ORBzine TV Review - "Alias" April 2002
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This may seem like just a clone of La Femme Nikita, but there's far more to it than that. While Nikita was a convict press-ganged into being an assassin, the heroine here [Sydney] is a straight-A student by day and spy by night. She works for an Agency reminiscent of the one in True Lies , while she has gadgets straight out of James Bond. The plot for the Pilot is told mainly in flashback as Sydney is interrogated by inscrutable Orientals. There are a couple of double-crosses, and the story is set up for the series. Jennifer Garner, the actress who plays the 20-ish Sydney, is actually aged 29! Angus Scrimm [ Phantasm ] appears as the Internal Affairs guy who checks up on Sydney.
We start with an action scene - Sydney [the heroine, a skinny wee chick] does a Mission: Impossible burglary and defeats several armed guards. This is a flashback, because Sydney is being briefed by her CIA handler. He's about the same age as her, and they argue a lot, so he's obviously her love interest. Sydney goes back to work for SD6. Funny how her deeds are deemed acceptable if she works for the CIA, but eeevil if she works against them. The producers are laying on the babe factor, aiming for a young male audience. Syd disguises herself in a blue skin-tight lycra ultra-mini-dress in one scene, then later she strips to her vest to dig up a coffin.
The cliff-hanger ending from last episode is ended in the pre-credits teaser. Nice trick, the opposite of Quantum Leap putting the pre-credits scene at the end of the previous episode. This episode, Sydney's mission concerns a Rennaissance architect who designed a transistor, planned a cell-phone and wrote machine code ... in the 1480s! Sydney must steal a document which is written in the designer's code. The KGB have sent in their best agent, Anna Espinosa [ Gina Torres ] - a Cuban assassin who is Sydney's deadly rival.
The pre-credits sequence wraps up the previous episode's confrontation with the KGB's best agent, Anna Espinosa [ Gina Torres ]. We then move back to Sydney's private life, where her best buddy is having relationship problems. This mirrors Sydney's own difficulties with her reporter friend and her father. As a result she becomes closer to her CIA controller. Sydney is assigned to investigate some anti-Globalisation types, or something like that. Her father is put in a Flashback machine, and we see Syd's mother. For some reason she is not played by Lena Olin.
Sydney is ordered to do some Industrial Espionage. She has to help a scientist defect from a German pharmaceutical company. . .
Sydney suspects that her father is under investigation by the FBI. She jumps to conclusions, and is a total bitch towards him. To steal an FTL code devcice she goes to London. Lots of gynastics in a mini-dress! Her new mission is to contact a Manchurian Candidate [John Hannah - The Mummy ], currently an inmate in an East European Asylum.
Sydney is trapped in the Asylum, with John Hannah [ The Mummy ] as her only potential ally. Can she help him recover his memory and persuade him to help her? Meanwhile, SD-6 are beginning to suspect that there is a mole. Sydney and her buddies celebrate Thanksgiving. Her father even tries to bond with her. However, her journalist pal has done such a good job investigating the mysterious murders that his editor now orders him to write an article on it! Perhaps it is the appearance of John Hannah, but this show is suddenly a lot better than it used to be.
The episode starts with a quick recap of the arc. Sydney is in Oxford, competing against Anna Espinosa [ Gina Torres ] for the Rembaldi artefact. Back in the good old US of A, Sydney's SD-6 boss is doing some housecleaning. Her reporter buddy is getting too close to the truth. Worse, Sydney is under surveillance because her boss suspects she is a mole! Tobin Bell [ X-Files - Patient X ] guest-stars as the SD-6 Internal Affairs man.
Syd has to save herself, and Dix, without blowing her CIA cover to SD-6. Will discovers the evidence he found leads back to someone powerful. Someone willing to feed him info ... . .
Vaughn shows some Xmas spirit by giving Syd an Xmas present. A breach of protocol to get involved with an Agent, but she's a vulnerable widow so he's probably after some rebound sex. Syd's dad must find a way to save her from SD-6. Then, he must accomplish a solo mission in Cuba. Will interviews a convict who was framed by SD-6. Syd's disguise of the week - blonde wig, black bikini.
