Sigh Alias

Gosh maybe I'm getting too picky or something but I seem to be doing way more complaining about TV shows than praising. My next target: Alias.

I really loved first season. It was fun, we sympathized with Sydney and her inner turmoils, she had a life outside of work, we were rooting for Sydney and Vaughn, the double agent stuff was fresh, episodes were nicely structured but still tied together...I can probably go on and on. I mean, sure, it wasn't perfect.The plots were probably more complicated than anyone could keep up with, the cliffhangers were just annoying, and wow, some of those disguises totally sucked, but gosh, it was still so good.

Then second season...things started to slip. Irina was amazing and incredibly interesting, but the Rambaldi stuff was starting to get really out of hand. Then SD-6 was shut down and the show lost everything it started with. Then Sydney "dies" and third season skips three years? Francie was ruined and then killed, Will is in witness protection, and Vaughn is married to another Tess/Oliver incarnation, Lauren. I don't even remember most of third season because I felt like the writers were just trying to deal with all the mess they created. And what bothered me the most was that through it all, the characters became so dimensionless...especially Sydney and Vaughn and Dixon.

Then J.J. Abrams admits that the show was off track and promises to do better with the fourth season. My verdict? Good try but no cigar.

Having all the major players, including Sloane, working together was smart. And I like Nadia, even though I usually hate siblings that appear out of nowhere, mostly because the actress playing her is doing such a good job. And they seem to have brought back some of the old Dixon. But so far there doesn't seem to be enough of an arc. No, I don't want things to get as convoluted as the Rambaldi stuff, and yeah maybe I'm a little partial to season arcs because of Buffy, but there doesn't seem to be much going on this season in general except everyone hating Sloane and hiding who killed Irina. What the heck is APO's purpose? I don't feel like their missions are any more "black-ops" than the ones from their legit CIA days. And where is Sydney's personality? I mean, maybe I should cut her some slack with all the crap that she's been through, but she's so HARD. Everytime she makes a speech about Sloane being evil, I want to hurl.

Sigh, I think J.J. Abrams needs to go back and watch some of his old episodes of Felicity and remember what it's like for people to have REAL EMOTIONS. Actually no. He's doing perfectly fine with that aspect on Lost, so he remembers. He just needs to pay a little more attention to Alias before it gets stuck in that group of TV shows that were good...for awhile.