Alias is an example of that rarest of all hour-long TV series: superb, no-apologies escapist entertainment. Alias, in just its first season, has grown into the most fun you can have with your television.
Instead of pulling back from the somewhat far-fetched initial premise of post-grad student Sydney Bristow moonlighting as a top-secret agent, creator J. J. Abrams has pushed the limits of suspension of disbelief farther than anyone else on television.
Sydney and her father are now both double agents for the CIA while working for an organization (SD-6) that pretends to be the CIA, Sydney’s mother is a KGB assassin who faked her own death and now heads up an evil nemesis, and intelligence agencies around the world are engaged in a deadly battle to capture a 500-year-old book in which a Renaissance Italian inventor sketched blueprints for 21st-century technology.
Whew–I’m tired just thinking about the first season.
Now, there are probably a lot of people out there who aren’t willing to engage in such giant leaps of logic. Whatever. Abrams deserves a standing ovation for taking network TV so far away from the norm that he’d need global position coordinates to find his way back to the stale and routine.
But the outlandish plots are just one piece of what makes Alias such a great series. Alias is every bit the stylized show, reveling in the outrageous costumes of its agents and the exotic locales they visit every week.
Plus, every episode ends with Sydney in mortal danger, whether falling down a secret mountain gorge, hanging outside a six-story building with gunfire blazing all around or having her own father leveling a gun at her head.
Jennifer Garner, a superbly athletic beauty who is simply fantastic, plays Sydney. Garner was a surprise winner at the Golden Globes this year, certainly the most ass- kicking actress ever honored.
She deserved the award for her fighting ability alone, as one imagines uppercuts and roundhouse kicks are just a tad harder to deliver in a bikini or skin-tight latex dress. (But they’re much more fun to watch that way.)
Garner also gets to show off her subtler acting skills during the quiet moments, when Sydney is pretending to be a grad student, comforting her lovelorn roommate and fending off advances from her CIA handler.
What really sets Alias apart from the glut of spy shows currently clogging the network’s airwaves is its sense of humor. Alias refuses to take itself too seriously. The show uses such a deft touch while employing every cliché in the spy genre that it seems the producers are poking fun of the conventions instead of simply rehashing them.
For example, thanks to the skimpy uniforms that are seemingly always required whenever female spies take to the streets, Garner gets to be both Bond and Bond girl. Of course, there are gadgets, gadgets and more gadgets, dispensed by a dopey geek with a crush on Sydney. And even Quentin Tarantino‘s two-episode guest spot as a rogue agent seeking revenge was enjoyable.
Taking it all in–the non-stop action and breathtaking cliffhangers, the fanciful premise and outrageous plot lines, and the free-spirited tone–Alias is just too much fun not to watch.
It’s good to see that spy shows are cool again. It’s even better to see them being cool in red wigs and skin-tight latex dresses.
“Alias” airs Sunday nights at 9:00 p.m. on ABC.
