What was on TV? Wed, Jan 5, 2004
Alias returns, and Lost gets lost in its daddy issues.

20 years ago, suicide bombers were disrupting US operations in Iraq (not to mention the daily lives of citizens) multiple times a day. But the election was going to make everything better! That's what elections do! Let's see what was on TV.

8:00 Lost on ABC
1x12 "Whatever the Case May Be"
Available on Hulu and Netflix
This is correctly regarded as one of the show's worst-ever episodes. The Kate flashback is silly, and exemplifies the show's struggles with that character and with female characters in general. And Jack is just the worst...at least the Sayid and Shannon sub-plot is cute. And Rose returns.
There's also some interesting stuff going on at the fringes. One is the return of guns to the narrative. Sawyer conveniently emptied the Marshall's gun of its last bullet in the last Kate episode. But we need to make things more dramatic at midseason, and a case full of guns and ammo will do that! After this the show (and especially production assistant Gregg Nations, who would later join the writers' room) began religiously tracking the status of all guns: how many, what kinds, and who had them. Because if they messed up, they were going to hear from the fans.
And one of my favorite pieces of Lost trivia is that they only filmed outside of Hawaii about four times. The first was for the footage inside the plane in the pilot. Later, they filmed a couple scenes abroad when an actor was locked into a theater contract. But they also filmed the underwater scenes in this episode in a tank in LA. But everything else? Hawaii! Truly amazing work from the entire production crew.
This episode was written by showrunner Damon Lindelof and Jennifer Johnson. Johnson began her career on MTV's Undressed. She later wrote for Cold Case, Designated survivor, and the upcoming miniseries adaptation of the novel Washington Black.
This episode was directed by executive producer Jack Bender, who was pretty much running the show in Hawaii by this point.

9:00 Alias on ABC
4x01-2, "APO-1" and "APO-2" (record Project Runway on Bravo)
Available on Disney+
Season three of Alias was supposed to be a disappointment. But then I really liked it! It's dark and Freudian, paranoid and Hitchcockian. I was super into it. And it left a lot of dark threads open in the finale: Vaughn's nasty and violent murder of his wife, his lingering betrayal of Sydney, and the revelation that Jack killed Syd's mother.
But season 4 wipes all those threads away. Vaughn and Syd are happily coupled and Melissa George feels like a distant memory. Jack only had mom killed to save Sydney. Now we can have a simpler narrative with our core cast members doing sexy spy missions. According to Bill Carter's Desperate Networks, Bob Iger hated all the complicated mythology on Alias and wanted more spy adventures in sexy outfits. And this season feels built around giving him what he wants, at least so far. The season opens with a deliberate call-back to the pilot and the famous super-bowl episode, and the new opening titles feature a highlight reel of Sydney's greatest outfits (I really miss the striking typography of the old titles).
I'm not into it! But this is a J.J. Abrams show, and I've seen this song and dance before, enough times to suspect that this back-to-basics makeover won't last very long. Especially since Lost hit big shortly after they filmed this. Suddenly, Alias' fondness for serialization was downright trendy, and J.J. Abrams and his friends had given ABC a ginormous hit and had the clout to push back against Bob Iger. Here's hoping the evidence of that shows up sooner rather than later.
What Else Was On
- NBC premiered Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Model Search. Among the contestants was Shantel VanSanten, who has gone on to appear in The Boys and For All Mankind (she was eliminated in week 1).
- Meanwhile, UPN premiered Road to Stardom with Missy Elliott. This roster of contestants is much more interesting. It includes Heather Bright. She became and EDM artist under the stage name Bright Lights and co-wrote. Justin Bieber's Somebody to Love. There was also future star rapper Yelawolf (over 2 million monthly listeners on Spotify!). The winner was Jessica Betts, the future spouse of Nicey Nash.
TiVo Status
Just the three-hour Masterpiece Theater miniseries The Lost Prince and an episode of Project Runway.