adventures in pre-vidding

[pellucid]

So it turns out that if you want to make a vid, there's a whole lot of other stuff you have to do first. If the source for said vid consists of five 22-ep seasons, three of which you've never seen, there's a whole lot of stuff you have to do before you can even start doing the stuff you have to do before vidding. So far, I've yet to encounter the

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[pellucid]

When I decided to do this vid, it hadn't quite occurred to me that it would involve watching the whole show (and even since I wrote this post, I sort of feel like I should also watch season 5? *sigh*). I also didn't realize I would be such a completist vidder, but, well, clearly yes--whether that's a good thing or not. But given that I keep listening to the song on repeat and imagining the vid and making notes and such, I think I've passed the point of no return. :)

And interesting about Sydney vs. Olivia! I hadn't thought about it quite that way, but I suppose that could be part of it: there's something about Sydney's ability, in the face of everything that's happened to her, to bounce back and smile and have fun that I do enjoy, and while I don't think I ever explicitly connected the relative lack of that in Olivia to the reasons she never quite clicked for me, perhaps there's something to the idea. I think the main thing I enjoy about Sydney, though, particularly in season 1, is watching her go through something when I already know where it's leading. Maybe I would have still enjoyed it if I'd gone in unspoiled, but watching Sydney's relationships with her parents play out from a position of dramatic irony rather than innocent discovery is wonderful. That is, the fact that I already knew a lot of what made Sydney tick helped me connect with her. Whereas with Olivia, I got to the end of the season and still felt like I didn't know what made her tick.

Regardless, though, I only very rarely like the balance of plot on Alias (the exceptions being episodes like the two-parter where the Spy!Fam went to steal nuclear weapons in India--if only the whole show were like that!). So even though I quite enjoyed season 1, there was still a lot of it that I wish had been distributed differently, I guess: more Sydney and Jack, more Sydney and Dixon, Sydney and Will and Francie; less Sloane, less Vaughn.

I haven't watched enough of enough different JJ Abrams shows to make this a blanket statement, but there does seem to be a fairly consistent thread with Alias and with the bits of Fringe, Lost, and Undercovers that I've watched: the idea is almost always awesome, and the execution is almost always lacking. It's like he takes these potentially awesome narrative elements and then puts them together in a way that's just a little bit off from what I would have done. In some ways, I feel like my hypothetical vid is more an homage to the idea of Sydney Bristow with the emphases that I would have preferred to see in the show--not that it's some alternate reading, I think, but there's a difference between time the show devotes to these things vs. the extent to which I think they're important in what makes Sydney tick. It's just that in order to do that I apparently have to watch endless episodes of implausible spy hijinks and way too much Vaughn and Sloane and Sark.

All worth it in the end, though, I hope!