Alias - Series 1-5 - Complete (Box Set) (DVD)

...Abrams (the creator of Lost), Alias is an American spy-fi television series. It followed the pretty much unknown Jennifer Garner as Sydney Bristow as she dealt with being a CIA agent. It almost immediately shot her to stardom.

===The Plot===

Sydney Bristow seems like your normal 20 something, however her life is a lot more complicated than just being a English grad student. Sydney is actually a spy for a cell called ...
...of the CIA but she is working for the very people she's been trying to take down. She becomes a secret agent for the CIA to take down SD-6.

===The Cast===

Jennifer Garner plays the double agent Sydney Bristow. She and her father have got a very estranged relationship as his job takes him out of the country for weeks at a time since her mother died. She is shocked to find out that he is also a double agent, and works ... more

Created by the wonderful J.J Abrams (the creator of Lost), Alias is an American spy-fi television series. It followed the pretty much unknown Jennifer Garner as Sydney Bristow as she dealt with being a CIA agent. It almost immediately shot her to stardom.

The Plot

Sydney Bristow seems like your normal 20 something, however her life is a lot more complicated than just being a English grad student. Sydney is actually a spy for a cell called SD-6, but later finds out that it's not a cell of the CIA but she is working for the very people she's been trying to take down. She becomes a secret agent for the CIA to take down SD-6.

The Cast

Jennifer Garner plays the double agent Sydney Bristow. She and her father have got a very estranged relationship as his job takes him out of the country for weeks at a time since her mother died. She is shocked to find out that he is also a double agent, and works alongside him to bring down SD-6. She has a on/off relationship with her handler Michael Vaughn.

Michael Vartan plays CIA agent Michael Vaughn. He becomes Sydney's handler as a double agent and they eventually fall for each other. Very well cast as he and Jennifer Garner have tremendous chemistry and plus he's not too bad to look at.

Victor Garber plays Jack Bristow, Sydney's estranged father. The both of them being double agents brings them together as father and daughter. This man is one of the famous actors brought into the show, perfect casting.

Ron Rifkin plays Arvin Sloane, the leader of SD-6 and Jack's oldest friend. He's pure evil and only thinks of himself.

Carl Lumbly plays Marcus Dixon, Sydney's partner at SD-6, he's the one that helps Sydney & Jack bring down SD-6.

Kevin Weisman plays Marshall Flinkman. He designs all of the gadgets that Sydney uses in the field at SD-6.

Mia Mestro plays Nadia Santos, Sydney's half sister and Sloane & Irina's daughter.

Lena Olin plays Irina Derevko, Sydney's mother who was sent to marry Jack back in the Cold War for information on the CIA.

The show also features two of Heroes best cast members, which is why I was so amazed to find out J.J Abrams had nothing to do with Heroes.

Greg Grunberg plays Eric Weiss, the CIA agent whose also Vaughn's best friend. When Vaughn marries he becomes a confidant for Sydney and falls in love with her sister.

David Anders plays Julian Sark, Irina's lackey who has a thing for Sydney.

Season 1

Brilliant. Season 1 wasn't as good as season 2, but it still brought action to this wonderful show. Throughout the season you follow Sydney as she tries to deal with her double life as a normal student and one of the best spies in the world.

The introduction of Michael Vaughn was very nice to. There's no mistaking the chemistry between him and Sydney and this is explorerd very well in the show. Each episode has amazing storylines as she get's closer and closer to take down SD-6 and also finds out more about her parents past and that her mother wasn't who she thought she was.

Season 2

This was the last season of the show, to show the same quality that you would expect from a show like this. Some of the best action packed episodes are in season 2 and the season finale is bloody fantastic. Lena Olin comes in to the show to play Sydney's long lost mother and is just fantastic.

Season 3-5

After the season finale in season 2, I thought that the show would pick up in season 3 and blow us all away again; however that was not the case. Sydney comes back to her life to find her love is now married and everything in her life has changed. The show brought in Melissa George to play the love interest for Michael, and it really didn't work. Awful acting, the scripts didn't work as well and it just drew on for too long.

However I stuck with it in the fourth season and thought it was pretty good. Nothing like the quality of season 1 & 2 but still is was intriguing and the cliff hanger of that season was brilliant. The introduction of Sydney's half sister played by Mia Mestro is just perfect. The actress just looks like Sydney & their mother Irina. I thought the casting for this was fantastic.

Season 5 came around and after the cliff-hanger I was expecting brilliance and wasn't disappointed. The first half of the season was brilliant, as Jennifer Garner's pregnancy was written into the show, however it went down hill. The ending was awful, I think J.J Abrams and the writers went through all of the characters, put them into a hat and just said, I'm gonna kill this one and this one, and this one. It should have ended differently.

Fun Stuff

The show has also been great for some brilliant one liners. One of the many being in the first season when Sydney is tortured, she pretends to finally give in and tells the man to write down what she's about to say. "Write this down. E.M.E.T.I.B, got it, now reverse it" I think this became one of my favourite msn names as well that I used.

Some of the best outtakes of any series I've ever watched were on the season 1 & 2 box set. This included Jennifer Garner messing around constantly with the cast and things happening when they shouldn't have. The extras were very good.

The show also had quite a few 'famous' guest stars from Ricky Gervais who pretty much just played himself and Quentin Tarintino who played a crime lord kinda guy. Very good appearances by both.

Is it any good?

I think the show is let down deeply with season 3 and the second half of season 5 due to the fact that was the last season and it should have been one to remember. I could go back and watch season 1 & 2 episodes over and over, but would never wanna watch the finale again.

However, if you do get a chance to watch the show from the start I would recommend it. You don't really need to watch season 3, you could pretty much pick up most of the details from the net or even season 4.

It could have been one of the best shows on TV but was let down by bad writing and bad decisions. The show pretty much hired unknowns as leads, but the show has catapulted them to stardom, especially the lead Jennifer Garner.

This is a very good show, hoped this review helped. Kirsty. © 

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