When Alias first started airing in late 2001, I initially had no desire or intent to watch it because it looked like it would be cheesy and I've never been into the spy genre. James Bond and that type of stuff was never my thing. However, a friend of mine was super into it and relentlessly begged me to watch, so I finally reluctantly agreed to check it out. I was hooked like crack pretty much within the first 2 minutes. Suddenly I realized that I actually am into the spy genre, provided that it involves the girl getting to do all the bad-ass stuff for a change. I was used to the tradition of chicks being used mainly as eye candy in spy stories. But then Alias came along and flipped that 180 degrees, and I was all for it. And this show had the added benefit of one of my favorite things: a "will-they-won't-they" couple in Sydney and Vaughn - Sydney Bristow is a double agent for a rogue organization called SD-6 and the CIA, and Michael Vaughn is her CIA handler. Vaughn doesn't show up until the last few scenes of the pilot episode, but the chemistry is there pretty much right away.
So this is how we get to Syd and Vaughn as the next couple in my "Rating the TV Romance" series of blog posts. Here's a bit of background if you haven't read the earlier posts: My rating system is explained in the Felicity and Ben post, but it basically involves the typical romance-related categories, plus two categories that came from my "Former Soap-aholic" post that kind of kicked off this whole thread. The purpose of those categories is to see how much the "soapy" elements of the t.v. show factor into my enjoyment of the romance storyline (positively or negatively). Some of the shows on my list have PLENTY of soapy elements to them, and some don't have many at all. So let's get right to the ratings for Syd and Vaughn (WARNING: Major show spoilers ahead):
Danger Factor: 10/10
This is the first "soap"-related rating factor. I learned in my soap-watching days as a kid that if you put the characters in peril, it automatically ratchets the drama (or melodrama) right up to 11, and my interest level generally goes to 11 as well. I'm a major sucker for this. And I'd have to say that given the premise of this show, with Syd being a double agent for both bad guys and good guys, Vaughn being her CIA handler, SD-6 being so evil, and all the insane and wacky sci-fi elements JJ Abrams threw into this show, the "Danger Factor" on Alias was pretty much as high as it could get. Every episode involved life-threatening missions for the characters. Sydney and Vaughn were constantly having to worry about each other and save each other's lives, which created plenty of romantic and angsty moments between them, heheh. There's no denying that this is a huge reason for why I was so obsessed with this show for the first few seasons.
General "Soap" Factor: 10/10
Look, one thing I've realized over the years is that the sci-fi and spy genres tend to automatically have a HUGE soap factor. Reason being, these genres have lots and lots of wacky elements to them. Alias, for instance, had all of the following:
- Characters who faked their deaths (or were actually violently killed on screen) and showed up alive and well months or years later via shocking twists
- Long lost siblings who the characters never knew existed, also revealed via shocking twists
- Revelations that people who didn't realize they were related to each other actually were related (at least sort of)
- Revelations that character A's mom actually was responsible for murdering character B's dad many years ago
- Revelations of good characters being secretly evil and vice versa
- Love triangles
- Accidental pregnancies
- Super wacky sci-fi and/or fantasy elements such as storylines involving the usage of some sort of DNA duplication device to allow a character to "shape-shift" into the exact same face and body of another character (thereby creating an "evil" version of a "good guy" character)
I mean, I could go on and on with this list, but you get the gist. Alias used practically every classic soap opera trope that I can think of at the moment, and I have to admit that it helped hook me into the show, at least for the first couple seasons. They let it get out of hand after that, but I'll get to that issue in the next category.
Overall Rating of the Show Itself: Its' Complicated
Look, I'm probably not being fair here, because I held Gilmore Girls and Felicity to the tough standard of including every season in the overall rating (even the crappy last season of each show), and I'm now breaking that rule for Alias. However, the situation is actually much more extreme here, which is why I'm doing this. The first two seasons of Alias were (and may still be) my favorite t.v. show of all time. I re-watched a few eps of season 2 this week to remind myself of the details of how the Syd/Vaughn romance went down, and for the most part, the show held up pretty well overall. However, this series went awry when the writers put in a terrible plot twist in the final scene of the season 2 finale, which set the show into a downward spiral that it sadly never recovered from. IMO it's also no coincidence that JJ Abrams dramatically decreased his Alias involvement to kick off Lost and crank up his movie career between seasons 2 and 3. Seasons 3 and 4 were really "meh" without JJ to steer the ship, and season 5 was just plain awful. So awful, in fact, that I stopped watching the show. I, possibly the biggest superfan of Alias ever to live, stopped watching. And I have never had any desire to go back and watch what I missed of season 5. I never plan to. It was that bad. So it winds up breaking down like this:
Overall Rating for Seasons 1 and 2: 9.5/10 (minus .5 for some kinda cheesy stuff and for Syd crying WAAYY too fucking much - come on Syd, get a grip on yourself!!)
Overall Rating for Seasons 3 and 4: 6/10 (plots got way too crazy, I hated the crap with the sister, Vaughn marrying someone else was ridiculous, etc. etc.)
