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For those who may not know the back story, Sydney Bristow
(Jennifer Garner) is a regular university student who one
day is approached by a representative of the C.I.A., and recruited
into becoming an operative for them. The only problem is,
not only is she not working for the CIA, she is in
fact working for one of the most deadly terrorist organisations
in the world, a unit known as SD6, headed up by Arvin Sloane
(Ron Rifkin), and her father Jack (Victor Garber).
Vowing to redeem herself, she walks in to the CIA, and under
the guidance of Michael Vaughn (Michael Vartan), she becomes
a double-agent, and it fortunately comes as no surprise that
her Father is doing the same thing!
Season 1 basically dealt with Sydney’s double life of
lying to her housemates, her SD6 superiors, and completing
lots of “Mission: Impossible” style operations to
successfully counter-act her evil employer's plans, whereas
Season 2 finished off the SD6 storyline, and introduced Lena
Olin as Sydney’s supposedly long-dead mother, which culminated
in a fantastic cliffhanger finale, where Sydney woke up in
a strange alleyway in Bangkok two years after being shot and
left for dead without any memory of where she has been.
It could, and should have been a perfect way to begin a new
series, but unfortunately for fans everywhere it was an extremely
disappointing season that showed flashes of brilliance here
and there (“Facade”, “Full Disclosure”),
but mostly disappointed mainly due to the (admitted) lack
of general direction from creator J.J. Abrams, who was busy
prepping both “Lost”, and his Midnight Run-style
effort featuring Greg Grunberg.
Heavily featuring on the love triangle between Vaughn, his
new wife Lauren (“Melissa George”) and Sydney, that
was about as good as it gets for the show, resorting to lots
of longing, pained looks from all of the leads, and too much
of small calibre characters, which at a guess, were designed
only to provide a bit of comic relief here and there, and
cover up quite a few gaping plot holes.
While leaving the best people (Garner, Greg Grunberg as “Eric
Weiss” and Kevin Weisman as “Marshall Flinkman”)
to stand around waiting for something interesting to happen.
All up, the “surprises” could be seen a mile off,
the Melissa George storyline simply wasn’t interesting,
and with the exception of the two aforementioned episodes,
it just felt like treading water, rather than going for the
gold.
Thankfully, J.J. Abrams has indicated that he is fully back
on board for season 4, which spells good things all around,
and hopefully isn’t too late to save a once great show.
Regardless of anything negative I could say about the season
itself, the DVD’s once again are a class act, and warrant
repeat viewings of even the most lacklustre of episodes to
catch all the goodies.
Over 6 shiny coasters are the complete 22 episodes of the
series, which gets you geared up for around 17 hours of not-so-family
fun… Make no mistake, at it’s lightest of times,
“Alias” can be quite a violent show, so send the
kiddies off to bed before you get going, m’kay?
This really is one for the die-hard fans I must say, because
unfortunately just because a box looks pretty, the episodes
look & sound great and the leads are all a pretty good
looking bunch, it doesn’t mean it’s a must have.
Better luck next season guys.
DVD Extras
Commentary by Cast & Crew on 3 Episodes: Slightly
more “technical” than the great season 2 commentaries,
lead Jennifer Garner, creator J.J. Abrams, producer Ken Olin
and a handful of others offer a fair bit of behind the scenes
info on the eps, but occasionally fall back to the recitation
of what’s happening on the screen which makes you quickly
reach for the “Audio” button on your remote, ‘cause
let’s face it, if you want a running commentary on people
walking into a building and asking for someone at reception,
you can always get your wife / girlfriend to do that for you.
Fan Commentary on “The Two”: In the Blue
corner, a winner of the biggest “Alias” fan contest,
in the Red corner, a critic from TWOP.com, The Outcome: absolute
rubbish.
Deleted Scenes: As you can expect, most shows are scripted
to run for the 45, 47 minutes, or whatever it turns out to
be, but occasionally it runs long, and that’s what these
snippets are, smallish scene extensions, in some cases changed
dialogue, but definitely nothing that you yell “Oh My
God! It all makes sense now!” to.
Blooper Reel: Now, this is something that has been
consistently funny on each season so far, and the third season
is no exception. Why they continue to do “America’s
Funniest Home Videos” style music over the top of the
track is beyond me, but the screen flubs are great, with Victor
Garber once again taking the cake as one of the funniest guys
around. Just wait for the “Sydney, I have to show you
something” line… absolute classic.
Featurettes: “Burbank In Barcelona”, “Alias
Close-Up”, “Creating Characters” are all shortish
bits and pieces on behind-the-scenes action, but it’s
really nothing more than a glorified EPK, although when Ricky
Gervais pops in for a conversation (he guest stars in “Façade”),
it’s funny as all hell. “Creating Characters”
is from the annual Museum of Radio & Television event,
but unfortunately is considerably shortened, which is a bit
of a disappointment.
Tiny little bits: “Alias: Tribunal” is a
very short animated feature that focuses on one of Sydney’s
assignments during her “missing years”, which is
kind of…eh. If it had been a fully fledged ½ hour
segment rather than 5 minutes (if that) of so-so animation,
this would have been a nice little bonus, however, the 2 commercials
which accompany it, the infamous “Monday Night Football”
parody & Vartan’s Stanley Cup ad are both pretty
entertaining, if only for Vartan’s inability to recite
his lines at some points, when he gets genuinely overwhelmed
from being in the presence of the Holy Grail of Canada.
So are the extra features worth buying the set for, if I
really didn’t enjoy the season? No, not really. They
are admittedly much better than the typical promo spots and
“sneak previews” that some sets class as extras,
but unless you found some enjoyment from the storyline this
year, chances are you wouldn’t shell out the cash for
it
Conclusion: Movie 70% Extras 85%
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