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ARTICLES - "Come Spy With Me"

Come Spy With Me by Ken Tucker
Entertainment Weekly, October 18, 2002

The dynamic dames of both Alias and Birds of Prey deliver the action, but only one packs an emotional punch.

Alias might easily have blown it at the start of its second season. The writers could have played up Jennifer Garner's newfound stardom by emphasizing the wigs 'n' slink and playing down the wit 'n' deep think. They could have turned last season's cliff-hanger - in which Garner's Sydney Bristow comes face-to-face with her worst enemy and trauma: her traitorous, KGB-trained mother (Lena Olin) - and used it as an occasion for either teary hugs or vindictive hugger-mugger.

Instead, Alias just...lifted off, so wittily, so gracefully, and with such purpose, it was like watching a 2,000-piece puzzle assemble before your eyes. Creator J.J. Abrams and his scribes have streamlined the storytelling for newcomers, making Sydney's double agency (good CIA infiltrating bad SD-6) a metaphor for emotional conflict. Just as she was warming to her cold father (Victor Garber, robbed of an Emmy, plays Jack Bristow as a shut-down CIA vet whose anguish is communicated entirely through his dewy eyes), Sydney must now wonder if Mom, who's turned herself over to the CIA, can be trusted. Alias always works on two levels: The derring-do missions plus Syd's disguises are overthetop hoots, but the family tensions are realistically messy and wrenching.

Garner has the extraordinary confidence to allow Abrams and Co. to use her like a doll: She gives over her long face and lanky body to any wig, any lipstick hue, any outfit, and becomes a startlingly alert woman whose thinking is always a half step ahead of her enemies, her allies, and us.

New Alias episodes reveal a more ruthless side of Syd's SD-6 supervisor Arvin Sloane (Ron Rifkin, his voice is prickly as his beard) and reintroduce Chris Carter refugee Terry O'Quinn (Harsh Realm, Millennium) as a tough CIA official. The actor's line readings are a gleamingly smooth as his skull, and he provides a sharp contrast to the sympathy Sydney receives from her hunky "handler," Michael Vaughn (Michael Vartan).

Amid all of this, Olin possesses - to borrow the title of her best movie - an almost unbearable lightness of being. All the camera has to do is pull up close as she gazes at Syd and every sharp stare and perfect facial crease make motherly love and menace intermingle, clouding Syd's - and every viewer's - mind; you instantly understand why she was a persuasive spy. This, despite Jack's brutal assessment of his wife: "The minute you start depending on her, she will gut you."

Me, I'd gut the characters of Syd pals Will (Bradley Cooper) and Francie (Merrin Dungey) - love ya, guys, but you've outlasted your plot necessities. But then, I don't have the problem-solving imagination of Alias writers, and it's great to place yourself in the hands of TV makers who can confound you each week.

If you want some idea of just how difficult it is to make comic-book-style action dovetail with heartfelt emotionalism, tune in to Birds of Prey, a migraine-inducing complex superhero saga from some of the folks behind Smallville. Just explaining Birds' setup is liable to put off anyone who doesn't hang out at a comic shop on Wednesday mornings for the new shipment of...well, Birds of Prey, the DC Comics title on which this series is based.

The pilot required Batman butler Alfred (Ian Abercrombie) to voice-over a lengthy who's who and where's where: We're in New Gotham, a future city in which Batman has vanished into exile after a tough battle with the Joker (Huh? Gnarly old Batman, off on a sulk?); we learn that Helena, the Huntress (Ashley Scott), is the daughter of Batman and Catwoman (hey -- weren't they enemies in that '92 movie?); that Barbara Gordon (Dina Meyers) is Commissioner Gordon's daughter and was once Batgirl but, after some superbattle, is now in a wheelchair and calls herself Oracle (who changes their supermoniker?); and that Dinah Lance (Rachel Skarsten) is a "metahuman" who has visions of people's pasts (where's her superhero name?).

Birds is certainly more fun than the soap opera of Smallville, but frequently "fun" is lowered to "cornball" in lines like "You try fighting the forces of evil when your blood sugar's low"; the writers are trying too hard to incorporate Buffy-like pop self-conciousness. And so far, Timecop's Mia Sara is a wan dud as one of the comic's most enjoyably outlandish villains, Harley Quinn - who in the TV show is for now faking it as "Dr. Harleen Qinzel," Helena's anger-management therapist. Birds has all the potential to be a slam-bang trifle. The actresses are admirably committed to their absurd roles, but the show lacks the paradox of Alias - the brainy heart - that could make Birds better than what it is now: Charmed with more charm.

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