Alias is Identifiably Great!

As a rule, I’ve always critiqued television shows differently than films, but the line between the two is becoming harder to discern, as television programs these days are becoming so damn cinematic. Case in point: ABC’s Alias. This corker of a spy-show not only gives the genre a much-needed shot in the arm of girl power, but each one-hour episode contains more genuine intrigue, warmth, and hard-hitting action than your average blockbuster. Alias is currently in its third season as network television’s biggest adrenaline rush, but hard-core fans of the show who want to revisit it's origins can now own the complete first season, comprised of 22 episodes, in a groovy six-disc special edition.

Alias stars Jennifer Garner as Sidney Bristow, part-time grad student and full-time globe-trotting agent for SD-6, an organization she believes is a covert branch of the CIA. Hidden within the walls of a front bank company, Credit Dauphine, SD-6 is actually a small part of a worldwide organization bent on undermining the CIA, as well as many other governmental agencies, in the pursuit of global domination. Sidney learns this after her boss, Arvin Sloane (wonderfully portrayed by Ron Rifkin) has her fiancée executed once he becomes aware of his future wife’s true occupation. Wanting to get revenge, both for the murder as well as for the betrayal of her trust, Sidney goes to the real CIA and offers to help bring SD-6 down by acting as a double agent. As difficult a task as that is, things start to get even more complicated once sparks begin to fly between Sidney and her CIA handler, Michael Vaughn (Michael Vartan), as well as the fact that Sidney’s reporter friend, Will Tippin (Bradley Cooper), won’t let the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of her fiancée rest. To top it off, Sidney also learns that her estranged father, Jack Bristow (Victor Garber) is not an airplane parts salesman, but is himself a double agent working within SD-6. After their first meeting, it becomes apparent that the two of them maintaining a normal father-daughter relationship could be just as difficult as operating under the nose of SD-6’s security section.

It’s easy to see why Jennifer Garner won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a television series due to her role here. She makes Sidney both a tough-as nails sex bomb as well as a vulnerable woman trying to cling to some sense of normalcy in her life in a way that few other actresses could have. It’s thanks to Garner that Alias has a heart amid the espionage, turning the whole affair into something like James Bond on estrogen. No other big-screen heroine of recent times has anything on Sidney Bristow, especially Ms. Croft. In fact, few characters within Alias could be labeled as one-dimensional, especially Rifkin’s character, Sloane, who is so easy to root against at the beginning until a rather poignant twist occurs during the season’s last few episodes.

Admittedly, not everything within Alias is original. It's main inspirations are the spy serials of yesteryear, as well as the entire Bond oeuvre. In fact, some of Sidney’s escapes are lifted wholesale from A View to a Kill and Thunderball, and the plots of two particular episodes are highly reminiscent of Die Hard and The Manchurian Candidate, respectively. However, the show is smart enough to winkingly pay homage to these sources, in ways that include having Roger Moore and Quentin Tarantino as guest stars, that make the recycling of certain elements from them not so bothersome.

Another notable aspect of Alias is it’s eclectic soundtrack, which accentuates the action with hard-driving techno, then counteracts that with diverse tunes performed by everyone from Cat Stevens to John Mayer. Exciting, smart, electrifying, unpredictable and turbo-charged, Alias is one of the best shows to ever hit primetime, as well as a new high in escapist entertainment. In short, it rocks! [10/10]