Episode Report Card Manimal: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Doppelganger
By Manimal | Season 1 | Episode 5 | Aired on 10.27.2001
Berlin. Sydney walks wearing a black leather trenchcoat, black leather bitch-boots, black hip-to-be-square glasses, and her head in a sleek-yet-spiky-do. I expected Mike Myers as Dieter to start dancing behind her. I can't wait for the Aleutian-themed episode of Alias, where Sydney gets to wear an enormous fur parka and carry a spear, or the Native American episode, where she'll wear a giant feather headdress, or the episode where she goes underground as a rebbe, just like Barbra did in Yentl.
HAN-sell corporation. Sydney. Atrocious, and I mean incredibly stinky, German accent. The techno is giving me acid reflux. The next few minutes are run-of-the-mill espionage crap: Sydney finds Schiller and they download all the info, while Dixon implants some sort of gas bomb (no, not that kind -- that would be funny, at least) that'll knock everyone else out for two minutes. More bad German. No subtitles, of course. Gas-masked, Sydney and Schiller run for it. Sydney tells Dixon that someone's following her, and they take an alternate route through the parking garage. Schiller gets hauled into the CIA van and Kelvin walks out with Sydney, where they walk into Dixon's getaway truck.
Los Angeles. Sydney's Apartment Of Refuge For Angry Girlfriends. Francie and Will decorate the place for the party. Will complains about Francie's assiduous preparations. Apparently Francie is a party planner, so that's what she does: plans parties assiduously. She points out that Will hasn't babbled like a brook about his job. Will confesses that he's been investigating Danny's death again and that "Kate Jones" was booked to fly with him. Francie refrains from smacking him upside the head, but just tells him he's a moron, and to imagine how angry Sydney will be when she finds out, and to stop before she does. Will looks guilty. Also, like he's wearing a lot of taupe eyeliner.
CIA Safehouse Of Fools. Schiller is complaining. He wants to see Sloane. Vaughn says he's not there and demands the password to the web site. Schiller says the agreement is that he only talks to Sloane. Okay, how dumb is Vaughn? Why the hell would he expect that Schiller would just cough up the info he wants after he's been kidnapped by what he thinks is a renegade group of spies? Vaughn should be demoted.
Pan to a two-way window. Sean/Weiss and Felishitty -- oops, I mean, "Sydney" are filming the interview. In his ineffectual, increasingly high-pitched tenor, Vaughn says that he swears Sloane has nothing to do with the CIA. Michael Vartan cannot play a heavy. He has about as much authority as a hall monitor. Yes, he's cute. But he's also...a little bland. He's the foxy TA you had in your "Intro to Great Western Lit" class freshman year, or the soulful, sensitive coffee shop guy who always looked a little too deeply into your eyes when he handed you your mocha half-caf. But that's all he is! He's just cute. He's not great as eye candy, either. He's not exactly a rich, nougat-y piece of Toblerone. He's more like that lint-and-loose-tobacco covered Brach's Peppermint at the bottom of your purse. Also: he's kind of...fluffy. He's even a little...Ken doll. Let's face it: in Celebrity Prison, James Caan would make Michael Vartan his bitch on day one. Unless something extraordinary happens, in a year or two, Vartan will be as obsolete as those Richard Grieco issues of Tiger Beat we all had. Yes, you too. Shut up. You did so.