Warning! Spoilers are littered throughout this review!
First, am I reviewing the series or the product? My five-star review is for the series, not the product. I watched ALIAS on TV when it first came out and having wanted to see various bits over the past two years, I decided I would buy the whole thing on DVD. I was very tempted by the complete set (with the Rambaldi artifact box), but after getting a good look at it I realized it would not mesh well with other DVD box sets that I owned, so I decided that I would pay a bit more money and get each season individually. I'm glad that I did. I was able to get three seasons used off Amazon and bought the other two seasons new.
I became interested in rewatching ALIAS for two reasons. First, I watched earlier this summer FELICITY for the first time. I thoroughly enjoyed the show and realized that many of the actors on FELICITY would later appear on ALIAS, like the romantically paired (on FELICITY) Greg Gunberg and Amanda Foreman (interestingly, the guy who played the hipster friend of Amanda Foreman's FELICITY character was Kevin Weis, with whom she was romantically linked on ALIAS as Marshall Flinkman's wife). Besides, I once heard an interview with J. J. Abrams in which he said he came up with the idea of ALIAS by thinking, "Felicity Porter in the CIA." The second major reason I wanted to rewatch the show was the impending (actually, only two days from now) debut of J. J. Abrams fourth major TV series (yes, he's been involved with others, but FELICITY, ALIAS, LOST, and THE FRINGE have gotten the big push others have not) THE FRINGE. After DOLLHOUSE (Joss Whedon's new series, due out this winter), this is the show I'm most anticipating this year, along with Alan Ball's new series TRUE BLOOD (and if Ron Moore's two series CAPRICA and/or VIRTUALITY make it to production by the end of the 2008-2009 season, those two as well).
When I was first watching ALIAS, my impression was that Seasons One and Two were the best, with a very slight dip in quality in Season Three, a sharper drop in Season Four, and further drop in early Season Five before getting very good again at the end. This largely corresponds with my reviewing. Season Three was a bit better than I remembered and Season Five even more enjoyable at the end than I recalled. Season Four still disappoints, however.
There are so many great things about this show. There are also a couple of things you simply have to learn to ignore, things that fall into the "Willing suspension of disbelief" category. For instance, the world is a very, very big place. But if anyone on the show needs to get to any spot on the globe, it doesn't seem to take more than a few hours. But short of an SR-71 (or presumably the super secret Aurora spy plane) this simply isn't possible. Plus, all the airplanes shown as transport o the show are subsonic. Nonetheless, international logistics never seems to be a problem for Sydney and Company. Still, the show as a whole is so much fun and so compelling, that as a viewer I have no trouble cutting them slack on this, unlike, say, PRISON BREAK, where you have to cut them slack on a few dozen things every episode (in my opinion, you can't call for a suspension of disbelief on everything that happens on a show).
Though we are introduced to a large number of characters over the seasons, the core cast is Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner), initially working for what she takes to be a black ops section of the CIA, SD6, but in reality part of an international criminal organization known as the Alliance. Though allegiances change over the years, on the side of the angels with Sydney are Michael Vaughan (Michael Vartan) of the CIA, her father Jack Bristow (the brilliant Victor Garber), her field partner Marcus Dixon (Carl Lumbley), and technical genius Marshall Flinkman. On the side of the devils are Arvin Sloane (Ron Rifkin) and recurring characters Irina Derevko (played by the beautiful and talented Lena Olin) and Julian Sark (David Anders). The thread that runs through the show are the artifacts of an unknown Renaissance genius named Milo Rambaldi, someone so brilliant that he makes DaVinci look slow witted. Arvin Sloane's driving obsession with Rambaldi along with Sydney's prophesied role in the culmination of Rambaldi's work remain unifying elements in each season of the series. One didn't have to be a Rambaldi to realize that the series, if allowed to end on its own terms (and while it was cancelled earlier than many of us would have liked, they were allowed to wrap up the series as they wished), that it would only end when the mysteries of Rambaldi and Sydney's role in them were resolved.
Along the way through the five seasons ALIAS helped establish TV as a medium in which movie stars were free to appear as guest stars. Few if any shows have had more remarkable guest stars than ALIAS. Faye Dunaway, Christian Slater, Isabella Rosselini, the aforementioned Lena Olin, Sonia Braga (the last three playing the Derevki sisters), Quentin Tarantino, David Cronenberg, Amy Irving, Joel Grey, Ethan Hawke, Peter Berg, Lindsay Crouse, Roger Moore, Rutger Hauer, and Djimon Hounsou, not to ignore series regular Victor Garber, were some of the actors better known for their work on stage and screen than TV, though the series also had some great TV veterans like Terry O'Quinn (before becoming famous as Locke on LOST) and Ricky Gervais. The casting from beginning to end was simply impeccable on the show.
One of the most important aspects of the show was its role in promoting female heroes on TV. My own reading of TV over that time is that Buffy had made TV irreparably safe for heroic female characters. Xena and Dana Scully had anticipated what was about to happen with empowered females on TV, but without Buffy they would perhaps have been remembered as exceptions. Buffy was the character that changed all the roles. Xena was too much of a cartoon to make people accept females kicking butt as something not to be taken as exceptional. But after Buffy it has been a commonplace. But there had to be actual instances of heroic females as evidence that the rules had changed. Aeryn Sun on FARSCAPE, Max on DARK ANGEL, and Sydney Bristow were the first -- and along with Veronica Mars and Starbuck from BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, still the best. When someone writes the history of heroic women on TV, there will be a pre-Buffy section mentioning characters like the 1950s Annie Oakley, Emma Peel of THE AVENGERS, Dana Scully, and Xena, then a section on Buffy, and finally the next wave. Sydney Bristow should and will get her own chapter. And what a great job Jennifer Garner did! Though not trained in martial arts, she used her considerable athleticism (and early dance training -- indeed, dance seems to be a wonderful training ground for cinematic martial artists, further proof being the absolutely astonishing fight scenes by Summer Glau in SERENITY, showing that for a prima ballerina it is just choreography) to bring Sydney Bristow to life more believable than any other female hero. In fact, to this day I've seen no TV female hero (and yes, I'm avoiding the word "heroine" intentionally -- "heroines" traditionally are anything but heroic) more physically convincing than Jennifer Garner as Sydney Bristow. On top of this she brought acting chops that should have earned her a string of Emmys. At least she got some nominations, unlike Lauren Graham, who astonishingly never got a single nomination for Best Actress in a Comedy when she should have won seven straight times.
I strongly recommend anyone interested in quality TV getting acquainted with ALIAS. Few shows have had higher production values or better casts. And while the overall story flagged a bit in Season Four and early in Season Five, the show took risks and kept striving to tell well an ambitious story. It is bound to remain one of the touchstones of great television. |
Expedited Available
"One of the better series of the past decade"
"Mostly disappointed"
"Buy at your own RISK!!"
"Missing disc"