Alphas (Syfy) - News/Discussion/Speculation

[nayanroo]

I'm kind of pleased with how they're handling things like autism in the show. Gary is one of my favorite characters and I'm hoping his character development ends up being as awesome as it seems like it could be. Sometimes it feels like he's the one who gets things done, lol.

[Gollumpus]

I would like them to introduce other Alphas, maybe even including members of Red Flag, who are not crazy or violent.

How about some "ordinary" guy/gal, who happens to be an Alpha, who may have joined Red Flag but doesn't really share the more reactionary ideals of the organization. This other Alpha could become a confidant of one or more of the other cast members, but their existence would be kept from any official channels. Maybe another family member of one of the characters could be used. It would be nice to see that there would be a third choice for these people.

Right now it's pretty much the Alphas in DCIS vs evil Alpha of the week. Kinda' boring.

regards,
G.

[Angela V]

I'm kind of pleased with how they're handling things like autism in the show. Gary is one of my favorite characters and I'm hoping his character development ends up being as awesome as it seems like it could be. Sometimes it feels like he's the one who gets things done, lol.

I've been watching this show with my kids (have one more episode to catch up on). Both said they love Gary. I find the show interesting and am hoping it improves because I think it can be a really great show with some time. Though with SyFy that can be a bad thing. Ratings seem fine so maybe it'll survive for a bit longer to get it's footing better.

[Sp!der]

any news on canceling or not? I wont watch it if it canceled after the first season

[Gollumpus]

any news on canceling or not? I wont watch it if it canceled after the first season

To my knowledge there are no plans to cancel "Alphas". This being said, why wait to hear if it is going to be cancelled or before watching it? Just jump in a watch. If you figure your time would be better spent doing something else, then just go do something else.

regards,
G.

[Killdeer]

I was thinking about this the other day, and I realized that I would probably like this show better if the powers had been distributed differently. Other than Gary, it seems like the men have the physical powers and the women have the mental powers. I would have liked to see at least one of the women have a more physically active power - I think that would have held my interest a little better.

Do you all like how the powers are distributed, or would you switch them around?

[magictrick]

I was thinking about this the other day, and I realized that I would probably like this show better if the powers had been distributed differently. Other than Gary, it seems like the men have the physical powers and the women have the mental powers. I would have liked to see at least one of the women have a more physically active power - I think that would have held my interest a little better.

Do you all like how the powers are distributed, or would you switch them around?

So Nina could be the super strong one and Bill the one who influences people? That's a cool idea.

I think it sounds cool in theory but it is hard to actually write in an interesting way. I mean after the initial wow factor they would need to find ways to keep it interesting. It is probably a lot easier to draw an audience with the way they have it setup (i.e. the most attractive lady is the one with the powers of seduction, etc.). This is stereotypical but this seems to be what makes shows successful nowadays.

[Gollumpus]

I was thinking about this the other day, and I realized that I would probably like this show better if the powers had been distributed differently. Other than Gary, it seems like the men have the physical powers and the women have the mental powers. I would have liked to see at least one of the women have a more physically active power - I think that would have held my interest a little better.

Do you all like how the powers are distributed, or would you switch them around?

I suspect that they are in a damned if they do, damned if they don't situation. If they did swap the strength ability to a woman there would likely be a whack of people suggesting that it was as big a "counter-cliche" as having it with a male, not to mention all the PMS jokes it would prompt.

If they gave the strength ability to a 98 pound weakling, they'd get comparisons to the Hulk.

Other than the apparent strength and charm stereotypes, the other abilities are fairly interchangeable with regard to gender. However, I think there are some things which could be done.

Why does the main cast (outside of Rosen) all have to be fairly young, and attractive. Why not make one of them really geeky looking, and I don't mean "geek" in its modern day tekkie usage. The biggest departure is Gary's autism, and even he could be made as a much older character. And they either keep the mother (only have her much older as well) or make her a sister, who might be younger.

Why not portray the Nina character as being older, and/or not particularly good looking? Further, give her an inferiority complex so she has to fight that when she tries to "push" people.

regards,
G.

[IcarusAbides]

I suspect that they are in a damned if they do, damned if they don't situation. If they did swap the strength ability to a woman there would likely be a whack of people suggesting that it was as big a "counter-cliche" as having it with a male, not to mention all the PMS jokes it would prompt.

If they gave the strength ability to a 98 pound weakling, they'd get comparisons to the Hulk.

Other than the apparent strength and charm stereotypes, the other abilities are fairly interchangeable with regard to gender. However, I think there are some things which could be done.

Why does the main cast (outside of Rosen) all have to be fairly young, and attractive. Why not make one of them really geeky looking, and I don't mean "geek" in its modern day tekkie usage. The biggest departure is Gary's autism, and even he could be made as a much older character. And they either keep the mother (only have her much older as well) or make her a sister, who might be younger.

Why not portray the Nina character as being older, and/or not particularly good looking? Further, give her an inferiority complex so she has to fight that when she tries to "push" people.

regards,
G.

Some interesting ideas with that. My main problem with the powers at the moment is with Bill, I know he has super strength but so far he's actually been pretty useless even with his ability, he tends to use it at the wrong time and burns out pretty quickly when using it.

[VampyreWraith]

I like how the powers are distributed. I like the mental powers in this series better than the physical ones so far,(in gereral, I also usually like mental powers a lot better than physical ones). I find Nina's, Rachel's and Gary's powers a more interesting than Hick's or Bill's.

