Thursday, February 10, 2005

We Won't Get Fooled Again

Admittedly, Adrian and I are not huge television watchers. In fact by not having cable, I think we are able to qualify for Junior Amish status. Next Adrian will grow a beard, and I’ll start wearing pilgrim dresses. The transformation will never be complete, however, unless Adrian’s allowed to keep the Mini in lieu of the horse and buggy.

So anyway, we were watching one of the handful of shows we regularly watch (the very excellent Lost) when we saw a promo for the next episode of Alias. Alias is one of those shows like CSI that everyone gets all hot and heavy about, and we just don’t. All it took was one episode of CSI for us to determine that it was tripe, just a formulaic, fictionalized version of all those true crime shows on the Discovery Channel.

I tried to like Alias; really, I did. Especially when Quentin Taratino was a guest star on a few episodes. The fact that Jennifer Garner dressed up in fun costumes on every show (sometimes more than one) also appealed to me. But it’s just cheese. It’s like Mission Impossible with a chick star who is kind of invincible. Plus some of the plot lines are bordering on Passions-like hokey implausibility. I’m waiting for Jennifer Garner and Michael Vortan to get sent to Hell to battle demons by the short guy with stubble who used to be bad but now works with the good guys but may be really still be bad all along.

Pardon the digression.

This ad for the episode which was to follow Lost, promised an intriguing plotline involving vampires. Now, I am a sucker for vampires. Since I was already parked on the couch in front of the idiot box, I thought, “What the hell. I might as well watch it if there’s going to be some exciting vampire action.” This is how TV sucks you in with that “I’m already here. Might as well watch some more.” mentality. Then next thing you know you’ve watched like four hours of back to back Law and Order.

Adrian knew better; he watched maybe 10 minutes of Alias (long enough for us to get a few jabs in at the goofy dialogue) and went upstairs. But I sat it out, hoping for some exciting vampiric goodness.

I should have known. For 40 minutes of my life, I got one Jennifer Garner costume change and plot involving deadly pharmaceutical hallucinogens. The “vampire” was a man hopped up on these drugs. Dammit. I want those 40 minutes back.

Now, I am debating whether or not tonight’s ER episode revolving around Carrie Weaver, a character I dislike more and more with every passing season, is worth an hour of my time. I think I’d rather be making Valentines with the goodies I received from Paper Source yesterday via post.

Life is full of choices.

1 comment:

ahamos said...

I was impressed that you made it through 40 minutes! I kind of expected to see you come upstairs with bleeding eyes.

I don't know if I'm ready for the beard thing: I find that they itch. If, however, we get to speak in goofy dialect, I'm all for it. I love goofy dialect.

Alias: father / daughter / sister / sister's father ALL IN THE SAME DEPARTMENT AT THE SAME AGENCY. Yeah, it doesn't get more realistic than that... Oh, and of course, their geek is the world's most overly-educated super-geek, who happens to know everything ever conceived about security systems, computers, chemistry, physics, blah, blah blah.

Apparently, they know little of Occam's Razor, though: when confronted with two choices to explain a phenomenon, you must choose the option that does not rely on the paranormal or "metaphysical". So: Either Alias really has its finger on the pulse of super-top-secret governmet covert-ops, or it's bullshit. Occam says it's bullshit. Maybe their super-geek should brush up on his medieval philosophy / physics.

Man o man I just can't wait for that next level of mega-tripe: BLIND JUSTICE!

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