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[FeedMeAStrayCat]

What do you guys/gals think of it? I'm curious..

Here's my feelings:

The least exciting, least enjoyable season so far (I stress the so far part).

WHAT?! F YOU, GOOD SIR, you say.. well yes, I probably deserve that, but here's why I think this about the current season:

I do enjoy that the whole gang is back together. Sidney, Sloane, Jack, etc., pretty much everyone's there. That's good.
However, I'm really feeling letdown because this season has been just 6 (how many exactly? Don't remember) standalone episodes that really haven't followed a big sweeping story arc. There's no Rombaldi device to search for.. there's no main enemy/enemies (return of Sarc next week looks promising though).. there's no super-weapon they're after..

I don't feel that standalone episodes work will within Alias's boundaries. It worked extremely well for the X-Files (better than the overall storyline episodes, in fact), but not here (at least in my opinion). At least not with the start of this current season.

Don't get me wrong though.. this show still rocks, as it always does. But maybe I'm just missing something obvious.. I probably am.. because.. well.. I actually enjoyed Season 3. ~gulp~ Yeah, maybe too many twists and turns, and too much going on.. but at least SOMETHING was going on..

 

[SKluck]

They've backed themselves into a corner. You can't dump sloane from the show, and the show was at its best when you had that whole Sloane/Syd/Jack/etc dynamic. So they create this insane premise of Syd and Dixon working for him again, despite the fact he KILLED BOTH OF THEIR SPOUSES (or spouses to be).

They pawn it off as "to keep an eye on him" but it is just not believable.

The episodes by themselves are pretty good. Liberty Village rocked. There is just no arc. What is the overall storyline? Where is Rambaldi? Covenant?

I hate to say it but I liked the 3rd season better. And the 3rd season wasn't that bad if you go back and watch it on DVD.

 

[FeedMeAStrayCat]

They've backed themselves into a corner. You can't dump sloane from the show, and the show was at its best when you had that whole Sloane/Syd/Jack/etc dynamic. So they create this insane premise of Syd and Dixon working for him again, despite the fact he KILLED BOTH OF THEIR SPOUSES (or spouses to be).

They pawn it off as "to keep an eye on him" but it is just not believable.

The episodes by themselves are pretty good. Liberty Village rocked. There is just no arc. What is the overall storyline? Where is Rambaldi? Covenant?

I hate to say it but I liked the 3rd season better. And the 3rd season wasn't that bad if you go back and watch it on DVD.

Exactly my thoughts as well. And yeah.. that's how I saw the 3rd season.. on DVD. So maybe that's why I liked it more.. ~shrug~

And yeah, you're right. The episodes are still pretty good. Just not as good as they could be, in my own opinion..

EDIT: Is Liberty Village the one where Syd and Vaughn lived in that Russian development place for a while? And fought that other couple over a car? If so.. yes, that was a very good episode. Reminded me of the X-Files episode where Mulder and Scully live in that development where that mud/dirt/ground creature resides.

 

[Mrbob]

Well, I just started watching this season, and it has been all right so far. The stand alone episodes are OK but if this show is going to keep my interest they better start incorporating some story arcs. They can still keep some seperate stories going on, but start building on something bigger!

 

[Hurricane_Chris]

I watched a marathon session of Season 3. Sure the story was over the top -- even for Alias standards -- but it was acutually sort of cool to watch. The stuff going on, and the solutions to some of the problems that came up were totally unbelievable but watching it one episode after another let me see a pretty coherent arc that aimed to answer (albeit unbelievably) many of the big questions in the Alias universe.

The one thing that I cant get over in Season 3 was, what were cell leaders (Sark and Lauren) doing going on every single mission themselves? It was like they got promoted but didn't get any resources...


Anyways, I hope Season 4 picks up or starts going somewhere. I read an interview where they said they were going to get back to butt kicking basics and have Sydney and the others going on little missions for Sloan to get back the spirit of the show when they were working at SD6. The weird part is....Only Sydney and her sister are going on missions. There's absolutely no real teamwork going on and all of the missions start, go on for about half the show, hit a kink, get resolved in the last 10 minutes.

There's nice every once and a while, but after giving viewers an arc in season 3, and a big objective in the first two seasons with Rimbaldi they really need to start up an arc or something with meaning and give the importance of the work the characters are doing some relevance. Oh yeah, undertake some more realistic missions and show a little real teamwork organization once and a while.

