Opening Statement

Disclaimer: If you have not seen Alias, this review would not be a good thing to read. There are many twists and turns in the series, some of which will be spoiled for you here. If you have seen the second two seasons, simply skip the episode synopses—I will try to keep the rest of the review spoiler-free.

Now that's out of the way, we can get down to business. Alias was the first show that I started watching on DVD. About a year ago, I bought the first season after hearing excellent things about the show, and I was immediately hooked. I have watched a lot of other shows on DVD since then, but Alias is still my favorite. For my money, it's the most consistently entertaining show that I have ever seen, and even though it seems straightforward at first, there is enough depth here to warrant repeat viewings. Basically, it's a combination of the best elements of James Bond and Indiana Jones that keeps on going, week after glorious week. The third season is just as good as the first two, and like many others, I am looking forward to the fourth season. This set will certainly tide us over, though, with another beautiful transfer and some worthwhile special features.

Facts of the Case

This collection includes each of the 22 episodes from the third season. Although it often makes sense to give each episode a rating, I find that Alias has enough plot continuity that it would be hard to judge it that way.

• "The Two"
Sydney wakes up in Hong Kong, only to find out that she has been missing for two years. She learns that Michael is married, her father is in prison, and the CIA is now battling a group called The Covenant.

• "Succession"
The Covenant captures two CIA operatives and arranges a trade for Sark, who has been in custody. The CIA agrees, but things don't work out exactly as planned.

• "Reunion"
When a satellite falls to Earth in Russia, it becomes clear that some serious problems are afoot. Sydney has some problems with Lauren, Vaughn's new wife, who has been assigned as the NSC representative to the CIA.

• "A Missing Link"
Sydney infiltrates a group that has plans to steal biological weapons, only to discover that the leader recognizes her from sometime in the past two years.

• "Repercussions"
As Michael recovers from his stab wounds, Sark gets a hold of the biological weapons. Sydney and Lauren have no choice but to work together.

• "Nemesis"
Alison is alive and well, which allows for a quick flashback of the past season. Michael and Lauren start feeling the strain of lying to one another. Sloane begins his work as a double-agent for the CIA.

• "Prelude"
After waking from another terrible nightmare, Sydney continues to search for answers about her past two years. A captured terrorist in Mexico offers to turn in Sydney in exchange for his freedom.

• "Breaking Point"
Sydney is captured in Rome and taken to a secret NSC base. Jack and Michael have no choice but to work with Sloane to get her back.

• "Conscious"
The group of renegades need to hunt down the co-ordinates that the NSC found in Rome and find a way to resurface safely. Sydney meets with an expert in order to rediscover the past two years.

• "Remnants"
Sydney discovers that another person from her past is still alive. Sloane plays both sides, and Sidney's life is once again in his hands. Jack and Michael are arrested by the NSC.

• "Full Disclosure"
Sydney is kidnapped by Kendall, who offers to give her the truth about where she was for the past two years.

• "Crossings"
A Covenant member is looking to defect, and Sydney and Michael are sent into North Korea. When they are captured, they reconnect; and Jack is forced to take drastic measures to have them returned.

• "After Six"
Sydney and Michael go after a detailed list of the Covenant leaders, not realizing that it will soon be unimportant—Sark and his new ally are killing them all off.

• "Blowback"
The Covenant and the CIA chase after a powerful bomb. Michael and Sidney are unwittingly pitted against Lauren. Sloane reveals to Judy Barnett that he may be Sydney's real father.

• "façade"
An independent bomb designer with connections to the Covenant designs and builds a bomb that cannot be defused. The CIA decides to pose as the Covenant and bring him in. Then things get all messed up.

• "Taken"
Sark escapes custody and kidnaps Dixon's children. Sydney and Jack jump in to help get them back.

• "The Frame"
Jack's suspicion of Lauren continues. Michael asks for a separation from her, and Sark asks her to make a rather personal assassination. Sydney and Michael go after a key to the artifact that Sark stole.

• "Unveiled"
Lauren's failures for the Covenant put her in a dangerous position. An interesting discovery is made concerning the nature of the passenger.

