First impressions of ALIAS

[thalia_seawood]

Weekend again! After it was so hot for nearly the entire week now it's raining, raining, raining. Which is excellent, because I can stay home all day watching DVDs without the feeling that I really should go outside and enjoy the sunshine

Comments

[thalia_seawood]

Welcome to my LJ. :-)

What I like about this show is that characters aren't just black and white. Right now Sydney sees her mother as totally evil, because she was KGB, but I'm sure we will find out more about her mom as well and then she will have to revoke her judgement at least partially. People in ALIAS do bad things, but many believe they do them for a worthy cause. While Arvin Sloane seems to be in it for the power, he also genuinly appears to care for Jack and Sydney.
I really like it that each character has motivations for their actions.

Jack strangely reminds me of Garak from DS9. A Garak without the sexually ambiguous act, of course. What they have in common is that they both appear quite harmless on the surface, but are extremely competent and even deadly in action. They are also experts at lying. If Garak had a daughter, I can see his relationship with her as fragile as Jack's with Sydney.

[thalia_seawood]

That's a really interesting connection, and I think you're right. They also have an, er, flexible approach to ethics in common.

After pondering this some more, I also think they have a certain fragility. They appear to be very tough, but underneath they seem to be vulnerable. With Garak you can see it occasionally when he's interacting with Tain or Odo, Tain's death scene for example. And of course, we learn he has claustrophobia.

They also are both tied to a stronger leader who they admire and love. Garak-Tain is a love-hate relationship. I'm not sure what Jack feels for Arvin so far, though. He appears to be his closest friend, but does he also resent him or hate him?

[thalia_seawood]

Yes, that's true. You don't see Jack display his emotions openly very often, but when he does ... Garak and Jack do both have hard shells and squishy centres, it would seem *g*.

I watched episode 16 & 17 (season I) yesterday and realized they even have a tendency to addictions in common, i.e. Garak keeping his brain implant switched on or Jack resorting to drinking.

I'll try to watch the final episodes of season I today, because I'd really like to start reading ALIAS fanfiction. So far I've stayed away from fanfiction as most of it has spoiler warnings. (Didn't mind being spoilt for Star Wars, but speculating on what will happen next is so much fun in the ALIAS universe.)