Four for the Road
Caught a little TV last night; watched Alias and Lost back-to-back. One of those shows is in the process of winding down for the season; the other is in the process of winding down for good. Both dabble pretty heavily in science fiction themes, which would have been notable a few years ago for "serious" "mainstream" "dramas" (not really sure what those terms mean these days).
On Lost, the real nut of the strangeness is not the technology -- although there are some peculiar things going on -- but just the sheer audacity of the coincidences that drive the story. The longer the show goes, the more outrageous these become. Alias, on the other hand, gets deep enough into the technology that we can see that it's preposterous. I've got nothing against the whole Rambaldi story arc; an ancient manuscript with secrets relevant to a modern crisis is a fun plot device. (Full disclosure: it's something I've used in my own fiction.) Silly, but fun. Now, the business about implanting one person's mind-map onto another person's brain, or giving this woman a bath in some pink DNA-diffused substance and having her come out looking like this...well, it's all a bit much. The show probably jumped the shark somewhere in the middle of last season, so it's probably just as well that they're wrapping it up.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Another major difference between these two shows and the kind of fare that used to make up prime time viewing is the tendency to kill off major recurring characters. (I noted this tendency in 24 a while back.) So last night, we got to see Nadia and Renee die gruesome deaths on Alias followed by Ana-Lucia and Libby getting blown away at the end of Lost. I don't know whether there's any significance to the fact that they were all women. But I would suggest that, for one night's viewing line-up, four was something of an excessive body count.
Also, from the previews, it looks like Mr. Eko might be killed next week (but of course you can't believe too much of what you see either in previews or the actual show.) If he dies, they will have killed off all but one of the major characters from the tail section of the plane. Actually, this is probably a pretty good strategy for Lost. Since we aren't likely to get to know many of the other survivors very well, they can just keep introducing new characters at the beginning of every season whom they can kill once we get to know them. That way, the show stays hard-edged and gritty, but we don't have to worry about losing Kate or Sawyer or Jin.
Anyhow, I have this idea about how to wrap up Alias. Now that Sloane has accidentally killed his daughter while trying to protect page 47 of the Rambaldi manuscript -- this was his Anakin to Darth Vader transitional moment, btw; he's more machine now than man, twisted and evil -- I think we have an opportunity for an interesting end to the show. This cabal of Rambaldi enthusiasts that Sloane has joined up with -- maybe they've been working on a long-term super-secret project related to Rambaldi technology. Maybe the project involved animals and a series of numbers and isolation on a remote island. Maybe it went by a code name...like Karma or Dharma or something like that.
Just a thought...