The Problem with JJ Abrams

WARNING: Spoiler Alert This post reveals things about Lost, Alias, Rome, and Dr Who. If you haven't seen the entirety of the first 2 seasons of any of those shows (3 for Alias) but think you may do so some day, you might want to skip this relevant portions of this post. I'll use graphics to mark them.



I'm a big fan of Lost. I felt the slow-build techniques, the jigsaw puzzle flashbacks, and the attention-demanding inchworm creep of the plot was fairly unique in television.

Then I saw Alias. Now I know the only thing unique about Lost is the "the Island as a character" concept - what I thought was a unique method of telling tales, is just JJ Abrams total inability to conclude anything. The dude has no idea when or how to wrap up a plot. I still think Lost is brilliant (and to be fair, while the flashbacks aren't unique, they are still noteworthy and stylish) but I worry I may look more critically on future seasons.


Alias Season 1 went by really fast. We plunged in. Half way (and a couple days) through, a friend asked where we were. I said "not too far, their still dealing with the whole Rimbaldi plotline." She smiled, "Yeah, like that tells me anything." A break for a week or two, then we got Season 2 and burned through it just as fast as the first Season.

Season 3 of Alias is taking forever. Partly it's cause we had some issues with our Netflix cues, and we discovered the new Dr Who mid-Alias, but mostly it's cause the story drags. She's gone for two years, but hardly anything's changed. Inside of two episodes, the entire cast is restored (except Will) - that's breakneck fast, except unfortunately it means that two years went by without her and not a single plotline actually advanced.
I shouted out Lauren's secret half way through the second episode she was in, yet it took Sydney & Vaugn 16 more episodes to figure her out.
Sarke and Not Francie are still all bitter, despite the fact the compartmentalization of emotions necessary to spying (mentioned in the show every 4th episode) means you can't be a major grudge-holder: if you were you'd get ulcers, psychosis, and repeatedly go back for vengeance against all those foreign security guards that tried to kill you. They point this out repeatedly, yet ignore their own advice - that inconsistancy wouldn't bug me if anything every actually came of it, but the show just sits on it's status quo.
The one thing that actually changed about the show's premise (SD-6 and Sydney's double-agent status) is kind of a let down. The bad guys having secrets isn't nearly as delicious as the sympathetic characters keeping secrets.
All things considered, the show would have been better with an episodic (as opposed to serial) paradigm, devoid of meta-plot. I mean, if you aren't going to feature any character development whatsoever, you might as well make each episode it's own contained plotline.


In contrast, we just finished disc 2 of season 2 of Rome. Terrible life-shattering events happened to one of the Legionaires at the end of Season 1, and his downward spiral only lasted 3 episodes of the next season. By the end of the 4th he's had another major character transformation. Since very little is known about the lives of the historical Pullo and Vorenas (Caesar mentions them briefly in his history of the Gaullic campaign, so everything after episode 2 is creative license) , they could have dragged it out for the rest of the season. The end-credit music was different for the 3 episodes where he was spiraling, then restores to the original theme on the 4th, to signify and reinforce the transformation. Clearly, the writers and directors understand the necessity for story-arcs to resolve.



The new Dr Who also has the right idea: Subtle seasonal plotlines with plenty of short diversions, accented by frequent cast rotations. That's how you keep a story fresh, even with characters who've had 20+ years of screen time.