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01/03/2007
Alias
Alias.
Everyone and his dog has now heard of JJ Abrams, creator of Lost. That show about those people on that Island etc, etc. But what about his previous show Alias? What's all that about. it's got some saucy woman in it that looks different every time you see her, it's a sort of spy thing, and you can find reviews on the net saying it's the best girl power show since Buffy and Xena....so what is it all about?
Well, Buffy and Xena had never rocked my boat, and reading a review of Alias comparing it to those shows was one of the biggest turn off's going. But I kept reading about it and curiosity was getting the better of me. Fortunatley, top AV Talk mod Squirrel God had been in the same boat and trod this path before me asking just how good the show was.
I sent SG an e-mail and he sold me on the idea of the show.
So, after finally finishing all 5 series on DVD, what is the lo-down on this show?
First, thankfully, it's nothing like Xena or Buffy. The only similarity I can see is there all female leads. Also, it's not a story about a scantily clad woman prancing around every episode, although Jennifer garner does sometimes go for a skimpy costume, it's all part of the story....and that is....
Without giving too much away, the original pilot episode showed us a twenty something Sydney Bristow (Garner) being proposed to by her fiance. Sydney has a secret though, she has been recruited by a special branch of the CIA whilst in college after matching a certain profile, and worked her way up inside a dummy bank to be one of the best field operator's there is.
Unfortunatley Sydney does the unforgivable and tells her fiance the secret, who is later murdered to seal the security breach. Sydney is devestated and on a leave of absence discovers another terrible truth. The CIA branch she works at, SD6, is not CIA, butr in fact the very enemy she's been working at defeating.
Yep, all this in the pilot! So she turns herself into the real CIA where her contact Michael Vaugn each week gives her counter missions as she goes back to work for the bad guys as a double agent.
Things seem to move along quite nicely in this fashion for a while, you enjoy the action/espionage, you enjoy the office banter as you meet Marshall Fleetman the geekiest tech guy ever who brings a lot of humour to the show and is all the better for it, and you enjoy Sydneys Friends type home life with Will and Francie.
And then JJ throws you a curve ball and you come across Milo Rimbaldi, the 15th Century techno prophet.
That's as much as I'm telling you. If you've seen Alias, then you know how good it is, if you've not then you have a treat in store, with a heroine that you warm to very quickly and a great supporting cast that you almost want to cheer every episode in the way the characters for Happy Days were cheered when they appeared each week, and even the baddies are so likeable. the DVD's are currently a great bargain especially as you cannow buy the complete series in a Rimbaldi Artifact boxset.
16:45 Posted in Home Cinema | Permalink | Email this