Multifandom recs and Alias 4.17
Apr. 30th, 2005 03:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn case an occasional reader of these humble pages is wondering why there was so much squeeing about the Serenity trailer here and elsewhere on lj, I refer them to this superb post on Firefly and Joss Whedon's ability to create shows to fall in love with.
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Since I love the fanon - as written by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
penknife and artaxastra - which had Erik Lehnsherr teaching in tandem with Xavier before becoming Magneto, and thus knowing the earliest X-Men, Jean and Scott, as teenagers - , I was delighted to find a rare and excellent story about movieverse Scott and his early relationship with the future supervillain. Have a look: "Closer I'm Bound"
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A Clean Conscience: wasn't a powerhouse episode like the last few, but still worth watching. Nitpicks out of the way first: I was irritated as hell by the "we trained together at Langley" explanation for Dixon's relationship with his old pal, because Dixon never was at Langley; he had been recruited directly by SD-6. Then I read in other comments Dixon supposedly said they'd been together with the military, which, okay, makes sense again. Could someone clear this up and tell me just what he said?
WHY did we have the clunker of a line telling us the agent did not in fact die? It would have been far better if they left that out. Alias, if you venture out of Bond territory and into Le Carré territory, then play by Le Carré rules and let agents shot by fellow agents in the line of duty die.
And of course, the big one: what became of the Big Red Ball Of Rambaldi? Did they dismantle it? Keep it going? (Pray note that I'm not complaining we didn't continue with the stunner of a scene between Sloane and Nadia. Because I do expect we'll get some follow-up on this later, and no, I don't think Sloane should have been raving his way through the episode instead of being his normal posessed self. He can compartmentalize his obsessions, after all. But I want to know what they did with the Rambaldi device.
Now, on to the good stuff: as several people speculated before, Sonia Braga's character is really the eldest Derevko sister, Elena. Loved both that Sloane checked up on her with the finger prints and that she was smart enough to mislead him by making him suspicious about the wrong thing. Of course, Nadia's necklace as a listening device was obvious, and considering that Sofia/Elena had been the one who told Vaughn about his father mentioning this Nightingale stuff, one could be sure she wasn't Ms Harmless. Now, let's see: Sofia/Elena wasn't just the one who raised Nadia until the groundkeeper incident, she was also the one who told Nadia to go for the spy recruitment offered by Roberto. For all we know, she was the one sending Roberto to Nadia to begin with. So yes, she was definitely dublicating Sydney's life (with darker twists) in Nadia's. Can't wait to see how this turns out.
Leaving aside the earlier mentioned nitpicks, the Dixon stuff was excellent. Loved the discussion about the casualities of the business mentality, and it's non black and white-ness. Because there is no good answer for this - are the lives of 15 people expendable to save a greater number? And once you accept that they are, isn't there the danger of making pragmatism an end in itself? (For all we know, that's how Sloane started the slide from CIA agent to Evil Overlord, by deciding that lives were expendable for a greater goal.) Dixon both accepting the necessity in a particular situation and insisting on mourning for the victims, not imagining his kids as the saved but as the sacrificed, is probably the most humane response.
Jack's ongoing decline was played superbly by Victor Garber. At least he took Marshall's advice and got treatment. But it's just typical he refuses to talk to Sydney about it. Bring on next week's wrongness!
***
Since I love the fanon - as written by
penknife and artaxastra - which had Erik Lehnsherr teaching in tandem with Xavier before becoming Magneto, and thus knowing the earliest X-Men, Jean and Scott, as teenagers - , I was delighted to find a rare and excellent story about movieverse Scott and his early relationship with the future supervillain. Have a look: "Closer I'm Bound" ***
A Clean Conscience: wasn't a powerhouse episode like the last few, but still worth watching. Nitpicks out of the way first: I was irritated as hell by the "we trained together at Langley" explanation for Dixon's relationship with his old pal, because Dixon never was at Langley; he had been recruited directly by SD-6. Then I read in other comments Dixon supposedly said they'd been together with the military, which, okay, makes sense again. Could someone clear this up and tell me just what he said?
WHY did we have the clunker of a line telling us the agent did not in fact die? It would have been far better if they left that out. Alias, if you venture out of Bond territory and into Le Carré territory, then play by Le Carré rules and let agents shot by fellow agents in the line of duty die.
And of course, the big one: what became of the Big Red Ball Of Rambaldi? Did they dismantle it? Keep it going? (Pray note that I'm not complaining we didn't continue with the stunner of a scene between Sloane and Nadia. Because I do expect we'll get some follow-up on this later, and no, I don't think Sloane should have been raving his way through the episode instead of being his normal posessed self. He can compartmentalize his obsessions, after all. But I want to know what they did with the Rambaldi device.
