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Palm Beach Post
September 28, 2003
'Alias' Returns with Emotionally Hot Plot
by Kevin D. Thompson
Alias: Season premiere, 9-10 p.m., WPBF-Channel 25
I wanted to kick my TV screen. I decided against it, though.
But my anger - and confusion - wouldn't go away.
I'm talking about Alias' stunning season finale. After having the
mother of all catfights with her evil double roomie, Francie (Merrin
Dungey), CIA superspy Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner) passed out.
Fast-forward to two years later where Sydney wakes up dazed and
confused in Hong Kong with a nasty scar on her stomach. As if that
wasn't enough, Sydney learns her boyfriend/boss Vaughn (real life
boyfriend Michael Varitan) got married after believing she was dead.
What?
J.J. Abrams, the show's creator and executive producer, says he knew
exactly the kind of reaction his shocking finale would evoke.
"It was supposed to throw the audience for just as much as a loop as it
threw Sydney," he says. "The frustration and the confusion and the
questions are appropriate because those are the exact same questions
Sydney is asking herself."
ABC certainly has been asking itself why Abrams' dense spy drama wasn't
the bona fide hit it deserved to be. The network was concerned that
Alias had become a little too dense. New viewers were too intimidated
to jump into a complex story and regular viewers were too afraid to
miss one episode for fear of getting totally lost.
Abrams' mandate this year is to make Alias more accessible and for the
show to be a tad easier to follow.
"The great thing about the story this season is that if you've never
seen the show before, this is a great time to pop in because the world
is new," he says. "It was foolish to ignore evidence that people might
not be understanding things in the best way. It was a show about good
guys pretending to be bad guys, but the bad guys are pretending they're
good guys and some of the bad guys don't even know they're bad guys. I
can't blame anyone for tuning in and saying, 'What the hell is going
on?' "
Despite what Abrams says, viewers will still ask that question - at
least for the first few episodes.
Here's the deal: Vaughn is married to a comely British diplomat
(Melissa George) we'll meet next week; Sloane (Ron Rifkin) is living in
Zurich where he claims to have joined the good guys; a shadowy
organization called The Covenant that may have played a role in
Sydney's mysterious disappearance surfaces as does Justin Theroux (Six
Feet Under) as an assassin with whom Sydney tossed the sheets during
those missing two years.
Meanwhile, Dixon (Carl Lumbly) is now CIA director and Sydney's father,
Jack (Victor Garber) no longer works for the agency. Also look for a
thorny love triangle among Sydney, Vaughn and his new bride, Lauren.
"Sydney respects Vaughn's marriage, but it takes a little while and
it's hard as hell," Abrams says. "They're all doing the best they can
but the bottom line is this is an incredibly difficult situation.
Sydney and Vaughn will be on operations together quite a bit and there
will be quite a bit of sexual attraction between them."
The big question is how long will it take for Sydney - and viewers - to
find out what happened to her?
"We're not going to drag it out (for an entire season) and there will
be revelations along the way," Abrams promises. "It's one of the more
compelling and twisted stories we've done."
But will it work?
"I hope it helps the ratings, but, at the end of the day, I can't
control the ratings," Abrams says. "I can just control telling the best
stories I can."
© The Palm Beach Post 2003
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