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Underground Online
December 12, 2003
This Year's TV Winners and Losers
by Darwin Mayflower
I'm not a big fan of the word "losers." Not because it's insulting and that I don't think I have the godly right to assign it to someone. But because it always makes me think of a smug, oily game-show host saying, "But there are no losers on this show. Tell them what they've won!" I was very traumatized when my father lost on a short-lived game show when I was about five; he got his Romanov Dynasty history mixed up, and confused Alexeevich with Mikhailovich. It was a crushing defeat. My father's "grand" second-place gift was a cheap plastic jug. Since then I often shout at him, apropos of nothing, "I'm Thalassocracy! And you're just Romanov!" But I digress...
I should say at the outset here that this will be hardly scientific. How many viewers a show has isn't the only determination, for me, if it's a success. I'm also not one to obsessively read the ratings (if I did I'd have no time for videogames and papers written by Max Perutz). The following pronouncements/assumptions/attributions combine viewership, quality, relevance and any other random stuff I decided on while sitting at my desk and typing. (The title only has "winners" and "losers," but I'm also including a "limbo" section, because no issue can be split neatly into two halves; politicians worldwide could learn something from this article.)
[...]
As a fan, I hate thinking of Alias as anything but a winner. But we have to be honest about this: it's been an off year for the Jennifer Garner series. The two-years-missing hook at the end of last season seemed brilliant then, but now, at this point, it feels like a mistake. The true mistake was keeping real-life couple Garner and Michael Vartan apart. Their elegiac, moist glances don't cut it. Their separation is a waste of chemistry. And J.J. Abrams blundered with the casting of Melissa George. I don't mean to offend this actress, but the writing makes her come off like a bitch, she can't hold her own against this cast, and -- sorry about this -- she's not nearly good-looking enough. She has zero chemistry with Vartan -- and you're left wondering what the hell he sees in her. You'd almost forgive him if he threw off his ring upon seeing Jennifer Garner and admit to George that he made an error.
On the story end, her murder of a Russian diplomat and the fallout of that can't compete with the previous season-long arcs, but at least the writing has finally found a place where it can live and breathe. Things have started to get interesting in the last few weeks. There is a moldiness that's creeping in, though. And is it me, or does this show just feel smaller and less significant? It's like the writers, and even the actors, are just a little bored with the whole thing.
The other reason I put Alias in this category is because it's clear at this point it will never make it over the hump into an authentic ratings winner. Unlike a "hit" show like Whoppi or According to Jim, everyone I know watches this. It's out there and you hear people talking about it. I can't say the same for quite a few other shows that double Alias' ratings. Why that doesn't translate into more than nine million viewers I cannot say.
Quality-wise, it's still one of the more exciting things on the air. It has it in it to make your heart race. I know that even at half its strength, Alias is still smarter and more alive than most things you can find on your TV. But one of the burdens of being good is living up to higher standards.
© UGO Networks Inc. 2003
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