Now, on to the good stuff: as several people speculated before, Sonia Braga's character is really the eldest Derevko sister, Elena. Loved both that Sloane checked up on her with the finger prints and that she was smart enough to mislead him by making him suspicious about the wrong thing. Of course, Nadia's necklace as a listening device was obvious, and considering that Sofia/Elena had been the one who told Vaughn about his father mentioning this Nightingale stuff, one could be sure she wasn't Ms Harmless. Now, let's see: Sofia/Elena wasn't just the one who raised Nadia until the groundkeeper incident, she was also the one who told Nadia to go for the spy recruitment offered by Roberto. For all we know, she was the one sending Roberto to Nadia to begin with. So yes, she was definitely dublicating Sydney's life (with darker twists) in Nadia's. Can't wait to see how this turns out.
Leaving aside the earlier mentioned nitpicks, the Dixon stuff was excellent. Loved the discussion about the casualities of the business mentality, and it's non black and white-ness. Because there is no good answer for this - are the lives of 15 people expendable to save a greater number? And once you accept that they are, isn't there the danger of making pragmatism an end in itself? (For all we know, that's how Sloane started the slide from CIA agent to Evil Overlord, by deciding that lives were expendable for a greater goal.) Dixon both accepting the necessity in a particular situation and insisting on mourning for the victims, not imagining his kids as the saved but as the sacrificed, is probably the most humane response.
Jack's ongoing decline was played superbly by Victor Garber. At least he took Marshall's advice and got treatment. But it's just typical he refuses to talk to Sydney about it. Bring on next week's wrongness!
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Take me out to the black...
Date: 2005-05-01 10:50 am (UTC)Burn the land and boil the sea
You can't take the sky from me
There's no place I can be
Since I found Serenity
But you can't take the sky from me...
Just joining you, softly humming the beautiful theme song. Watched the Serenity trailer, yesterday. Firefly seems to corrupt its "victims" exactly like all other serious drugs. One taste of the gorgeous old flavour, and the passion hits you back in the face like it was never gone *g*
no subject
Date: 2005-05-01 03:31 pm (UTC)1. The burst of annoyance at hearing "Langley"-- I'm pretty sure it's the word I heard, but it may have been Vaughn's question, not Dixon's answer.
2. Rhames (sp?) not dying. What the..? If you've come this far-- and this particular storyline *is* an impressive one, a departure-- have the guts to make the final step, willya?
*This* reminded me of the joke about the two prisoners escaping and climbing 99 of 100 walls before deciding it was too hard and to turn back.
3. The Circumference and, more than anything, Arvin Sloane's reactions to it...and Nadia's to his atrocious slaying of...I hesitate to say "an innocent", but yes; besides, the trespass Sloane killed him for wasn't one against man's law but the law he considers above and beyond...
4. The Elena revelation fell a bit flat; when she came and spouted a story about evil henchmen, I immediately thought it was just a ploy. The penchant just confirmed that-- speaking of, I can't believe they don't have anti-surveillance measures at APO! What, some Scandinavian terrorist scum got them, but our state-of-the-art covert ops don't?
Hrm, that sounded a bit negative. Final statement I will say more about in my own review:
JAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
***
Also, I found out about tentacle porn,
It's usually a kind of alien plant or animal, with tentacles, often sentient, that gets a hold of Our Heroes and tries to have sex with them. Mostly non-con but usually not in any traumatising way. The tentacle porn I've seen tends to be light-hearted and focused on the So Wrong But Soooo Hot angle. I know
Er. That was probably more info than you needed... It's not to everyone's taste, of course. I know there were some fans who objected to
I think it's very safe to say it won't join the line of my personal kinks...
no subject
Date: 2005-05-01 03:53 pm (UTC)2. Precisely.
Tentacle Porn: He. Well, you know, the variety I go for is rather show-specific. Because JMS, bless him, went to some length to make the sexuality of several alien species truly alien, and thus the Centauri on Babylon 5 don't have one bit of male genetalia, they have six. Tentacles. Which we see on screen on two occasions, American censors being a bit obtuse.*veg* (The Centauri women have six slots on their backs, if you're curious.)
no subject
Date: 2005-05-01 03:59 pm (UTC)re: 2. Seriously.
Now, see, I would only have been shocked (yet oddly amused) had I learned the females had, say, twelve of 'em.
*evilest grin of them all*
I'll take your word for it. 0 :-)
Hee! Good for us fans, I say.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-18 07:09 am (UTC)Anyway, I happened to see this entry, and I wanted to thank you for mentioning "Closer I'm Bound." :) I can't claim credit for the original Scott-and-Erik idea (it was a Remix fic), but I'm very glad you enjoyed my story! :)
no subject
Date: 2005-06-18 07:25 am (UTC)