Sydney and her CIA contact have to deal with the Egyptian Arms Dealer. Sydney's father is forced to confess his past ... .
Sydney has sixty seconds before the credits to get over the traumatic revelations from the last episode, because SD-6 is invaded by elite team of commandos led by an embittered ex-employee. This is the typical Die Hard episode that every show has. However, this time the villian is a black-suited Quentin Tarantino , and the writers took advantage of their Special Guest Star and stretched this out to be a double-episode. We get to see everyone at their best. Sydney crawls about in air ducts, and Sloane gets interrogated by Tarantino ...
This is the second part of the story, continued from the previous episode. Sydney's father is captured, but her CIA handler comes to the rescue. Sloane, slimy villain that he is, actually holds his own against Tarantino. A pity that he becomes so self-pitying at the end. Sydney and her Reporter buddy must both decide, will they continue their current courses or will they quit?
We start with a brief recap of the story so far. Because of the ending of the previous episode, there is no blurring in the storyline. Sydney reveals herself to be a fanatical American Patriot, who works for the CIA and hates heartless men like Sloane who would trade ... lives for a profit . The silly little hypocrite! Sydney and her co-workers set out to discover who was behind the raid. This storyline is padded out with her encounters with her flat-mate. Yes, we get a return to the style of the show's earlier episodes.
Sydney is invited to dinner with Sloane and his wife [ Amy Irving ]. Her CIA handler insists she use this as an opportunity to bug Sloane's home. The CIA finally get a hold of the secret page of Rembaldi's book - Page 47. We find out what McKennis Cole wanted the perfume for, but yet more questions are now added! .
The episode opens with the introduction of a secret US Government Agency called the DSR. It's as if the top brass took the X-Files seriously, and Lindsay Crouse gets to run it. She was last seen running The Initiative in Buffy The Vampire Slayer [Season 4] . Sydney is interrogated by the DSR. They have decoded Rembaldi's book, and refer to it as The Prophecy. In order to get Rembaldi's code-breaking key, Sydney and her CIA handler break into the Vatican! Sloane is called to a meeting with the heads of the other SD sections. They are going to take a vote as to whether to take violent action against The Man. Sloane wants revenge, so he conspires with best buddy Roger Moore [ The Spy Who Loved Me ]. Unfortunately, poor Sloane has no Idea about office politics!
Sydney is taken into custody by the FBI and interrogated by Terry O'Quinn [ Millennium ]. Her father and her CIA handler decide that the Feds think she is a threat, so they try to rescue her before she faces life imprisonment without trial. This is basically a clips show. Sydney outlines the story arc that has transpired over the last sixteen episodes, with the aid of clips of the best bits of the show. However, this episode itself actually develops the plot arc ... .
The actual danger from the previous episode is wrapped up very quickly, but the central plot arc hint is now the basis for Sydney's quest. Meanwhile, Sydney's father has an appointment with a psychiatrist [ Patricia Wettig ]. Sydney is sent on a mission, and bumps into her ex-BF [Peter Berg - Last Seduction]. It seems that Sydney's mother used to work for The Man ...
Sydney and BF Peter Berg get back to HQ. He wants to leave the job for good, and has lots of money secretly stashed. However, SD-6 Internal Affairs [Personified this time by Angus Scrimm - Phantasm ] suspects him of being untrustworthy ... Sydney finally gets to see a video clip of her mother. This leads the team one step closer to their arch-enemy. Unfortunately they have a rival - K-Directorate have hired a freelancer known as The Snowman to dismember the villain. Yes, they didn't use Anna Espinosa ...
Sydney works out how to trap the arch-villain. She and her CIA handler stage a burglary to set up the bait. Sydney's reporter friend gets another call from the mysterious source, and works out that it was Sydney's father who kidnapped him.
The episode continues Sydney's confrontation with Starke. He has no security to speak of, and no escape plan, so he is hardly an impressive villain. Sydney faces off against Dixon, who becomes suspicious of her. Sloane's bosses decide to go after Kazenau [Derrick O'Connor - Time Bandits ] and leave Sloane's wife alone. Sydney is sent on a mission - not to get Kazenau, but to steal the last Rembaldi artefact from him. Meanwhile, the reporter and Sydney's father try to uncover the mysterious inside man ...
