Isn't it wonderful how in the film medium, by which I mean both television and motion pictures, things happen by accident. I think it faintly unlikely, though I may be wholly wrong, that Picasso ever drew something and then thought, 'Oh, hang on a second there, that nose in the wrong place could mean something!'. Or that Mozart miswrote in a G in the first violins at the top of an F7 and realised that it sounded mellow and fruity, creating the F9 chord. Yet in cinema and in television, a collaborative venture of many hands, of much fluke and hoping that things turn out like they were dreamt, (rather than, as Picasso and Mozart could, ingeniously transferring their genius dreams individually), things happen accidentally that weren't expected and strengthen bits and pieces.

Think of the film moments; the muted colours in the climactic scene in 'Taxi Driver', originally only made so to pacify the grumbling MPAA. The ending of Casablanca, the only one that makes sense in the central tableau, in the relationship of Rick and Renault, but apparently chosen at the last moment. The part-improvised iconic ID scene in The Usual Suspects Things which accidentally go right. On top of this, imagine all those countless actors who turn down roles, and fourth choices who make the films their own. Just reserves to start with, they craft an unforgettable character.

1.4- 'A Broken Heart'

All of which came to me, and luckily apropos of the episode, in the climactic scene of this fourth episode of Alias, the best scene to date. Incidentally, here's the core, (the heart) of this episode, and it comes three quarters of the way through, thus allowing us to segue into the cliffhanger for the last ten minutes. It's almost, at times, like watching the last three acts of an episode and then the first act of the next episode, but on this occasion the ending had a bomb being implanted into a heart, literally breaking the heart; so hooray for the thematic unity.

But back, eliptically, (how else do I write?) to the scene with Vaughn, back on Sydney's case in both senses, and our gal on the plaza in Los Angeles. You're watching this very beautiful scene, where Sydney cries her eyes out and explains what's going on in her life, how much she has to lie to everyone, how much she wants to be as strong and difficult to her father as her father is to her, but how she is hamstringed by love. How she liked the agent who ended up dead on her mission, and things are just getting on top of her. How she doesn't want the pager to rule her life. Suddenly, she throws it into the ocean. Vaughn, stoic, so far having not revealed nearly enough about himself to be as open to Sydney as Syd has just been to him, is sardonic: 'You just through your pager in the Pacific'. And through the Grave-ian absurdity of the moment, Sydney notices herself as a character in someone else's life, and breaks into laughter. How ridiculous, she thinks, does it look from Vaughn's perspective, this loss of control, this story? As ridiculous as Buffy, recounting the improbable melodrama of Season Six, drained of its dreary, beautiful motives, to the bemused, amused Giles.

And so, yes, this scene really works. But here's the clincher. As Sydney is slowly pouring her soul out to Vaughn, we go wide for a few moments to see the fair on the beach-side. And the largest of all the attractions is what looks like a giant Ferris wheel. The lights on it are flashing, concentrically, slowly resolving inwards and drawing our attention into its middle, where, since it's a structure which turns, there is nothing at all. An emptiness. A broken heart.

I'd put ten of these green dollars on the fact that this wasn't in the script. Though the director surely noticed the interestingness of the wheel, it still seems likely he put it in there to make the shot visually stimulating, and for no other reason. And yet, despite this accidental nature, the scene vaults off from nicely observed to brilliant because of this little detail, encapsulating Sydney's momentary breakdown, the conflicts, always present in a double agent of being thrown in a myriad of directions all at once. A wonderful accident, perhaps. But a great moment of television regardless of intent.

-The reason this works particularly well for me is partly because of the insistence the writer of the episode puts on her central theme, perhaps more so than earlier episodes. We see the broken heart of the window of the Church in Malaga, opening the episode. Rambaldi, literally displayed as what he figuratively is, a missing link, the broken up heart of Renaissance law, part Leonardo da Vinci, part Charles Babbage, part Nostradamus. We have a whole subplot of Francie's broken heart over Charlie, who is apparently cheating on her. I delight in the fact that in only the fourth episode, we're seeing real characterisation given to a person who is perhaps tenth most integral to the series, (Syd, Jack, Vaughn, Sloane, Dixon, Will, Marshall, Weiss, Anna). Jack's heart is broken into in a different way, decrypted, robbed. Instead of his usual solid relaxation during psych tests, (suggested, at least), we see him worried about what his daughter is going to find out about him and his dead wife. When Jack stands Sydney up at the restaurant out of cowardice, that was my heart, right here, breaking.

So yes, I loved this episode, it's easily my favourite so far.

-I think what makes the series less utterly delightful to me than Buffy and Angel, so far, (though take into account my disclaimer in my last post), is a rather subtle distinction between what Rob and what Ames have been saying in the last thread (over on AtPo). Though the show itself, as Rob rightly points out, undercuts the supposed seriousness of all these campy missions, (the characters of Marcus, for example, and the crazyfun music underneath each mission), what is different is that, aside from the odd moment, the main characters themselves take themselves and their situations earnestly. They don't act with any of the brilliant flippancy of Buffy. You can't ever imagine Sydney saying 'If the apocalpyse comes, beep me'. Or Vaughn: 'I laugh in the face of danger. Then I run and hide until it goes away'. I think part of the issue is that Buffy was originally a show about the teen experience, whereas this is a show about twenty-somethings largely, people treating their professional existences as if it meant the world. And I can take that, analyse it, and enjoy it. But if we never get that Greenwaltian subversion running below the surface, the magic that invested itself in 'The Girl In Question', but less controversially in many of Greenwalt's earlier episodes, we miss just a touch of the fun of it all. Not much. Just a lick. That's how I manage to agree with what both Ames and Rob are saying. The writers may not take the story too seriously, but the main characters, to date, really do.

1.5 'Doppelganger'

It's hardly suprising, considering the persistent duality played on in the series, how many of the titles have a fundamental suggestion of two-ness in them (cf Parity), but here we go again.

This is a much weaker episode, though one with a fascinating cliffhanger. A proper one where instead of it being 'What's inside the suitcase?' or 'Why isn't Sydney about to die?' (ie a plot reveal), it's 'How does what's happened affect the characters? (a story reveal). I don't want to be tricked by not knowing what's going to happen until next week, I want to be tricked by not knowing what has already been shown to have happened will affect the characters I have an affection for. And that's what this one does, as Dixon, using some initiative, has a secondary detonator which blows up many CIA men- something that wouldn't have happened had Sydney not, earlier in the epsiode, been allowed by Vaughn to explain her double agent status. Cue fisticuffs, (verbal at least), next time through.

The little there is to discuss in this episode before the final die-cast:

-The file copying done by Vaughn gives an indication that, in this most fiddly to read of all boundary lines, Vaughn takes anv interest in Sydney personally as well as professionally. Although Jack's files are entirely work-related, it is not in her remit to see them, and thus suggests that Vaughn wants to ingratiate himself for the good of Sydney as a person rather than an agent. Vaughn/Sydney looks all set to become the main romantic centre of the show, much to the dismay of Will, the hopelessly curious, (he is Syd's curiosity, in a sense), journalist.

-The lunatic chase sequence at the beginning of the episode is really good fun, as long as you don't take the fact that Dixon could do open heart surgery on a stranger while an ambulance is travelling one hundred miles an hour too seriously. It also sets up, along with the Halloween party, the devestation in Sydney's eyes at the end.

-Halloween= skeletons in closets, demons under beds. Nuff said.

-When Sydney is really, really pressed by Dixon, it pays off beautifully on screen. I am deeply impressed by the way that Sydney already has three relationships which have emotional resonance, (Jack, Vaughn, Dixon).

-Jack's method of coercion is perhaps a little surprising, though perhaps not so much. His devotion to his daughter continues to shine through in deeds but not words, which I, as a chronic Hamlet, (ie words but not deeds) find violently unsatisfactory. Affection, Jack. Two 'fs'. Not that I don't love the steely, determined fool, don't get me wrong.

-The whole Kate Jones plot-line, also used as Syd's undercover name, totally baffles me for the moment, so I'll stay schtum.

That's all for now. Tune in tomorrow evening for your soiree equivalent of two pints of milk, the Daily Two Reviews of Alias. Until then, I have a group of people to double-cross you with...

TCH