You leave my Sidney Bristow alone, dammit

E! Online is reporting that ABC, the only entity taking the loss of "Lost" harder than I am, is contemplating a reboot of "Alias." Allow me to be the first to say that when it comes to miss Sidney Bristow, I'll go George McFly on your ass. HEY YOU, GET YOUR DAMN HANDS OFF OF HER!

That's Sidney Bristow...the ONLY Sidney Bristow. See, it's like this, ABC thinks they can revive a JJ Abrams property they've already had before and "fix it." You don't "fix" things this great. Were there missteps in "Alias?" Oh yeah. Problem is, most of them involved LISTENING TO ABC. The show, which is about a superhot spy who is involved in double crosses, double-double crosses, and the occasional double-double-double cross (but never a menage-a-tois), was blasted for being too "bogged down with mythology" and for forcing viewers to "have to watch every episode." You know, the very things that made people love "Lost." They want to redo the series WITHOUT Rimbaldi, which means nothing to many of you but is causing seizures in those of you who are like me. This is like saying "we should do Star Wars but lose that 'Force' stuff, it's too weird." So, what you really are pitching, ABC, is a generic spy show. Um, NBC is launching "Undercover" this year...which is a JJ Abrams series about a couple who happen to be spies. At this point, I'm hoping that E! Online's sources are as believable as the reality TV stars on E! Entertainment Television. This is to say I hope they're more full of crap than a Kardashian. If they really want to capitalize on the series, why not bring back J-Gar up there (who last I checked was not particularly busy) to do a follow-up movie? That would be great...provided it had some Rimbaldi in it. Sometimes it amazes me that people can be so dense as to hate the thing that makes the thing good. So far, I'm poised to cut ABC out of my life (dance with those stars, suckers).

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Quick clips for Thursday July 24

OK, but only if Mariah Carey plays Dr. Frank-N-Furter

I'm not one of those people who are all tingly-woo about Rocky Horror Picture Show. I've been told that if I go to one of the interactive midnight screenings, I'll change my mind. Then again, some of these same people also tried to convince me Dane Cook was funny. At any rate, MTV is ready to breathe some contemporary funk (I'm referring to the smell, not the genre of music) into a remake of the cult classic. According to Variety, the film will use the original script but will also incorporate "music not featured in the original," which is a fancy way of saying we're in for Ne-Yo's R&B sensation "You Know What, I Think That Is a Dude." All I'm saying is that they had better find a place for Meatloaf. Lord help them if they dis the loaf.

Return to Whore Island

In a move that doesn't inspire confidence in Step-Brothers (which I see tonight), Entertainment Weekly reports that Will Ferrell and Adam McKay have announced plans to develop Anchorman 2. While we've all longed to see how Ron Burgandy would fare in the 1980s (and dreamed of Paul Rudd donning more Sex Panther...just me? okay), the fact that this news just happened to drop before the remarkably under-hyped Step-Brothers is the Hollywood equivalent of "Pay no attention to the direct-to-TBS comedy that's coming out tomorrow." Having laid a big-ole stinky egg with Semi-Pro, dropping another turd in America's cinematic toilet would make Ferrell only two degrees less desperate for a hit than Jim Carrey. For an in-depth look at the stank of desperation currently wafting around former "SNL" actors, check out Lowbrow Low Blow. Mmmm, I love the smell of shameless self-cross-referencing in the morning.

A little pee came out

Part of the fun of this blogging experience is covering stuff that wouldn't fit into the confines of The Reader proper, which isn't to say The Reader is proper because most of us have the manners of a drunken muskrat. At any rate, my wife and I have been watching all of "Alias" on DVD, which makes us sound incredibly pathetic...but hold on, it's my second time watching it all, which means I officially exceed incredibly pathetic and enter "supremely pathetic," a realm formerly occupied only by people who wear T-shirts that say things like "I got out of bed for this?" or "Who bought tickets to the gun show?"

At any rate, I partially engaged in this second viewing of Jennifer Garner's breakout hit (sorry, that should read only hit, not breakout) because I wanted to see how well it held together knowing how it ended. People bitched incessantly (the best kind of bitching) about the 4th season, which did kind of suck upon second watching but also recovered in the second half of the season. The other reason I agreed to watch some 105 episodes of a TV show again was because (beyond being really frakking good) "Alias" has some of the most incredible twists and turns ever and there are few things I enjoy as much as watching someone react to an awesome twist I know is coming (yes, I'm sure there's some kind of Freudian power trip going on there, but focus on the subject at hand).

So last night, after watching 4 seasons (nearly 100 hours), we finally got to the moment I had been waiting for my wife to see. As I sat there, waiting for the shock to set in, I began to doubt...could any reaction possibly be enough to reward this time investment? I'm here to say, yes...oh, dear God yes. As the shocking moment occurred, my wife screamed...not a yelp, not a yip, a full-on worry-that-the-neighbors-think-I'm-going-Christian-Bale-on-her yodel. She flew backward, covering her mouth and rocking back and forth, whimpering. Now that, ladies and gentleman, is a reaction.

I write this for two reasons: First, I wonder how many of you out there get that same sick pleasure in rewatching something with someone to see their reaction (laughter, shock, whatever). Second, I really want people to discover again how good "Alias" was because it was really, really, really good. So there's a pull quote for you to go out and Netflix "Alias," "So shocking, I think it made my wife pee a little."