I don’t get Alias

You know, I just don’t get the whole Alias thing. Or maybe it’s the Jennifer Garner thing that escapes me, and that’s what the whole Alias thing is about. But you know, I look at Garner, and all I can think is, ‘eh‘. Maybe a dose of ‘whatever‘. And you know, no one, anywhere, likes […]

You know, I just don’t get the whole Alias thing.

Or maybe it’s the Jennifer Garner thing that escapes me, and that’s what the whole Alias thing is about.

But you know, I look at Garner, and all I can think is, ‘eh‘. Maybe a dose of ‘whatever‘. And you know, no one, anywhere, likes women more than I do. So when I look at woman and think eh, it means I’m really not very interested.

She’s just so average. Oh, she’s talented, sure; she’s got a gift for accents and voices and languages, and she’s certainly physical. but I look at her face and I feel like I’m looking at a Mannequin. She’s made of plastic, utterly empty and soul-less.

So maybe that’s all there is to Alias. Because well, you know, I want to like it; same people as make Lost, so I’m on their side. But Alias seems to be nothing but empty spy-movie cliche with no style whatsoever. The plots are convoluted to the point of incomprehensiblity, and while the whole everyone’s double-crossing everyone else thing is entertaining, the bottom line is that I don’t care. Anyone in the series can die at any time and I just shrug. None of them are well enough characterized to engage me.

And then there’s the fact that they keep wanting to go supernatural. Which just makes me roll my eyes. What works so well on lost, here just plays like writers who are out of ideas and turn to the fantastic out of desperation. They borrow from Neal Stephenson, they borrow from – hell, I can’t even remember where last season’s ender was borrowed from, some secret-society, orb-of-infinite-doom nonsense.

I just don’t fuckin’ get it.

Why, you might ask, am I watching it?

Honestly, I’m not. Sometimes it’s just on, and you just don’t feel like getting off the couch. And I’ll admit, I tried, last season, because people I know like it. Sitting on a couch full of giggly girls, you know, you find a reason not to leave even when the show isn’t good. So I tried.

But – eh. Just eh.

9 thoughts on “I don’t get Alias”

  1. Having never watched Alias — ever — I will say that your comments about how it’s written are in the same vein of why I absolutely cannot stand Lost. Lost to me is deus ex machina week after week after week — they write themselves into a corner and then … “Hey, I know, let’s have them find a mysterious hatch that leads … somewhere, we’ll figure it out later. And lets have a mysterious force that makes shit happen, we’ll figure out what and how later.”

    I watched two, maybe three episodes, and that was it for me. I don’t like cheating in my storytelling, and that’s what I think they do all the time.

  2. Alias…My mother watches Alias. I never got into it. Jennifer Garner has no personality as Sydney (egads. i know her character name). You can see it in the face. It’s blank. Not to mention I get about 2 minutes into it and completely lose track. It’s kinda.. eh.

  3. Ah, chuck, I gotta disagree on lost. Yes, they’re winging it. I’m sure they are. They’re making it up as they go; and that’s what I like. Because the issue isn’t what is the big mystery, it’s who are these people?

    It’s like the prisoner, where the way things are done transcends the genre; so what should be cheating winds up being just plain mind-fuck. I’ve watched it all along and it’s getting bettter and better, but you have to watch it all the way, not on a drop-in basis. You gotta give in to it and not try to guess ahead too much.

    Outside of HBO, it’s the best thing on teevee right now.

  4. Ttoally agree on both Alias AND Lost, Karl. Christine watches Alias, and I just can’t figure out why exactly. I usually flip through a magazine or something and glance up whenever Sidney is in a sexy new outfit, well lit and walking in slo-mo. Otherwise, meh. I think Jennifer Garner has a sorta weird, mannish face (knockout body, though) and she just doesn’t do it for me. And the plotting on the show is absurd beyond measure.

  5. I watched the first couple episodes of the first season on DVD, and honestly, they were better. But the un-answered questions about who was really whom are still there, many seasons later, and I dunno, Garner just gets more and more plastic as time goes by.

    She and Afleck make a good match though, because he’s certainly made of some artificial polymer. They’ll make lovely syththetic babies.

  6. Anyone who doesn’t enjoy Alias isn’t smoking enough pot. I found that out last week, when I didn’t enjoy Alias. %^)

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