Year:
2001
Studio:
Touchstone Television/Bad Robot
Feature:
5/5
DVD:
3/5
"Alias" is an amazingly good series. It's spy opera, a soap opera set
in the spy world but with lots of money put in for special effects and
action scenes. It's the story of Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner), a
field operative for SD6 which is a Black Ops government agency.
Actually in the pilot episode we find out that SD6 is a rogue operation
where most of the people working there only think they're working for
the CIA.
At the end of the pilot Sydney goes to the CIA and becomes a double
agent. The rest of the first season is Sydney working against SD6
without getting caught. She has the help of her estranged dad Jack
(Victor Garber) and her CIA handler Michael Vaughn (Michael Vartan).
The season quickly starts focusing on the Rambaldi artifacts and
Sydney's role in the whole Rambaldi Prophecy. And there's also Sydney's
"dead" mother who goes from innocent victim to KGB operative to having
faked her death.
Each of the 22 episodes is jam packed with special ops and action
(usually a couple of ops in each episode). Garner looks great in all
the outfits (especially the short blue leather dress she wears in the
second or third episode, though my favorite is the pilot with the red
wig and black outfit). Sydney is usually partnered with Marcus Dixon
(Carl Lumbly) who is a patriot and someone who Sydney has to keep her
secret from.
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Each episode
ends with a cliffhanger and the stories just run together so it's not a
show you should watch occasionally. You pretty much have to watch each
episode though even then you don't get everything so it's not as if
missing an episode or two hurts too much (as I've discovered). Really
the show is about Sydney and Jennifer Garner is a good match for the
character. There's a lot of emotion to the show and it does get to be a
rollercoaster ride frequently.
This is a six DVD set. There is commentary in four episodes. The pilot
has creator JJ Abrams and Jennifer Garner. Garner gushes a lot and has
a lot of "I love this scene!" The second episode has commentary from
three of the production people (director, costume?, someone else). The
clip show has a couple of writers and someone else commenting. The
final episode has most of the cast who are way too happy. When you have
a lot of people talking you get less information but it's a funner
listen. The commentaries were done in early 2004 I think so it's a
couple of years after the episodes aired.
Disc 6 has the rest of the extras:
1. 19 minute production diary of the pilot.
2. 10 minute "Inside Stunts".
3. 10 minutes of 6 deleted scenes. All new scenes, not variations.
4. 3 minutes of bloopers.
All in all a good amount of extras. This is a great DVD set that I
highly recommend.
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