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Cult | News | Alias | 28 June 2004

Review: Alias - Taken

Dixon's kids are stolen in Taken, this week's episode.

Any episode featuring children is going to be bad, but this one is dreadful. For a start, we just don't care about his kids - we haven't seen them for over a year, and now they're back, kidnapped, and don't get any character development beyond some sobbing.

As Dix turns the hunt for his kids into the CIA's top priority, the show's flimsy grasp on reality slips almost fatally and we plummet into an abyss of silliness. We're only saved because Dix is such a good actor, and he's giving his grief an Awful Lot Of Quivering Conviction. But it's still rubbish.

His plot to free Rimbaldi artefact number 45 is similarly daft. How are we expected to believe that he's not under suspicion of the theft at the end of the episode? How come we end up feeling far too much sympathy for Sloane's false imprisonment?

It's all so insincere - right up to Syd's appallingly false smile as she goes to visit the rescued kids in their hospital bed at the end. We're supposed to believe she regularly spends time playing with Dix's kids? Yeah, right. We know for a fact she spends all her free time in her flat, listening to Dido, staring at pictures of Vaughn and sobbing. Mad-eyed twig.

Only nice thing about this whole ghastly mistake: The CIA have got a lovely new prison cell with really nice doors.



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