[IcarusAbides]

I like how the powers are distributed. I like the mental powers in this series better than the physical ones so far,(in gereral, I also usually like mental powers a lot better than physical ones). I find Nina's, Rachel's and Gary's powers a more interesting than Hick's or Bill's.

All the powers are mental based even the physical ones but I get what your saying.

[VampyreWraith]

All the powers are mental based even the physical ones but I get what your saying.

Yes, I understand that all the powers are mental based, I used the wording("mental powers" and "physical powers") in my answer as was used in the original question/post by Killdeer.

[IcarusAbides]

Yes, I understand that all the powers are mental based, I used the wording("mental powers" and "physical powers") in my answer as was used in the original question/post by Killdeer.

Fair enough, I wasn't having a go.

I like the show but I wonder how far they can go with the different powers thing. I'm just not sure how many different abilities they can come up with to keep the show interesting. What I like about Gary and Rachel is that they have abilities that are different to what's been done before in other shows but the rest of the main cast and the villains all seems to have abilities that I've seen before.

[VampyreWraith]

Coming up with different, never before seen abilities, will probably be a problem, because there's been so many different movies/tv series/books/comics about mutants or genetically altered/advanced humans. I think any of the abilities are just going to end up being powers that have been done before, but just presented differently; either by toning them down and/or making them seem more concrete or practical(which is basically what they've been doing with almost all the Alphas I guess) Eventually they're going to have to move on from just the new Alpha of the week episodes and go more into what's going on a larger scale. That already seems to be happening a bit, and I hope that ends up being focused on a little more sometime soon.

Personally, it really doesn't bother me if I've seen a certain ability or plot before, as long as I find the characters, how they interact with each other, and how the story is presented interesting; so far I'm pleased with how the series is going.

[IcarusAbides]

Coming up with different, never before seen abilities, will probably be a problem, because there's been so many different movies/tv series/books/comics about mutants or genetically altered/advanced humans. I think any of the abilities are just going to end up being powers that have been done before, but just presented differently; either by toning them down and/or making them seem more concrete or practical(which is basically what they've been doing with almost all the Alphas I guess) Eventually they're going to have to move on from just the new Alpha of the week episodes and go more into what's going on a larger scale. That already seems to be happening a bit, and I hope that ends up being focused on a little more sometime soon.

Personally, it really doesn't bother me if I've seen a certain ability or plot before, as long as I find the characters, how they interact with each other, and how the story is presented interesting; so far I'm pleased with how the series is going.

Good answer and your right that the Alpha of the week plot could get boring, the red flag thing is interesting but at the moment it's a framing device for the Alpha of the week. Hopefully it will become bigger and give us a proper story arc later on.

[VampyreWraith]

Good answer and your right that the Alpha of the week plot could get boring, the red flag thing is interesting but at the moment it's a framing device for the Alpha of the week. Hopefully it will become bigger and give us a proper story arc later on.

Yep , I'm also hoping they go into what might be going on at Binghamton more and maybe tie that into the Red Flag thing. I think getting more into that kind of stuff, would make the show more interesting long term, than just investigating suspicious deaths or crimes that are possibly being caused by random Alphas every week.

[magictrick]

Yep , I'm also hoping they go into what might be going on at Binghamton more and maybe tie that into the Red Flag thing. I think getting more into that kind of stuff, would make the show more interesting long term, than just investigating suspicious deaths or crimes that are possibly being caused by random Alphas every week.

They better. It will get lame fast if every episode concludes with so and so Alpha being sent to Binghamton and that's the end of it. Actually this has been the trend in almost all the episodes so far. I hope its at least building up to something.

[IcarusAbides]

They better. It will get lame fast if every episode concludes with so and so Alpha being sent to Binghamton and that's the end of it. Actually this has been the trend in almost all the episodes so far. I hope its at least building up to something.

Any chance Rosen will send one of the team undercover into Binghamton to investigate what's going on there, not sure though as he seems to be in denial about what really goes on there.

[retiredat44]

Heh thats what i say about Warehouse 13 and Warehouse 13 is good, this..... idk what this is, a poor mans Heroes(circa s2)???? IMHO i think i would rather have a season 5 of Heroes

However I'm sticking with it till the end of the season but if it doesnt improve im done

I cannot stand to watch it... I gave it a try.. but guess I will just find other things to do... as they keep cancelling the best shows and putting shows on that I don't care for...
I just can't see how this show will last,, unless people are so desperate they will watch the bad stuff left after all the godo shows were cancelled... so sad..

could the Gary character be any more annoying? (rhetorical).

[Gollumpus]

I cannot stand to watch it... I gave it a try.. but guess I will just find other things to do... as they keep cancelling the best shows and putting shows on that I don't care for...
I just can't see how this show will last,, unless people are so desperate they will watch the bad stuff left after all the godo shows were cancelled... so sad..

could the Gary character be any more annoying? (rhetorical).

I figured this show to be a one or two season wonder. This being said, I looked up some info on their ratings:

"The pilot episode premiered with 2.5 million total viewers, scoring 1.2 million viewers in the 18-49 demographic and 1.3 million in the 25-54 demographic, making it SyFy's most watched debut in two years. Live + 7 day ratings for the series premiere updated those numbers to 3.6 million total viewers, scoring 1.7 million viewers in the 18-49 demographic and 1.8 million in the 25-54 demographic."

It seems that they are doing something right, so perhaps they'll be around for three or more seasons. Of course, since this is a SyFy program they could be cut to make room for re-runs of classic wrestling bouts between Bruno Sammartino and the Iron Sheik.

regards,
G.