A viewer’s Alias lament

Feb 5, 2008 at 11:57 AM
6 comments

Why is it that when I watch Alias in New Zealand on TV2, Jennifer Garner and the rest of the cast are really, really fat?
I am serious. The programme airs with the wrong proportions for the TV screen almost every week, for between, say, 10 seconds to the first 10 minutes. Everything is stretched so wide it’s basically unwatchable. It’s like the computers stretch everything at TVNZ and then someone figures out that some button hasn’t been pressed and shrink Garner, Garber and everyone back to size after the ad break.
I’m not an Alias fan but still, this isn’t good enough.

6 comments

Jack Yan’s rating:

★★★

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Good golly, this is a real problem. I visited your other sites. I like them. Take care.

Thank you for the visits and compliment, Timothy!
Yes, it’s very disconcerting seeing Ms Garner twice as wide as she normally is!

Ok, Jack, I was going to comment on how horrible it would be to watch a disproportional Alias, but then I got to the "I'm not and Alias fan" part and am stuck there. How is that possible? Alias has got to be some of the best television, imho.

I am not that big a fan of these big story arcs, basically, and for TV—since it’s escapism for me—I like less character development (e.g. Mission: Impossible). I believe it is exceptionally well made TV, but for this genre, I think La Femme Nikita (from the makers of 24) set the bar for a series about a tough female spy and that Alias never quite made it. (Nikita did have some character development, notably the romance between the leads, but not much by today’s standards.) I keep comparing them and Nikita still winds up my personal preference.

Jack, you have some interesting ideas about character development and story development. As a writer, I find this interesting. I have always been torn between too much character development and not enough.

La Femme Nikita was a good series. I watched it all the time. Unfortunately, Alias became too consumed with Character Development. In fact, I stopped watching it, because it became an ongoing soap opera. Regardless, I like Jennifer Garner. From interviews with her on TV, she seems like a nice person and not too consumed with herself.

It seems a lot of modern TV viewers want (or think they want) character development, which is why Lost and Heroes have done so well. I am not sure why either show is successful, Timothy, from my own perspective as a viewer: Lost has intriguing ideas but the use of the flashback technique week after week is tiresome, while Heroes suffers from sluggish direction and plot development, with few signs of its various threads converging except for season finalés. I know my opinion is a minority one as people seem to love these shows.
I watch TV for entertainment and escapism and the emphasis on character development does not fulfil my needs. Others seem to watch TV to find affinity with the characters, which might be why these shows have done well.
I would sneak in character development within a strong plot. If the plot is good it does not matter how much character development you inject. If the plot is weak, tiresome or repetitive (Lost, Heroes, Life), then the use of character development at its expense is cheating the viewer when it comes to TV. La Femme Nikita worked because it always had great stories and that should be the cornerstone of any TV or film writing.
Character development should not be at the heart of these series, in my book, but a secondary consideration. I think Alias lost its way when character development became primary.

A viewer’s Alias lament

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