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"He had a theory that musicians are incredibly complex, and know far less than other artists what they want and what they are; that they puzzle themselves as well as their friends; that their psychology is a modern development, and has not yet been understood." – E. M. Forster

Sunday, 2 March 2003

Sunday tele notes

Tonight’s Gilmore Girls repeat (the first season’s finale, "Love, Daisies and Troubadours"): A

A great episode. Trademark GG banter, healthy conflicts, healthy resolutions, funny moments, warm + fuzzy moments, lots and lots of flowers and Grant Lee Phillips acting + singing (and doing well at both)! Good stuff all around.

Tonight’s new Alias episode, ironically titled "A Dark Turn": B+ for the first ¾ (best moment: Marshall implanting the tracking device…"You’re tough"); actually, B+ up until Irina gets into the limo, then after that a big F for the rest.

Why the low grade? Maybe I have high standards for the show, but the ending was completely unsurprising. I was expecting it to happen, and it’s no fun when what you think is going to happen actually happens. Maybe I have high standards for this show, because typically what I think is going to happen doesn’t. In this case, the ending was truly disappointing. I actually said "Lame" when the limo passed through the tunnel. I mean, come on, as a TV viewer I immediately suspected there might be a decoy, but Jack and the Delta Force don’t have a clue? Please. Maybe they thought it was too contrived: "That can’t be a second limo. It would be too lame for that to happen on this show."

It wasn’t surprising that Irina was Sloane’s ally — the last-minute, I-may-never-have-a-chance-to-say-this mom routine between her and Sydney was too suspicious, and her getting Jack to remove the tracking bug sealed it for me. Her escape was a plot point waiting to happen. But the whole bit with the Post-Its decoy and the limo decoy… that was just too lame. IMO it lessened Irina’s skill and manipulation. She didn’t have to do much to pull a fast one on everyone, since they obviously didn’t know the difference between Post-Its and a manuscript and never bothered to check to see if she was hiding the manuscript on her.

Unfortunately, this week I taped Alias but not GG. Ah well…

P.S. When Irina took the book out of the glass case, did anyone else think, "Okay, where’s the replacement sand bag? " 😉

Posted at 11:53 pm | Filed under Television

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2 replies


  1. On the one hand, yes I thought it was really stupid that Jack fell for Irina’s ploy. On the other hand, I think the counterpoint was *supposed* to be that even Syd and Jack were fooled while Vaughn was not. They could have made the point more thoughtfully but instead it was an annoying side plot that allowed them to keep Syd and Vaughn in LA while Irina was on the loose.

    And while the whole “is Irina a mole or not?” was an interesting plot thread, there ain’t a whole lot of action with her inside a jail cell.

    I guess this is all part of the “simplifying” the story line…. [sigh]


  2. My main gripe is that the way Irina absconded with the manuscript was a joke. It’s obvious that JJ Abrams wanted to show Jack and Kendall with egg on their faces, but the escape was not well written and that ruined the episode for me. If Irina really had been clever, if she had done something else to get the book to Sloane some way… but no. It was a piece of cake, with a very contrived execution. The only saving grace for her character — that is, in terms of the manipulative person known as “The Man” — was when Vaughn said she was clean. But I pretty much scoffed at how the escape happened. Of course, this *is* a show where all the lead characters look like a million bucks and ready for a fashion photo shoot (even when one is being held in a maximum security cell for months at a time), so its sense of reality is probably a tad skewed…

    The most compelling part of the episode was Will and his nightmare of telling Francie, which we (the audience, unfortunately not him) later found was probably based on truth. Irina’s out now, that’s no surprise, that was bound to happen. But Abrams giving us these tiny bits of Faux Francie each episode… it’s a slow build up but I have a feeling it will pay off in a big way soon enough. I hope Will doesn’t get offed. And dang, Merrin is good at playing creepy!