• "Hourglass"
As the race for the passenger continues, the CIA plays Lauren in order to catch up with the Covenant. Sloane's life is placed in Jack's hands.

• "Blood Ties"
Now that Lauren knows that she's been made, Michael is captured by the Covenant. Sloane joins Sydney and Jack in their search for the passenger.

• "Legacy"
Sloane continues to use Nadia to channel the message from Rambaldi, but both the CIA and the Covenant are searching hard for them…

• "Resurrection"
Lauren and Sark infiltrate the CIA and steal the Rambaldi equation. Then everything pretty much just goes crazy.

The Evidence

By the end of the second season, the creators of Alias seemed to be reaching the end of the plot arc that encompassed the first two seasons. The Rambaldi side plot was starting to get a little tired, SD6 was gone, and matters with Irina and Sloane seemed to have reached their logical conclusions. The choice to skip ahead two years and force Sydney to recover her past was brilliant, because it once again creates that feeling of uncertainty that made the beginning of the series so awesome. Who can Sydney trust? Who are the Covenant? Who has she been working for? The fact that Michael is married adds some tension to their situation, and it allows the Rambaldi stuff to be pushed off until the second half of the season.

Although the first season of the show was remarkable, there was some silly sappy stuff that you had to fight through to get to the spy fun. Sometimes the series felt a lot more like Felicity than Mission: Impossible, and it took quite a bit of the season in order to balance those elements. The second season saw the inclusion of Will and Francie into the dark world of international espionage, so quite a few of those awkward moments started to disappear. They are all gone by the third season, which doesn't show Sydney trying to juggle her friends, job and double-agenting. This results in a leaner, meaner Alias that I am quite enjoying.

Somehow, though, the show still manages to have the same fun feel of the first two seasons. The spy missions are every bit as far-fetched, and I still find myself with a huge grin on my face as yet another bomb counts down to 00:01. Although these action scenes could easily become tiresome, the writers are consistently creative, which keeps the action feeling fresh and new. The action scenes themselves have gotten far stronger now, and the hand-to-hand fights aren't quite as persistent or cheesy.

I have no idea how they have managed to make the plot and action so ridiculous, and yet keep the characters so believable and compelling. As fun as the action is, the real appeal and success of Alias is in the network of characters that inhabit this crazy world. I genuinely believe that the show would have crashed and burned if it didn't have an actress as strong as Jennifer Garner in the title role. It's a deceivingly complex role, and it's never been enough for her to just show up and look pretty. Sydney has a new persona to pick up each week, and the accents, bits of languages, movements and appearances that she adopts need to be believable in order to work for the audience. Garner is an incredibly physical actor, and each one of her aliases are memorable and dead-on. She also does an exceptional job at giving Sydney Bristow a strong core role, as she gradually grows and develops through the series. Sydney is always at the center of the action, and I have come to care about her more than I should care about any fictional character.

Garner isn't on her own here, though. She has the aid of a strong supporting cast, who help make the rest of the show come alive as well. Jack Bristow is one of the coolest characters in the history of television, and I still don't feel like I have a firm handle on who he is after three seasons. He's the ultimate retired field agent—we keep discovering more about him as the layers of his character are gradually peeled away. Sloane is just as interesting, and although it remains clear most of the time that he is evil, we can never quite be sure. Marshall remains one of the funniest characters ever, riffing off all of the spy nerd/gadget guys in spy serial history. This season sees the arrival of Melissa George as Lauren Reed, who is a fascinating addition to the show. In addition to being another good reason for the young male demographic to watch the series, she is the true wildcard of the season. She could become either a powerful ally or a dangerous enemy, and it doesn't take too long to find out which.

The bit players are wonderful too, including countless bizarre and memorable characters who only show up for an episode or two. The celebrity cameos are always fun as well. This season sees brief appearances from Quentin Tarantino, Richard Roundtree (Shaft!), Isabella Rossellini, Vivica A. Fox, David Cronenberg, and David Carradine. Notice that three of these people were involved with Kill Bill. Coincidence??? At any rate, this is only a sampling of the people who appear on the show, and it makes for better celebrity spotting than a star map in Hollywood.

