While waiting for our first kid to be born, my wife and I are sitting around, watching DVDs. Season 1 of Smallville was quite good, but Alias has been disappointing.

I never got a chance to see any of it as it was aired, and I wouldn't have watched more than two episodes: the cliffhanger endings are annoying beyond belief. Most of the time the resolution to the problem isn't that surprising, but it would drive me crazy if I had to wait a week to see it.

This should've been my first comment: if I were her boss, (note, spoilers coming...) whether it was her SD-6 evil boss or her CIA good boss, I'd have her killed off for being such a klutz. Every single mission, something screws up. She deserves to be shot, not her friends.

I mean, it's TV, so I can sort-of forgive week after week of really bad strategies and endless secret meetings of the same people at all times of the day even though they're all supposed to be under constant surveillance, but it just isn't very "realistic" spy behaviour.

The only good thing, in my book, is Marshall. He gets the best lines, e.g. (more spoilers...) after Sloan gets his finger cut off to save the day, and he's about to leave to get it reattached, Marshall comes up with a thermos, says he's got the finger on ice, and proudly tells Sydney "Sloan gave me the finger." Priceless.

Recently finished reading both of these, the Emil V. Rieu translations (The Odyssey was updated by his son, D.C.H. Rieu).

Recommendation: read The Odyssey first, even though The Illiad comes first chronologically. The Illiad is very lyrical (not surprising given the source), especially when describing someone's brutal slaying on the battlefield, but compared to the Odyssey it's dreadfully dull. There's simply not much plot - just fight, fight, talk, talk, fight a bunch more... Once you've been introduced to the style and some of the characters in The Odyssey, you can read The Illiad specifically for the lyrical writing.