This is the long-awaited conclusion to the Season, written and directed by the creator, JJ Adams. All in all it is something of an anti-climax, merely a series of cliff-hangers. Typical of a US TV series that are up for renewal. The episode mirrors the pilot episode. One of Sydney's friends is tortured by the same interrogator she faced, while Sydney's disguise is now bright blue hair instead of bright red. And the McGuffin is the same ... sort of. |
Alias
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[Season 2, Episode 9]
Passage (2)
[Season 3, Episode 1]
The Two
Season 5
Syd and Vaughn are pulled out of the car wreck. They are separated by the paramedics. Vaughn is interrogated by strangers, and declared an outlaw by the NSC. Syd is outlawed if she helps him ... Sloane is in jail. Even though Irina was allowed to go free at the end of last Season! Gordon Deane, the man who's after Vaughn, has a gorgeous blonde hacker [ Rachel Nichols ] on his staff. She's even in the title creds.
Syd, 4 months pregnant, makes contact with Vaughn's contact [ Elodie Bouchez]. The enemy hitman is tracked down. He's after a supply of an atomic element, possibly for use in a dirty bomb. The McGuffin is a cryo-chamber. Who's in it, and who's after it, are left for later eps! Jack selects a newbie [Balthazar Getty - Young Guns 2] as Vaughn's replacement. And the chubby CIA guy gets written out, so the actor can have his own TV show.
Amy Acker steals a bio-weapon. Her hacker is the one that the villains used last ep. Syd has to track Amy down. Marshall traces the hacker. Syd doesn't want to have to work with The Newbie. Marshall insists on going to Prague with them, even though he used to hate planes. Sloane and Dix visit Russia to find a cure for Nadia. It turns out that the villain is copying Sloane's SD-6 setup! Well, Argie Intel did it too.
Syd tries to bust the vault at Monte Carlo. Good to see a standard Op, even though she's heavily preggers. Someone holds Syd hostage and wants to trade her for Mockingbird - the blonde hacker! After all, the hacker is the one person who can seize the villains' bank account! Dix and the Newbie go to the Cayman islands to meet illicit banker Rowena King. Sloane is victim of a kangaroo court run by the US Government. His past Pardon agreements are ignored. The Feds accuse him of having indulged in criminal behaviour his entire life, and excusing his actions as necessary evil. Even when he was REALLY in the CIA?
The French woman opens the cryo-pod and wakes Patrick Boucheau [ Poltergeist: The Legacy ]. Syd and Newbie go to see what she's up to.Marshall bonds with the blonde hacker. She and Dix do a field op. Arvin tries to get his old job back with the APO. He has a debt to pay, after all. And he hasn't lost his touch. The villains have a French-speaking SWAT team. They also work for North Korea, and had access to Helix dna-doubling tech 23 years ago!
The French woman now works for the APO, on a one-off basis. Sloane is back at APO, but leaking info to the villains. He'll do whatever he has to so he can save Nadia. But the morons don't realise that the more they use Sloane's info, the sooner they'll blow his cover! Blondie flirts with Newbie, and is flirted with by Marshall. She's good at tech, but uncertain about fighting or seduction. Then she's sent undercover as a call-girl. And Amy Acker is sent after her by the villain! Lucky that Chinese Generals marry Indian women - English is their common language!. And the PRC hires French black market freelance arms dealers instead of using theior own people [2/5 of the world's pop is Chinese!] ... amd puts him on an oil rig in International waters instead of a bunker a thousand miles from the border! .
Sloane doublecrosses the villain. Blondie gets some payback. Can Syd and Marshall make the pooor bastard talk? Angus MacFadyen [ Miracles ] pops up. He offers to cure Nadia .... Syd is all broody. She does some crib-shopping. We find out who the villains are. It's like the S1 Alliance setup ... but bigger!
A micro-pulse bomb is used on a train in Siberia. Apparently MI6 knew about it, so APO attend a yah-toodle-pip tea party. Caroline Goodall is Jack's contact. Blondie goes undercover as a Brit. Sarke is there, posing as a Texan named Bob! They're both after the same thing, and discover they have a lot in common. Jack and his lady friend get in trouble. Syd needs Sarke to help rescue him! Blondie's bitchier than Syd, and Sarke's a perfect gent! Incredibly in this arc-heavy season, this is a stand-alone ep.