The other strengths of the show have existed since the beginning. I can't imagine the challenge of creating a weekly globetrotting adventure show—each hour of footage contains several major set pieces, and to date, every single one of them has been impressive and believable. In fact, it's handled far better than a lot of big-budget films.

The technical transfer is just as strong as on the first two seasons. The video transfer is as nice as any television show transfer I have seen, and it never has that flat look that so many shows seem to have. There's a bit of grain at times, but it looks like a production choice, rather than a compression problem. The colors are awesome, the filters that separate the locations work really well, the black level is right on, and there is awesome detail. If it wasn't for the credit sequences and episode recaps, it could be mistaken for a Hollywood film production. The sound isn't quite as good, but I don't have any serious complaints. The series does have a full 5.1 track, but the track seems to be mostly trapped in the front channels a lot of the time. I'm sure that's still necessary for television broadcast reasons and because of the short amount of time they have to put together the show, but I would still like to be immersed a little more in the action sequences.

Buena Vista hasn't skimped on the special features, either. The first disc houses a fan commentary on the first episode. The commentators don't really know any more than we do about the series, but they seem to have a good time and it's a pretty cool extra to have. For the record, I would be happy to help record a commentary on the season 4 set when it comes out. The only other extras on the first disc are some previews, including one for season 4 that doesn't say anything at all.

The fourth disc includes a commentary track on "façade" with J.J. Abrams, Jack Bender and Greg Grunberg. It has quite a bit of value, and they clearly work together really well. They talk a lot about the direction the series has reached to this point, and a bit about where they hope to take the series in the future. It takes a passionate group to get something like Alias pulled off, and these guys are obviously the core of a seriously committed crew.

On the fifth disc is a segment from Creating Characters; it's a seminar with J.J. Abrams, Jennifer Garner and some others, who talk about the character design process. It's an interesting clip, and fits the show well.

The bulk of the extras are on the sixth disc. There is an animated mini-episode, undoubtedly inspired by The Animatrix. The big difference is that this doesn't appear to have been handled by one of the best anime studios in the world, and the story basically sucks, too. It doesn't add anything to the show, which is too bad. Next up is "Alias Up Close," which explores the creation of the show. We get to see interviews with the guest stars, as well as the stunt crew and the other people behind the scenes who do far more work than we normally acknowledge. The whole featurette is nicely broken up into segments, and it's entertaining to watch. The second featurette is called "Burbank to Barcelona," and it covers how they do all of the location sequences. It's pretty cool, and it answers the question of how they manage to pull of the international feel of the show.

The disc also houses an ever popular blooper reel, which is pretty funny. There are also some deleted scenes. None of them seem to be valuable additions to the season, but it's interesting to see what kinds of things get cut out. There's also a Team Alias section, with some interviews dealing with the promotion of the show. Obviously, there are a lot of things to dig into on the discs even after you are done with the series and are impatiently waiting for the fourth season.

The Rebuttal Witnesses

I do have one complaint about the series. I didn't notice it in the first two seasons, but this time around there's quite a bit of product placement. The worst of these is a car chase, when two bad guys charge off in a Ford Mustang (with several good close-ups) and Sydney actually says something along the lines of "get into the Ford F-150." Almost every episode features some product prominently, which began to distract me more as the season continued. This is a double-edged sword, as I realize this is one of the ways that the show maintains such high production values. Still, it's distracting and annoying.

Closing Statement

Alias rocks. The third season is every bit as good as the first two, and it shows no sign of slowing down. If you have not yet experienced the show at all, go grab the first season on DVD and start watching. When you emerge after a week, bleary-eyed and wanting more, you will thank me. If you have already seen this series, you don't have to worry about the DVD set being a good way to have a permanent copy. It looks and sounds great.

The Verdict

Not at all guilty. Wish they would hurry up the next season, though, because these season-end cliffhangers are a bit cruel to the fans.

Similar Decisions

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• Spawn
• Sharpshooter
• Desperado: Superbit Edition

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