of Mission: Impossible back-to-back. Warning: Season 3 of Alias blows. But it gets the magic back in S4.
Have they finished it now after 5 seasons? Yet another quality show fucked over by minor TV channels in the UK, and presumably too many idiots living here who would rather watch reality TV and gameshows The first season showed at about 4pm on a Sunday (and unbelievably went downhill from there fast in terms of when it was on), but I haven't seen much since about halfway thorugh season 2. Also heard the DVDs were great from a friend, and that S4/5 were still quality. It'd be good if something finished on a high for once, and didn't drag out three years too long.
Season 1 of Alias was good to great. Season 2 was great. Season 3 poor. Season 4 good again. Season 5 was when Jen was pregnant and clearly didn't want to be there.
Hmm. I'm almost finished season two and I can see the show is starting to falter. J.J. Abrams seems to have a problem. He starts out of the gate strong and then loses his stride. There are some very scary parallels between Alias and Lost. Both shows had excellent first seasons but started to focus too much on the interpersonal stuff near the end of the second season to the detriment of the series' overall mythology. In the case of Alias, the whole Rambaldi thing (which was so damned interesting) has seemed to have taken a backseat to the whole Bristow family soap opera... not to mention the Sydney-Vaughn-Will love triangle. In the case of Lost, the whole mystique of the island has taken a backseat to the Kate-Jack-Sawyer love triangle. Blech. Anyway, I'm still enjoying Alias immensely and await the third season with some dread, based on everyone's comments.
AAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! I'm ten episodes into season three and the only thing I can say is... WTF? It's like they have all the same actors but they are playing different characters. I especially notice the change in personalities and motivitations, after watching season two and three back-to-back. Yikes. Irina Derevko has completely disappeared. Lauren Reed (Vaughn's wife) is an annoying twat. Arvin Sloane has been turned into a wimp. WTF was J.J. Abrams thinking?!? [action=We Are Borg]grits his teeth and trudges through the rest of season 3[/action]
Yeah that's about how I viewed Season 3. I failed to get through it all the way... one of these days I'll get through the last couple of episodes and start on season 4.
Indeed! I liked the concise revue someone at TrekBBS gave season 3 of Alias: "It's ass." That's about right. But yes, I reiterate, it DOES come back to its old self in S4.
But does one need to see Season 3 in order to keep up w/ Season 4? Or would it suffice to just know Seasons 1 & 2, and then skip S3?
I don't think you can skip anything with this show. The character, family, good guy/bad guy arcs are so damn convoluted.
I would say that if you just know the basic outline of what happens in season 3, that you're probably saving yourself 22 or so hours of watching it unfold. And by basic, I mean:
I agree with podgers. Season 1 was good. Season 2 was excellent. Season 3 I tried to watch, was too confused, and stopped watching the show. Then I picked the show up again halfway through Season 5 and was glad I did, because I thought the ending was excellent. I'll have to go back and watch S3 -5 again, even if S3 will be torture.
Plus, Amy Acker is the hottest skinny chick in the spy business. And Rachel Whatsername is just OMG hot!
Well, I finished season three today. Not as bad as I thought it would be, but it still fell well short of the brilliance of the first two seasons. A few random thoughts (herein lie spoilers for the folks who haven't watched Alias): The whole missing-2-year thing with Sydney was utterly contrived and the reason for her absence and amnesia was boring and ridiculous. Lauren Reed (Melissa George) was annoying. Not only that, she was entirely unnecessary to the overall arc of the show thus far. I guess the creative minds behind the show wanted some sort of sexual tension/love triangle thing going on so they just dropped in a wife for Vaughn. Oh, and... surprise! She's evil. Didn't see that coming. Speaking of Vaughn, is it me or did he become completely uninteresting in season three? Sark went from a mysterious and dangerous character in season two, to a wimpy pretty boy in season three. Anyway, I'm starting up season four tomorrow. Still enjoying the show!
I love Vaughn's comment to Weiss at the very beginning of episode one, season four: "Last year was crap." Wonder if there was a double entendre there...
Well, I'm a couple of episodes into season four. I have to say, so far I'm still not sure if I like the direction it's going. I just watched "Welcome to Liberty Village" and "Nocturne". "Welcome to Liberty Village" was a totally cool episode that reminded me a lot of the TV series Nowhere Man. It's too bad they didn't spend two or three more episodes in Liberty Village. "Nocturne" was just fucking bizarre and not a very Alias-like episode at all.
The resolution of the Lauren arc was kinda for me - if I'm remembering it correctly. (SPOILERS) Lauren and Vaughn are somewhere in Eastern Europe, at a location that took them many days of travel and many clues to find. Meanwhile in LA, Sydney discovers Lauren is going to kill Vaughn. Sydney runs out of the office. Cut back to Lower Outbackistan, and Lauren is just about to pull the trigger on Vaughn - and Sydney appears out of nowhere and shoots her! Did Syd teleport?! How the fuck did she get across the width of the US, the Atlantic and Europe, find these people who took DAYS to find this secret location that Syd would have no idea how to find, and arrive just in the nick of time, in the space of a few hours!?!?
Don't forget the use of the Scooby Doo masks that season. Alias tended to stretch credibility well beyond reason at times.
I finished season four this weekend. The rage-filled zombie thingy was cool (especially the parts in the quarantined city) but also quite a letdown, considering the build-up to Rambaldi's endgame. You think the writers could have come up with something more creative. Still, season four was definitely an improvement over season three. I'm four episodes into season five now and it's pretty good. Looks like a lot of the main characters from previous seasons have jumped ship, though. Oh, and season five wasn't all that short: the DVD says there are 18 episodes in total.
Hm. Well, nearly a full season by today's standards. But ten episodes less than the first season of Mission: Impossible. And 21 episodes less than a season of Hogan's Heroes. I was musing on this with the wife the other day, how TV seasons have changed since, say, the 60s. You'd have a show that gave you 26 new episodes in a row, then rerun it for the next 26 weeks, and then the new season started. Your show would basically be on in its same time slot every week. Now? You feel blessed if they give you ten weeks in a row before it goes on hiatus for two months, shows another 6 episodes, then makes a big deal out of saying the final four eps will be real spectacular when they get around to showing them sometime next spring. Or maybe they'll deign to put your favorite show back on for one week while Amercian Idol takes a break, but then it'll be off for four weeks while Idol has its finals. I seriously hate the way networks schedule these days.
I was watching my DVDs of The Time Tunnel a while ago and the average episode clocked in at 52 minutes! That's only 8 minutes of commercials. Those were the days. The average "hour-long" drama these days actually runs about 39 minutes. And, to top things off, advertisers are trying to find more ways they can get product placement into the show.
... and after every commercial there's a "snipe" pop-up promo in the corner of the picture, or, worse, an animated one that wrenches your attention away from the action.
I'm ten episodes in, and I am really enjoying season five. I think it's actually better than season four. In the episode "The Horizon", Jack has one of the best lines of all time on television:
