Chevroleting speedily toward the end of the Season now, today with a review of a really good episode, and a couple of notes on a clip-show which has a really odd feel to it- though it annoyingly recycles things a fiathful viewer has already seen and ingested, in the process draining thematic resonances out of scenes which orked very well the first time, thankyou, it also has one of the biggest endings of a show to date, (though not reall a plot revelation so much as a realisation. But that's for later. First of all,

1.16- 'The Prophecy'

There's an utterly beautiful scene visible through my window at the moment; so much so that I wonder why I'm not outside walking. It's one of those fays that only autumn does, where there's an acknowledgement that the sunshine is as tenuous as a lead just hanging on to the bough of a tree. Yet through this hopelessness there's joy in the moment. There's men raking leaves off the paths between my room and the sports centre, a minute or so's gap and full of half-naked trees and bejewelled grass. People bluster past in various states of delight, or occasionally stress. And I sit here, Projective Geometry essay and Dynamical Systems assignment complete, and wonder how anyone couldn't just be blown away, Oz-bound, by the sumptuousness of it all. And keep thoughts of my job search very much hidden in my most inaccessable drawer.

Autumn has a spirit that I admire it for. Even on Sloane-grey days when drizzle weeps half-heartedly from the sky, it manages moments of transcendence, of joy in its own existence, even as the Greek Tragedy Season. (See TCH's series: 'The Rite of Spring: coming of age theatre', 'Summer lovin': The eternal romantic comedy', and 'A Winter's Tale: Film noir of nature', CUP, 1986). And that's what we're given here in this episode, [phew]. The mounting insecurity loaded onto people when they start to believe a prophecy is inevitably true, that the end of the story is already known and ineluctable, that the signs are indubitable and not Delphic. But coupled with that, moments of delight despite the tragedy approaching, despite the knwledge, implicit in the characters, that something big is coming, that there are only five episodes left in the Season.

A few la leaf falls oneliness thoughts then:

-The whole episode, wreathed in this mature search for joy, begins with that bastion of cheap thrills, a bond escape scene. We see Sydney being hunted down by dogs, (literally). And then she jumps off a vast cliff and comes parachuting down into Rio de Janeiro. I was quite baffled by the James Bond-ness of it all, the obvious lack of desire to take itself seriously, and the fact that the situation appeared unusually to have nothing to do with the intricate cross-stitch plot-line going on in the mind of JJ Abrams. And then Roger Moore turned up, the homage button clicked down on itself, and everything became completely clear.

-James Bond covers a lot of the the same territory as Alias but without the underlying complexity and nuance achievable in a serial television show, (which is not to say that Bond couldn't have nuance if it wanted to, it largely has no time for such affectation). I'm not a great fan, but it does have that sense of joy despite the (implicit) thought that James will one day be horribly murdered. The revelling in life's ephemerality, the joy of autumn. In this episode, the scene where Vaughn virtually takes Sydney on a date to the Vatican high security cellars, (see his constant babbling about going to dinner and a show afterwards), has a little of that quality, and I enjoyed it all the more for the departure from the show's occasional dourness.

-Also, oooh look it's Lindsay Crouse. Apparently playing Maggie Walsh's identical twin sister with long hair. She has a skill for nononsense highly intelligent government shadows, doesn't she? I enjoyed the idea of DSR throughout this episode, and it's little, quiet comparisons, made stronger through Crouse's presence, of the Intiative. It's where government suits try to get a handle on what the paranormal is, and regulate it. As always in a show created by someone who thinks of themselves as an artist, (even in the most prosaic of senses), it's not going to work. Abrams and Whedon balk at the regulation of magic and superstition, metaphors for the genius of creation, being cut into A4 summary sheets by someone sitting at a plush new typewriter.

-The psychometric tests that Sydney undergoes have that complex double-edgedness present in a lot of Alias's recent, intelligent plot developments. The realisation Sydney must initially come to is that to try to wriggle her way out of the Prophecy, to not submit to finding out about her true self, is cowardly. Yet in the next episode, we see DSR going too far, and bumbling into corrupt territory. Sydney's intial instincts turn out to be right for the wrong reason. And then to complicate matters further, when she wants to get free, Jack and Vaughn come and do it in the worst manner possible, encapsulating the Careful What you Wish For standpoint.

-Within the psychometric tests is the studied hint that Sydney has an aversion to her mother, although it wasn't clear to me on one viewing whether Sydney made the comment deliberately so they could pop-psych her on it in the future, or whether she said it thoughtlessly, hence giving proof of her Electra complex. It's in the section where she is asked to comment on a picture, and Sydney retorts that the child 'isn't interested in what the mother's saying. She wants to go outside to play'. Complex or Invention?

-We get the parallel story where we are comparing Mrs Sloane's inevitable terminal lymphoma to Sydney's growing sense of dread about her destiny. And again we're back to metaphors of autumn. She knows she is going to die, inevitably, but she wants to live out the remainders of her life finding joy in the journey towards her own mortality. Sloane claims that Sydney's visit made her 'as happy as she's been in a long while', and Sydney, in consolidating that good mood, learns a valuable, (if slightly heavy-handed) lesson about Prophecy herself. It's like 'Destiny' all over again. Except without the Mountain Dew.

-What of Bond himself, the character Roger Moore plays after the homage? Well, he's an impeccably crafted English villain, double-dealing and devious, never needing to do anything quickly. He's the Bond Villain de semain, but in Alias' murkier waters, he paddles away entirely unharmed from his merciless exploitation of Sloane's own friendship. It is ironic that Sloane, showing himself to be above such petty subjectivities as trust in friends, kills (?)Briault only for another trust to betray him and for open hostility against Khasinau to be delayed awhile. I thought Roger Moore was very good fun here, stately but evil, like a refined version of Sloane himself.

-Jack's special regard for his daughter is shown a little more baldly than usual when he asserts: 'If she wasn't my daughter, I probably wouldn't be doing this'. How touching. (I should re-enforce my statement that any snarkiness towards Jack is entirely affectionate. Bless him and his awkwardness). -Usually I'm an acoustic schmaltz merchant by trade, but I have a real soft spot for The Hives' 'Hate to Say I Told You So' as played over the Vatican sequence, so I enjoyed that.

-And at the end, Sydney becomes just that little bit more like Connor, as she becomes, in many people's minds at least, The Destroyer.

1.17- 'Q + A'

This was largely boring recyclement that I don't want to dwell on, so just a few points:

-I remain, tragically, a sucker for timeframe manipulation. So I love watching Sydney drive into the Pacific Ocean, (following her pager, notice), with no explanation whatsoever.

-Mount Sebassio, blah, blah. Syd has a nanny, blah, blah. I don't like it when the writer is unable to mould a show because he has to keep going back to shoehorn in earlier scenes. What can be told quickly and compellingly in sixteen episodes needn't be told so slowly over one.

-Joey Slotnick being beaten up was fun though.

The key to the episode, nay, to the Season, is the final, unanswered question, (when we become Sydney), 'Do you believe Rambaldi was a prophet?'. For the sake of the narrative, we want to .For the sake of logic, we don't.

This is compromised a little by Syd's sudden realisation that her mother isn't dead. It's an odd moment- I mean, you can come to profoundly believe something, but I for one don't buy it that a Genius would entirely overlook her mother's possible escape for a couple of months, and then it would suddenly come to her wth assuredness unbackedup by any evidence. This compromises the otherwise powerful ending of a deeply mediocre episode for me.

So there you have it. Into the end-season type time now. My money's on the Red Sox...

TCH