Alias, The Orphan, and space show news
Mar. 29th, 2005 04:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenak'Tis a good day to be a fangirl. Two space show DVDs arrived on my doorstep, the new BSG and the ill-fated Crusade, which I shall now finally see in its entirey. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
andrastewhite, what was your preferred order of watching again?
I also saw the Alias episode The Orphan, which I liked a lot. And see, I got my flashback Alias episode penned by a Jossverse scribe. Okay, so it weren't Jack 'n Arvin flashbacks, but hey. I loved the Nadia background story.
To start with the glaringly obvious, browsing through other people's reaction this morning, I was amused to learn that while everyone else's first thought on Nadia/Roberto seemed to be "ooooh, this prefigures Nadia/Jack", mine was "oooooh, this supports Sydney/Sloane". (Not that the two are mutually exclusive, of course.) Okay, more seriously now: Nadia's story in spy business was obviously a tale of parallels and contrasts to Sydney's. Both were recruited by a mentor who had his own operation going without telling them. But Roberto made his non-paternal interest obvious (can't mistake a kiss on the mouth), and Nadia responded eagerly. When she found out he was being an Evil Overlord, she did what Sydney couldn't bring herself to do with Sloane - she just shot him point-blank. (Not that Syd hasn't been able to organize Sloane's death - she did hand him over to Sark in season 2 - but unless he was directly threatening someone else in a standoff, I doubt she'll kill him with her own hands.) In both cases, you could make a case for Nadia as Sydney's shadow alter ego - she does what Sydney is only dreaming about to do. (And yes, Syd did dream of a kiss.)
Cesar, the other man with whom Nadia has a past, is decidedly not Dixon. Or is he? Again, a thing of parallels and contrasts. He is her old partner, who went crime lord where Dixon went "real" government agent after the organization that recruited them fell apart, he chose the mentor where Dixon chose his partner, he had a sexual relationship with Nadia where Dixon has a platonic (and completely UST-free one) sibling one with Syd.
Diego, though, who does NOT have a sexual relationship with Nadia, is the Danny equivalent. The one whose death the mentor gets blamed for, galvanizing Nadia/Sydney into making the final step into becoming a Valkyrie.
And then we have the mother figure. Sydney's dead mother Laura, revered by her as a saint, who turned out to be the live and lethal Irina, decidedly not saint-like. And Emily, her adopted mother, whom she also revered as a saint and who came back from the supposed dead (only to die again). Nadia has Sophia (whose name means wisdom in Greek, as Irina's means peace), who might or might not have turned out in league with Roberto but definitely knows more about Bill Vaughn than she's telling his son in the final scene. Whether Nadia knows Sophia is still around is unclear. And then there is the whole mysterious opening scene if the man breaking in and molesting one girl only for Nadia to rush to her defense. Sophia didn't seem to be surprised at his presence; at any rate, she didn't ask who he was. Hmmmmm. Am thinking of Lauren's "do you think it's just a coincidence that you and your sister were both recruited as secret agents". Hmmmm.
In the present, we get more sisterly interaction, Sydney being both worried and supportive. (As someone else observed, Sydney is far better at supporting other people and solving their problems then she is at solving her own.) And getting good at reading Nadia (the running thing). I also liked her crossword encryption anecdote, because it's both such a Jack thing to do and ambigous - funny on the one hand, slightly sinister when you recall the Project Christmas conditioning he was giving her. Watching the Nadia/Cesar encounter, methinks Sydney might also have recalled her meeting with Simon last season and the falling back into Julia Thorne.
As well as giving us some of Nadia's background, the episode raises more questions:
- she wasn't kidding when she was telling Sydney re: Sloane "I know what he did to you"; so how much does the knowledge that her father has quite a lot in common with the late Roberto figure into her willingness to come back to and work for him after the Rambaldi juice introduction from hell?
- Nadia killing Roberto and probably framing Cesar for it: an Irina thing to do, a Sloane thing to do, or just a Nadia, no heritage necessary, thing to do?
And by the way, speaking of Jack and Sloane, behold Andraste's reaction to "The Telling", the season 2 finale.
I also watched the Carnivale season 2 finale, about which more tomorrow, because I actually enjoyed a lot of that episode, and there is good stuff worth analyzing. It did manage to salvage and redeem Iris' arc, among other things. But I'm still not buying the second season on DVD, and am not sure whether I want the show to be continued. By and large, my reaction is the same as Te's.
And switching over to a completely different fandom, Mariner wrote a delightful analysis and defense of Elizabeth Swann of Pirates of the Carribean fame.
andrastewhite, what was your preferred order of watching again? I also saw the Alias episode The Orphan, which I liked a lot. And see, I got my flashback Alias episode penned by a Jossverse scribe. Okay, so it weren't Jack 'n Arvin flashbacks, but hey. I loved the Nadia background story.
