Sun, January 2, 2005

"I don't sell airplane parts. I never sold airplane parts."

So it's begun. With the premiere of Alias season four just around the corner, I've at long last begun my marathon catch-up session, starting with season one (which I've seen) and continuing through two (saw about an episode and a half) and three (who's that blonde girl?). At present, the plan is to start season four on Saturday the 15th. For one thing, Alias was never meant to be a mid-week show, ABC is just getting cute putting two Bad Robot shows back-to-back. Plus, I always preferred Alias in two-hour blocks, so there's no reason to kill myself trying to be ready by this Saturday. (By the time I found out that the premiere is two hours this plan was already in place; sue me.) Who knows if I'll make it, but the point is, I'm watching Alias again and dear God do I love Victor Garber! As soon as he popped up on the screen, I literally yelped with delight. Garber!

I'd forgotten so much about why I love this show. Which was partly the point of my sabbatical in the first place. The show was just too good – I had to delay it, let it breathe, then really savor it. Watching it again, starting with the kickass pilot (among the kickassiest of all pilots), I'm impressed again with how good it is. Even watching it for the fourth time, I still get chills when Taiwanese Jon Voight comes through that door and starts making threats.

It's striking, though, how much the show reeks of 2001. From the few microseconds of footage that I've been unable to avoid seeing from seasons three and four (damn on-air promos!), it's clear that the style of the show has grown up a lot. Not that I've ever had any problem with the style – its slick, filmic feel was an expensive and groundbreaking choice at the time, and I simply eat it up – it's just really interesting how something so young (relatively) can still have a very definitive vintage to it. Fantastic show, though. It's a shame the college-student-as-secret-agent thing fell away so quickly, but I understand why it had to. The double agent/family struggle element needed more space. And then there's the unrequited/semi-requited romance (Don't tell me anything! I already know too much!), which, in my opinion is unnecessary here as it is in Crichton's new book State of Fear. (Further review forthcoming, but keep in mind that's "forthcoming" in the onebee sense, which means possibly coming soon and being excellent but just as possibly being forgotten forever.) Still, just like Lost, Alias is so good that it can have a few imperfections and still qualify as flawless in my book.

And, isn't Jennifer Garner amazing? Garber is so mesmerizingly sublime that I often forget that Garner holds her own quite well. Even in just the pilot, there are two or three moments when she's carrying the entire weight of the fledgling yet-to-be phenomenon on her shoulders, and she pulls it off with poise and grace. There's a reason the show has become such a cult hit, and there's a reason she's doing quite well for herself in the movies – and she's a big part of both. (Let's just hope she can survive her current choice of boyfriend.)

Also, I know everyone maligns Marshall, the Kevin Weisman character who blends James Bond's Q with Woody Allen's Fielding Mellish – but I think he's excellent. Weisman does a fantastic job of carrying all the comedy in those scenes: the timing, the delivery, everything. He's up there alone without a net, and to my mind, he does a superb job. And let's not forget fantastic music, by Michael Giacchino, who's also scored Lost and The Incredibles – beat that track record!

All right, that's it for now. I've got to get back to Alias because already I can't wait for that moment in the second- or third-to-last episode when a newly unmasked Bradley Cooper intones, and I quote, "WHAAAOAOAHAAAAAH!!!" (Plus, Sarah Shahi! Yum!)