Alias 5.10: "S.O.S."

Written by J.R. Orci
Directed by Karen Gaviola

In which Sydney attempts to escape her imprisonment on a cargo ship while dealing with pregnancy issues, while Jack tracks down a possible Prophet Five mole in the CIA…


Status Report

During the long wait between episodes, a lot has changed in the “Alias” world. The most important change has been the outright betrayal of the ABC network. Despite the fact that the series brought ABC a huge amount of credibility and exposure during a time when nothing else seemed to work, to the point of making JJ Abrams one of the most sought-after producers around and Jen Garner a bankable star, ABC has treated the series like an unwanted stepchild.

It’s bad enough that they forced the producers and writers to abandon the original plans for a far more substantial Rambaldi presence over the years. It’s ridiculous to watch the fifth season and know that the plot is supposed to be related to Rambaldi, but the man’s name can’t come up and past continuity is intentionally left off the table. Moments that scream for some kind of comment from Sydney or Jack fly by, all because of network interference.

Why is this galling? Because if “Alias” had been launched more recently, in the more tolerant era ushered in by “Lost”, that overarching mythology would have been nurtured and praised instead of sidelined and feared. ABC all but ruined the show by stripping away its unique elements: the episodic cliffhangers, the Rambaldi mythology, and its structural complexity.

Yet the writers did everything possible to work around the network’s idiotic mandates. Despite the fits and starts of the third season, the fourth season managed to return to form, especially in the second half. Sure enough, it was the return to the Rambaldi mythology that gave the fourth season a stronger and more meaningful focus. With the fifth season, the network became even more insistent and Prophet Five is the result: Rambaldi with the serial numbers worn off.

After the fourth season, Jen’s pregnancy gave ABC all the excuse they needed to make demands. If the show was going to stay on the air, the producers would have to play things their way. Other issues required changes in the cast, and that fed into the anxiety of fans who couldn’t see past their own impatience. Why wait to see how changes will be resolved over time, especially when the producers come right out and say things are not what they seem? No, it’s far better to bash a season before it even begins, thus telling the network that they were right to treat “Alias” as a has-been commodity.

There’s little surprise that the series was canceled relatively early in the season. The network used Jen’s pregnancy and the extreme negative reaction of short-sighted “fans” to justify their mandates and kill the series once the ratings dropped, something that the timeslot chosen by the network practically achieved on its own. There was still hope that the network would let the writers come back from hiatus and end things their own way.

And so, the betrayal: the decision to reduce the season’s episode order from 22 episodes to an effective total of 17 episodes. What’s worse, this decision was made after 9 episodes had already been aired, undermining the pacing and progression of the season arc and forcing the writers to wrap things up in far less time than they had expected. Instead of 13 episodes, the writers were left with an effective total of 8 episodes. ABC all but destroyed whatever plans the producers and writers had for concluding the series with such a sharp reduction.

Over the past several weeks, the producers and ABC have been doing damage control. Suddenly the producers are “admitting” that the focus on Rambaldi in earlier seasons was a mistake, though one can easily read between the lines. Everyone is hyping the final episodes as if the answers provided to open questions will remotely resemble the original intentions. Again, read between the lines, and the bitterness from JJ and the rest of the production staff is apparent. They know they were screwed.

One effect of the episode reduction was the need to jump right back into the plot without any chance of bringing the audience up to speed. Contrast this with the similar hiatus forced on “Prison Break”. In that case, the structure of the series and the knowledge of the hiatus allowed the writers to structure the first few new episode in a way that reminded the audience of the major plot threads.

In contrast, it’s hard to tell if this episode was written before the episode reduction. On the one hand, there’s a lot dumped into the plot, especially the unexpected events with Thomas Grace. The first half of the season suggested that there was something about him that didn’t quite add up, but this feels accelerated, as if the writers needed to get moving faster than they intended. But it’s also possible that Grace and his connection to this “Cardinal” has something to do with Prophet Five and was always meant to come up at this point. Who can really say? The details from past episodes aren’t fresh enough to place the new information in context.

For all that, the pacing suggested that the baby would be born in this episode, so when it wasn’t “extracted” during the procedure, it was a little shocking and more than a little worrisome. The only way to mitigate the damage of the “baby plot” is to make the baby a substantial and logical part of the arc. This episode was consistent with that, but in a way that suggested that things may not be what they seem.

If Prophet Five wanted the baby, based on some connection to the Horizon (something strongly hinted in earlier episodes), then they had the perfect opportunity to take the kid and go. Instead, they took time and energy to save the pregnancy and leave the child intact. It doesn’t really make sense. If the preservation of Sydney’s pregnancy was important enough to Irina, why interrogate her on a cargo ship in the middle of the North Atlantic?

Therein lies the first hint of a massive shift in the plot structure. Payton (a role that proves how hot Amy Acker can be when she’s evil) seems to be reporting to someone in ultimate authority of Prophet Five operations. “The Horizon” suggested that this authority was Irina herself, a revelation that in and of itself didn’t quite fit the evidence. So once again, it’s quite possible that this additional complication was always intended, but that the network betrayal forced things to be advanced less elegantly than desired.

Even Sloane’s situation wasn’t given much of a context. It’s easy enough to remember his precarious position now, but coming into the episode, there wasn’t much to go on. Thus the significance of his actions in this episode, particularly letting Sydney be rescued and allowing the operation against the CIA to proceed undeterred, is somewhat lost.

Still, this was an episode with some fun elements. Infiltrating Langley was a great idea, because it plays directly into the revelation that Prophet Five has agents in key positions of every major intelligence community. Jack’s method of dealing with the P5 agent in the CIA is classic, and easily one of the best moments of the episode.

Unfortunately, that scene also points out another contextual problem: the audience is clearly supposed to know who the P5 agent is, relative to Sydney and the series as a whole, yet there’s nothing to remind the audience of the character’s significance. It’s not unlike the situation in the fifth season premiere of “X-Files”, when a minor character is revealed to be a mole of the Syndicate. It’s treated as a huge reveal, but for casual fans, it was hardly meaningful.

As far as Prophet Five goes, it’s still quite evident that it’s related to Rambaldi, especially since everything about its history, timeline, intelligence connections, and membership points to some movement that coincided with Sloane’s original plan to fulfill Rambaldi’s prophecies and Irina’s decision to counter that plan. Whether or not the remaining episodes can remain true to that “big picture” will determine how successful the writers have been in dealing with the episode reduction and the interference by the network.


Final Analysis

Overall, this episode is a hard nut to crack. There are indications that the writers had to make some changes to the intended storyline, and that this episode suffered as a result. Coming off a hiatus, there were a number of contextual references that were missing to help the audience get back up to speed.

Writing: 1/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 2/4

Final Rating: 7/10

(Season 5 Average: 6.6)