Overall Rating for Season 5: 2/10 (plots continued to get crazier, Jennifer Garner and Michael Vartan had actually dated in real life and broken up by this point, only to have Ben Affleck swoop in and marry J-Gar. Rifts were caused, JG and MV's onscreen chemistry was ruined, MV left the show as a series regular castmember, and The Affleck then knocked up J-Gar which basically rendered her completely useless as any sort of bad-ass spy). I'm not saying that Ben and Jen's kids aren't adorable - they certainly are - I'm just saying that it was basically the final nail in the coffin for Alias. A spy show where the spy doesn't get to be bad-ass is kinda pointless. I canceled my season pass a few eps into season 5 because it became unbearable for me to watch (I should clarify that this was not just because of the pregnancy thing - the show as a whole was simply really bad by that point). I came back for the series finale and that was it.Let's just look at it this way: For me, Alias consisted of seasons 1 and 2, and I try to forget that anything after that ever happened at all. I'm trying to keep that in my head while I move into the next rating categories, heh.
I remember the build-up to Syd and Vaughn getting together being a bit more exciting than the actual moment itself. I re-watched those episodes this past week and my memory was correct. The two characters admit their feelings for each other in roundabout ways several times prior to the actual first kiss, and those episodes and scenes are all very romantic and tense and exciting. However, the first kiss itself - which comes in the middle of season 2 right after SD-6 is taken down (IN the SD-6 office), for me was a bit of a letdown after all the buildup. It's not that it's not a satisfying scene, it is, but I think the public-ness of it takes away from any feeling of actual intimacy between the characters. Agent Weiss even walks up in the middle of the kiss and tries to interrupt, only to be ignored. I just think it would have been a much better scene if it was just the two characters alone with some damn privacy rather than being in a public place. Oh and also just a side-note: What the hell is up with Vaughn not having the balls to break up with Alice until AFTER he makes out with Syd!? That really irked me on my re-watch of those episodes this week!!
First "Sexy Times" Scene: 9/10
This scene to me is actually way better than the first kiss scene, simply because the characters are NOT in public for this one. It happens at the end of the episode following the "first kiss" ep, and it's pretty sexay. And of course it's the first time we get a romantic scene with some actual privacy for the characters, so I feel like I would have been fine with skipping the first kiss and moving straight to this, hah. It also ends with the creepy twist that the Evil Francinator is spying on the entire thing through a hidden camera in Syd's room (by this point Syd's best friend Francie has been killed and an evil "double" has been created to take her place). It's pretty wacky fun stuff.
Overall Rating of the Romance: 6/10
Again, this is a tough one. For seasons 1 & 2 it's at like a 9/10 up until the moment at the end of the season 2 finale when we find out that Syd has been missing and presumed dead for 2 years, and that Vaughn has already gotten married to someone else. What the eff, Vaughn, you don't waste any time do you!! If I recall, all or most of season 3 is spent with Vaughn being married to this other stupid chick (Lauren, who is insanely annoying). His marriage ends when Lauren is conveniently revealed to be evil at the end of season 3 and Vaughn kills her. Eventually Syd and Vaughn get back together (season 4?) ... they get engaged ... then some ridiculous crap happens at the end of season 4 where Vaughn reveals that his name isn't really Michael Vaughn, it's all a lie, or something, and then a car smashes into them ... I don't even remember. All I remember is Vaughn being violently gunned down in the premiere of season 5 ... being shot so many times that it's almost comical. I also remember it being an obvious plot contrivance to allow Michael Vartan
to leave the show (he ended up becoming a recurring guest star instead of a series regular). He and J-Gar were broken up in real life by then and there were
rumors of jealousy and bad feelings on set once The Affleck was in the
picture. Of course I'm not trying to claim that I know any of these rumors to be true, I'm just saying that the way things played out with MV leaving the show seemed to help substantiate the rumors. So Vaughn's character "dies" in the season 5 premiere, but then, big shocker, is revealed to still be alive later in the season. J-Gar's real-life pregnancy was written into the show, so we also find out that Syd is preggers with Vaughn's love child. I remember that Syd and Vaughn eventually do wind up together in the series finale, but by that point in the series I had long stopped caring. Blah. Needless to say, my rating of the romance for seasons 3-5 is like 1/10. Maybe 2/10, tops.
I think the lesson we can take from Alias is that soapy elements can be a good thing (for both the romance storyline and the show overall), so long as the writers do NOT let them get out of hand and turn the show and the fictional romance into a ridiculous convoluted mess. For the first two seasons of Alias, those soapy devices kept me hooked like CRACK. After that, they grew like a virus into a horrible monster and caused the show and the fictional romance to turn into a steaming pile of crap.
Oh and one other lesson we can take from Alias: As much as fans always want this to happen, it is best when the actors playing the fictional t.v. couple do NOT date in real life. It's always fine and dandy until the real-life break-up happens, and then it all goes to hell (for reference, Keri Russell and Scott Speedman, who played Felicity and Ben, also dated and broke up in real life during the run of Felicity).
So there you have it. Next up: Chuck and Sarah from Chuck!! Stay tuned.
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