We're back to the story arc. Syd's having dreams about Vaughn ... and Gaines [24, Season 1] is responsible. Vaughn wants her to leave him, so they cn find each other. Amy Acker steals Vaughn's data from a CIA database. The Frenchman wants her to find The Horizon, something they've been after for 30 years. Apparently Vaughn hid it, and told Syd where it was in Season One. The french woman is a kill-crazy maniac who wipes out all round her with multiple throwing knives and a several sig sauer pistols. Jack is a sadistic torturer, but he has good cause. And he doesn't do it in a public street in broad daylight with dozens of witnesses! Sloane has a moral dilemma. He wants to help Syd, but the villains will only help Nadia ...
The French Woman's not in the credits any more - but Amy Acker is. Good for her, since she's in charge of hunting Syd down. Syd's within 3 weeks of her due date, but is still running around doing spy stuff. Not much choice, since she's on a ship run by the enemy. Jack realises that the only way to trace her is to break into the CIA vaults in Langley, Virginia. Perhaps a reference to the first Mission Impossible film, now that the Series Creator is directing the new one! Pity nobody remembers that Greg Grunberg is a senior man in Langley ... .
The CIA traitor is assassinated. Obviously CIA know there's another mole, so they let Internal Affairs take over APO. Sloane has to con the others into covering his ass. Irina approaches Jack and Syd, and helps them retrieve the secret item. This op has to be done without the knowledge of IA. However, Amy and a hit-squad go after them, in case Irina is untrustworthy. Grace, the Newbie, has a self-assigned mission of his own. He deals with the man who killed his wife. The poor bastard was only a soldier doing his job. Syd goes into labour. And news of the birth reaches a most unlikely person!
In the 100th ep, the show's been cancelled. However, typically we get some familiar faces as guest-stars. A month after the birth, Syd's called back into the line of fire. It's pure manipulation - Anna Espinosa is hired by the villains to kidnap Will Tippin, and put a bomb in his head. Anna's mission is to send Syd on a series of wild goose chases. Dr Gaines didn't bother getting Syd's DNA or biometric readings when he had her prisoner on the ship. That was 2 whole months previously, so maybe this is a new plan. The McGuffin is Page 47 of the Rembaldi manuscript. The page shows Syd's face, and says she will unleash the greatest power. There's Only One Sydney Bristow - unless you consider the Season 2 Helix Protocol, that alters DNA.
Sloane has the cure. But to use it, he must stop Nadia's heart for 30 Seconds. The team must retrieve the Page, and recapture Anna. The Page is with an old accompli of the annoying French Woman. He's her ex-BF, so she offers him sex. Then doesn't deliver. Jack suspects that Sloane is still a traitor. And Nadia's bond with her father is practically non-existent. She claims she could hear while in the coma, but ignores the fact he waited constantly at her bedside. This ep kills off a couple of supporting characters. They were never great characters to begin with, and deserved to get their throats cut, but it's done here just so we get our heart-strings tugged at.
Syd goes off to Nepal to find Vaughn. Unfortunately, Anna is on their trail. Sloane is haunted by Nadia. He's made progress with the decoding, but he needs help. He calls in an old pal ... . .
Syd goes undercover, pretending to be her own killer. Can she fool Arvin? Arvin sends Anna and Sarke on a mission. They must enter an Italian prison and retrieve a Rose. It's all set up for the finale, a gigantic double-ep next week!. Oh, and Balthazar Getty's little subplot is resolved. Who cares?
Sloane kidnaps Marshall and Rachel, and gets Kelly and Sarke to torture them. . . .
The APO are on the revenge path. But Arvin has an armageddon plan. His financial backer wants to try something similar to the end of last Season ... Arvin discovers Rembaldi's original big-red-ball device. But its effect is the opposite of last Season's one! The final confrontations include: The most unbelievable thing in this ep is that someone can get shot repeatedly in the chest without their heart or lungs being affected. Oh, wait- this happened to Vaughn several eps ago, didn't it? |
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