To start with the glaringly obvious, browsing through other people's reaction this morning, I was amused to learn that while everyone else's first thought on Nadia/Roberto seemed to be "ooooh, this prefigures Nadia/Jack", mine was "oooooh, this supports Sydney/Sloane". (Not that the two are mutually exclusive, of course.) Okay, more seriously now: Nadia's story in spy business was obviously a tale of parallels and contrasts to Sydney's. Both were recruited by a mentor who had his own operation going without telling them. But Roberto made his non-paternal interest obvious (can't mistake a kiss on the mouth), and Nadia responded eagerly. When she found out he was being an Evil Overlord, she did what Sydney couldn't bring herself to do with Sloane - she just shot him point-blank. (Not that Syd hasn't been able to organize Sloane's death - she did hand him over to Sark in season 2 - but unless he was directly threatening someone else in a standoff, I doubt she'll kill him with her own hands.) In both cases, you could make a case for Nadia as Sydney's shadow alter ego - she does what Sydney is only dreaming about to do. (And yes, Syd did dream of a kiss.)
Cesar, the other man with whom Nadia has a past, is decidedly not Dixon. Or is he? Again, a thing of parallels and contrasts. He is her old partner, who went crime lord where Dixon went "real" government agent after the organization that recruited them fell apart, he chose the mentor where Dixon chose his partner, he had a sexual relationship with Nadia where Dixon has a platonic (and completely UST-free one) sibling one with Syd.
Diego, though, who does NOT have a sexual relationship with Nadia, is the Danny equivalent. The one whose death the mentor gets blamed for, galvanizing Nadia/Sydney into making the final step into becoming a Valkyrie.
And then we have the mother figure. Sydney's dead mother Laura, revered by her as a saint, who turned out to be the live and lethal Irina, decidedly not saint-like. And Emily, her adopted mother, whom she also revered as a saint and who came back from the supposed dead (only to die again). Nadia has Sophia (whose name means wisdom in Greek, as Irina's means peace), who might or might not have turned out in league with Roberto but definitely knows more about Bill Vaughn than she's telling his son in the final scene. Whether Nadia knows Sophia is still around is unclear. And then there is the whole mysterious opening scene if the man breaking in and molesting one girl only for Nadia to rush to her defense. Sophia didn't seem to be surprised at his presence; at any rate, she didn't ask who he was. Hmmmmm. Am thinking of Lauren's "do you think it's just a coincidence that you and your sister were both recruited as secret agents". Hmmmm.
In the present, we get more sisterly interaction, Sydney being both worried and supportive. (As someone else observed, Sydney is far better at supporting other people and solving their problems then she is at solving her own.) And getting good at reading Nadia (the running thing). I also liked her crossword encryption anecdote, because it's both such a Jack thing to do and ambigous - funny on the one hand, slightly sinister when you recall the Project Christmas conditioning he was giving her. Watching the Nadia/Cesar encounter, methinks Sydney might also have recalled her meeting with Simon last season and the falling back into Julia Thorne.
As well as giving us some of Nadia's background, the episode raises more questions:
- she wasn't kidding when she was telling Sydney re: Sloane "I know what he did to you"; so how much does the knowledge that her father has quite a lot in common with the late Roberto figure into her willingness to come back to and work for him after the Rambaldi juice introduction from hell?
- Nadia killing Roberto and probably framing Cesar for it: an Irina thing to do, a Sloane thing to do, or just a Nadia, no heritage necessary, thing to do?
And by the way, speaking of Jack and Sloane, behold Andraste's reaction to "The Telling", the season 2 finale.
I also watched the Carnivale season 2 finale, about which more tomorrow, because I actually enjoyed a lot of that episode, and there is good stuff worth analyzing. It did manage to salvage and redeem Iris' arc, among other things. But I'm still not buying the second season on DVD, and am not sure whether I want the show to be continued. By and large, my reaction is the same as Te's.
And switching over to a completely different fandom, Mariner wrote a delightful analysis and defense of Elizabeth Swann of Pirates of the Carribean fame.
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no subject
Date: 2005-03-29 02:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-29 02:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-29 06:25 pm (UTC)I'm seriously tempted to buy them myself, but the DVD of the mini I have turned out to have less frills than the American one. And either I'm blind or there really is no description of the extras on the Amazon site.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-29 09:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-30 05:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-02 05:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-02 06:09 pm (UTC)As for the other agents: Jack would have gone the collateral damage route. Vaughn probably would have, too, albeit with a twitching conscience (unlike Jack). Dixon? Hm. Can't make up my mind on this one. (And of course Sloane wouldn't even have thought this was a question worth pondering.)
no subject
Date: 2006-05-13 05:28 pm (UTC)Yes, I believe that's what I was attempting to articulate last night, pretty much exactly.
*goes to watch episode again*