Alias: The Complete Fifth Season

Review By: Andrea Tuccillo
AndreaTuccillo@TheCinemaSource.com

A car dangles hundreds of feet in the air above a junk yard, suspended only by a giant magnetic crane. An experienced (and pregnant!) female CIA agent sits in the front seat, her panicked rookie protégé trapped in the trunk. They’ve only got a half hour to figure a way out before a ruthless enemy plummets them toward the concrete below.

The rookie asks the other agent how she’s doing. “Oh you know, just another day at the office,” she replies. “…don’t worry I’ve been in much worse situations than this.”

And she ain’t kidding. Welcome to the world of Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner), the main character of the highly complicated, sometimes over-the-top, espionage thriller, Alias. Sydney’s been through it all over the course of the show’s five seasons, donning multi-colored wigs and outrageous costumes, globe-trotting to various undercover missions, drop-kicking her way through perilous life or death situations. The fifth and final season of the show, created by J.J. Abrams (Felicity, Lost) and now available on DVD, retains these basic ingredients and a whole lot more.

The fact that Alias goes out swinging is quite a relief and a bit of a surprise, considering that the fourth season seemed to loom dangerously near “jump the shark” territory. What had begun as a show about a young girl leading a double life as a secret agent, became something else entirely. The show was never simple by any means, but it started to lose whatever small sense of normalcy it had possessed. The writers slowly did away with Sydney’s home-life and her non-CIA friends. The show became less grounded, flying through convoluted situations and sci-fi plot twists.

The seventeen episodes of the fifth season, though, feel reinvigorated with a new freshness. It begins with the writers boldly killing off Sydney’s true-love fiancé Vaughn (Michael Vartan), leaving Sydney alone and carrying his child. And it ends with Sydney’s protective father and fellow agent Jack (the wonderful Victor Garber), making the ultimate sacrifice in order to rid the world of evil-doer Arvin Sloane (Ron Rifkin). As always there’s a new “villain” that must be tracked down and destroyed and this season it’s a terrorist organization called Prophet Five. Sydney and the gang, which includes her trusty CIA partner Dixon (Carl Lumbly) and the socially-awkward computer whiz Marshall (the hilarious Kevin Weisman), must bring down these bad guys in order to secure the world’s safety.

Garner’s real-life pregnancy made Sydney’s pregnancy storyline a must, however it does not feel as contrived as I had anticipated. Yes, it’s a little preposterous that Sydney would still be going on missions while pregnant, but it’s also fun to see the