First impressions of ALIAS

[thalia_seawood]

Weekend again! After it was so hot for nearly the entire week now it's raining, raining, raining. Which is excellent, because I can stay home all day watching DVDs without the feeling that I really should go outside and enjoy the sunshine. :-)

I've watched the first 7 episodes of ALIAS over the last couple of days.
While there's lots of action (incredibly stylish agents performing incredibly dangerous tasks), there's already much more to the show than that. I enjoy that all the characters have issues and it's fun to learn more about them. I also enjoy the ongoing story line.
At the moment, Jack Bristow is definitely my favorite character. He needs a hug - but then a hug would scare him more than anything.
He only had about three scenes with Sloane so far, but yes, they have chemistry all right.

What amuses me is that during watching ALIAS I suspect double motives behind basically every character. I can get rid of my day-to-day paranoia while watching the show. Feels very refreshing. :-)

Comments

[selenak.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you're enjoying the show. And hey, join the overwhelming (about 90%) majority of Alias fans in your choice of favourite character. Also, you'll never guess who the first person on the show to give Jack Bristow a hug will be.*g*

[thalia-seawood.livejournal.com]

*g* If you put it like that it has to be Arvin Sloane. Watched ep 8 and 9 today. Hope the hug comes up soon. :-)
No time for more eps today, though. I haven't been to the film festival yet and want to at least watch 2 movies on the last time. (Die Bergkatze will probably be fun.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Wrong guess. Actually, Sloane wouldn't be the least likely candidate, since he's the only one who has a backstory with Jack long enough to justify the occasional touching. No, the person who hugs is really very very unlikely at this point (and not the person in this icon, so there are no further misunderstandings).

Off to the festival myself, to watch "Stage Beauty" now...

[thalia-seawood.livejournal.com]

Welcome to my LJ. :-)

What I like about this show is that characters aren't just black and white. Right now Sydney sees her mother as totally evil, because she was KGB, but I'm sure we will find out more about her mom as well and then she will have to revoke her judgement at least partially. People in ALIAS do bad things, but many believe they do them for a worthy cause. While Arvin Sloane seems to be in it for the power, he also genuinly appears to care for Jack and Sydney.
I really like it that each character has motivations for their actions.

Jack strangely reminds me of Garak from DS9. A Garak without the sexually ambiguous act, of course. What they have in common is that they both appear quite harmless on the surface, but are extremely competent and even deadly in action. They are also experts at lying. If Garak had a daughter, I can see his relationship with her as fragile as Jack's with Sydney.

[thalia-seawood.livejournal.com]

That's a really interesting connection, and I think you're right. They also have an, er, flexible approach to ethics in common.

After pondering this some more, I also think they have a certain fragility. They appear to be very tough, but underneath they seem to be vulnerable. With Garak you can see it occasionally when he's interacting with Tain or Odo, Tain's death scene for example. And of course, we learn he has claustrophobia.

They also are both tied to a stronger leader who they admire and love. Garak-Tain is a love-hate relationship. I'm not sure what Jack feels for Arvin so far, though. He appears to be his closest friend, but does he also resent him or hate him?

[thalia-seawood.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's true. You don't see Jack display his emotions openly very often, but when he does ... Garak and Jack do both have hard shells and squishy centres, it would seem *g*.

I watched episode 16 & 17 (season I) yesterday and realized they even have a tendency to addictions in common, i.e. Garak keeping his brain implant switched on or Jack resorting to drinking.

I'll try to watch the final episodes of season I today, because I'd really like to start reading ALIAS fanfiction. So far I've stayed away from fanfiction as most of it has spoiler warnings. (Didn't mind being spoilt for Star Wars, but speculating on what will happen next is so much fun in the ALIAS universe.)