Goodbye, Alias

After Susie introduced me to it, Alias became one of my favorite shows. No, it wasn't because of Jennifer Garner -- she's an average actress at best, and I personally think she's on the mannish side of attractive. It was just a fun show with compelling characters in ridiculous situations performing feats of superhuman cool. And the Mulder/Scully connection between Garner and Michael Vartan always added a nice undercurrent of tension to the story.

Of course, there have been rumors that Garner, now a producer on the show, had Vartan's character written off because they used to date And all was revealed on last week's season opener.

So, Vartan's character goes to meet with an informer. But suddenly a car pulls up from out of nowhere, a guy gets out and shoots the informer. And now Vartan, this CIA agent who's been shot, stabbed, imprisoned, tortured, poisoned, electrocuted, etc. simply stands there while he's gunned down by a couple of thugs with machine guns. And then he dies in a hospital. And there's a funeral.

I can take it in stride that a 15th century genius could hide secret messages in a genetic code and invent mind control devices, but when a on-screen character is killed for offscreen reasons, it taints every premise that the show is based on.

I suppose there's a chance that his shooting was staged. After all, he wasn't shot in the head. And they could have staged his surgery and resuscitation attempts. And funeral.

Nah.

Damn you, Jennifer Garner! Elektra sucked!