Some Journey

Alias Premiere

Finally getting around to updating the ole blog. The weather has been so great that we've been outside a lot, and I've spent a lot less time at the computer. We did very much enjoy the Alias premiere, though. We had the pleasure of watching it at Bubba and K's house along with the Gilchrists and Kennedys. And yes, I dyed my hair bright red for the occasion.View image
The box said it would wash out in 8-10 washes, and I assumed that meant that my hair would gradually have less and less red in it. What actually happened is that the color gradually became less red, so by Saturday night it was a really weird shade of pink. Ethan and I made a quick run to Walgreen's and bought a pkg of brown hair dye, so on Sunday morning it was a much less offensive auburn/reddish brown.
I enjoyed the premiere. It wasn't the best (or I should say two best) episodes ever, but I appreciated what the writers did and where I could see that they were going with the new season. While some of the jumps we were asked to make were a bit big even for Alias (no one was suspicious of Syd, Vaughn, Dixon, Jack, Marshall and Sloane all leaving the CIA simultaneously??), Alias is all about willing suspension of disbelief, and I felt that it was a "tidy" way to ditch the bad and run with the good from season 3, and I love where we are in season 4. While not entirely seamless, it was a plausible way to pull us back into the original premise of Alias. At first I was disappointed that Weiss wouldn't be a part of the new organization, but then I realized the genius of what they did by leaving him out. They have given us back the magic that was missing regarding Syd's double life and the "real life" side of her that we used to see in her interactions with Will and Francie. When SD-6 was destroyed and then Francie and Will were taken out of the loop, Syd really no longer led a double life. All we saw was her CIA life. Part of the original appeal of Alias was watching her try to juggle the two. The irony of the juxtaposition of Syd's cell phone conversations with Francie about her boyfriend while being chased by foreign assassins was always fun. One of my favorite scenes from season 1 was when Syd was running from the FBI (who thought she was the destructive force prophesied by Rimbaldi) and Will and Francie are watching the car chase on tv, having no idea it is Syd driving it. I feel like the opportunities for that kind of scene will be available via Weiss' lack of involvement in APO. I am also relieved that while they restored the dysfunctional father-daughter relationship tension, they still kept the "essence of Jack" which I think is best summarized by his statement to Sloane in Season3, "Every morally questionable thing I've ever done was to protect Sydney."
My personal guess on how they will restore tension to the Syd Vaughn relationship (because tv rules say you can't just have a happy couple whose relationship runs smoothly for an entire season. . .something has to keep the tittilation alive) is that we will find out that Vaughn was more involved in the Irina murder than we now know. There were hints during his conversations with Jack that he at least knew about it, and there was way too much time spent on the scene where Tomazaki recognized him for that to be superfluous, IMO. Alas, enough about the premiere. I'm glad Alias is back. Still loving Lost, as well, but that's a topic for a whole other post. . .