'Alias' Creator Explains Why SD-6 Had to Go
- February 2003
LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - J.J. Abrams can list any number of reasons
why "Alias," the cool and complicated spy show he created, has
begun moving in an entirely new direction in the past few weeks.
Yet they can be encapsulated, more or less, in a couple of sentences.
This is Abrams speaking as a TV viewer who hasn't seen the show before:
"Wait a minute -- she's a good guy working for the bad guys, but
they don't know they're bad guys? And then this bad guy has to pretend
he's a good guy?"
The ways in which Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner) -- the good guy (or
girl, in this case) -- had to conceal her identity as a CIA mole from
her co-workers and superiors at SD-6 -- the bad guys, although some of
them didn't know it -- had become increasingly convoluted, and they were
impeding the direction Abrams and the "Alias" writers wanted
to take the series.
So they devised a fairly radical solution: SD-6 and its partners in the
evil Alliance were taken down in the ABC show's post-Super Bowl episode
on Jan. 26. It was a compelling hour of TV, but it left the show's loyal
fans wondering, What now?
"We looked at what made the show interesting and what made it work,"
Abrams says. "There are, I believe, a lot of elements that make 'Alias'
special. One of them, but only one of them, was the idea that [Sydney]
had to be a double agent. But the tradeoff was this litany of things"
that the show couldn't do because of that structure.
In addition to the potential confusion the double-agent scenario presented
for casual viewers, Abrams says it also kept the show's writers from delving
into the characters of Dixon (Carl Lumbly) and Marshall (Kevin Weisman),
SD-6 agents who thought they were working for the government; often relegated
Ron Rifkin, who plays former SD-6 leader, now freelance evil genius Arvin
Sloane, to expository dialogue and shots of him brooding behind a desk;
and erected an artificial and highly annoying barrier to the romance between
Sydney and her CIA handler, Vaughn (Michael Vartan).
"I've said before if there was one more scene in which Sydney and
Vaughn look at each other longingly and then walk away, I was going to
kill myself," Abrams jokes.
Another problem was that SD-6 was apparently clueless about the fact
that it had double agents -- Sydney's father, Jack (Victor Garber), also
works for the CIA -- in its midst.
"After a while, it felt like either SD-6 is really stupid for not
realizing she's a double agent, or she's really stupid for not taking
them down," Abrams says. "That was getting hard."
Abrams acknowledges that ABC had some concerns about first-time viewers
grasping the show, but he says the network didn't force the change in
direction. (The two episodes following the Super Bowl show have drawn
11.4 million and 10.3 million viewers, an improvement over the show's
season average of 9.3 million.)
"If you're a fan of the show, [the convoluted premise] has no bearing
on you," Abrams says. "But if you're someone who just happens
to tune in -- you couldn't deny the constant anecdotal evidence that people
did have trouble understanding what the show was about. Even fans of the
show would have difficulty sometimes."
The "Alias" staff felt the same way, and it was from that that
the change in premise was born. Abrams doesn't necessarily agree, however,
with the shorthand description that the show has been "simplified."
"I think [viewers] are going to find that the premise of the show
is definitely easier to understand," he says. "But anyone who's
watched the show post-takedown of the Alliance sees we're in no way making
it simplistic or broad-stroked. ... We love the show too much to ever
dumb it down or adjust it to become a lowest-common-denominator program."
Because the change opens up possibilities for other characters, Abrams
believes "Alias" can keep its signature elements -- Sydney's
high-stakes missions and myriad disguises and the complex relationships
between the characters -- and tell better stories involving Dixon, Marshall
and especially Sloane -- who, it turns out, helped cause the takedown
of the Alliance for his own gain.
"We'll have in fact more realistic tension of will [Sydney] be found
out within different storylines," he says. "And we still have
Sloane as our resident bad guy, who's doing now far more interesting and
complex acts of evil than he ever had to do as a cog of this big machine."
Although ABC hasn't said yet whether "Alias" will return for
a third season, the show's writers are proceeding as if that were the
case. The end of this season is already planned, and Abrams is clearly
excited about it.
"The way last year ended" -- with Sydney's presumed-dead, ex-KGB-agent
mother (Lena Olin) revealing herself as a rogue agent opposing both SD-6
and the CIA -- "I loved where we were going ... and I feel like this
year we have an even better ending," he says. "If you're a longtime
or a new fan of the show, I think it will blow your mind. It's that feeling
of I have a giant secret that I just can't wait for everyone to see."
And don't be surprised if, another year or two down the line, there's
another major shift in store for "Alias."
"I hope there will be another shift like this ... where we take
what's going on and what you expect and twist it in a way," Abrams
says. "To me it feels like the show is like that. Whether it's in
sort of a micro way, where you say it's a story twist, or a macro way
where you say the premise adjusts, 'Alias' must be a show that surprises
you and does things you don't expect."