 

[ChumsGum]

I enjoy the lesbian tension between Sydney and her Argentinan sister, but other than that, I could care less about the rest of the show.

 

[FoneBone]

I thought this week's episode was pretty good... the two-parter that starts next week should (hopefully) kick ass, though.

 

[Dilbert]

I really don't care about the plot as long as they keep featuring Sydney's sister! Mmmmm mmmm.

 

[BuckRobotron]

I just started watching with the episode with Sydney drugged, attacking her father and the Vartan character. Thought that was pretty good.

But damn if I don't know what is going on with the absolute hate with the head of the department, and why everyone goes along with it. If he is so bad, just do a Russell Crowe and hang him out the window by his ankles and get on with it....

 

[Memles]

I am not going to provide you with a "WHAT?" or a "WHY?" in this instance. I won't even go for the standard "Oh, shove it already", despite the fact that my brother echoes most of your statements fairly closely and I am in fact tired of hearing them.

I am simply going to say this bit of advice: "Try to deal with it, or stop watching, because it's not changing".

I, for one, disagree. I think that the characters have been great, the dynamic of seeing these people back together is entertaining beyond belief, and I am willing to forgive pretty well anything to have my awkward Marshall tech briefings back, with the classic Sloane and Jack reactions to them.

Is it missing an overarching storyline? YES. Do I think it would be better with one? YES. But, I think it works regardless because of the strong characters that the show has to fall back on. The characters are good enough that I am generally interested in their actions at all times. It is not in desperate need of an overarching storyline, even though I think it will develop one eventually; I think the dynamic alone keeps it entertaining.

I think that the last three episodes of Alias have been very good examples of this, despite Liberty Village being so depressingly aired when it was (Liberty Village was actually written and filmed as 4x09...when Syd and Vaughn are still talking about taking it slow AFTER they have hot shower sex, you know that they're out of order, and it's frustrating). The three episodes have all had really neat and interesting moments, plot or character ones. The plot of Liberty Village was cool, different and provided for some great TV. The whole concept of the psychotic drug, and Sydney's delusions was incredibly well done, and it all was very creepy. Combine that with Dixon's great speech to Sloane and you've got character motivation. And then, this week's episode provided two things.

First off, it cemented that Syd and Dixon are not happy with working with Sloane...but it also showed why they were. They want to keep an eye on him, but he also is an asset to the division. We see how, through his past contact with this man, he was able to "save the day". He very obviously is still evil to his very core, but he has a wealth of contacts and information that is vital for the CIA to do their job. That is why they work with him; because as the leader of this Black Ops group he clearly has the knowledge to do the job correctly.

I think it is a bit of a stretch, yes, but I do not think the logic is flawed. We have to remember that, after Sydney's friends were either killed or driven out of town, the CIA has been her life. Dixon has his kids, but he also wanted to get back into the field and be a true agent again, rather than his stuffy desk job. Neither were in a position to walk out on this; Sydney would have nothing left in her life (As of the premiere she had no connection with Vaughn, Jack or Nadia) and Dixon would have no job to turn to and kids to support. Rather than walk away from the CIA entirely, they made a choice to stay and do their job. We already saw that, after he ended up pardoned and heading a charitable organization, essentially, nobody had believed he had changed. He went nuts about Rambaldi in that time period, mind you, but the guy was worked with then.

I think we saw realities this week, like Sloane's past with Syd and Dixon, addressed well enough that it doesn't bother me in the least. I am excited for the return of Sark next week, as well as the eventual return of a long-lost rival. I think that the dynamic they've created is entertaining, and that each episode stands alone well enough to work. I think that it will never reach Seasons 1 and 2, but 3 is easily surpassed. I love the Rambaldi storyline, but much of it became overly confused in the third season. Some moments were really good, but the overall arc was muddled in Lauren and the 2 years storyline. I will take streamlines Alias over jumbled Alias any day of the week.

My thought, very simply is: It's still really good television. I have faith in Abrams, and hope we'll get a little Rambaldi action going on soon. As for now, I'll sit back and enjoy the ride.

 

[CloudNL]

The truth: end this show NOW!

 

[fart]

I enjoy the lesbian tension between Sydney and her Argentinan sister, but other than that, I could care less about the rest of the show.

basically