When a show starts getting crummy, I don’t normally expect it to get good again. Angel season five is probably an exception to the rule — but there were a few other mitigating factors in that instance: the loss of Charisma Carpenter, the reduced budget. Also, the season finale of the previous season was really good, and suggested that happy times might be returning.

The last episode of Alias, as you might remember, was a load of highly over-complicated cow dung, so I wasn’t expecting much good from the upcoming season. Until I read that J.J. Abrams kind of agreed with me about the last season, and had brought in some old Angel writers to help fix things up. Then I was hopeful, and as it transpires, my hopes were well-founded.

This premiere is better than recent Alias in almost every way imaginable. The thing that most commonly irritates me about Alias is the way you finish an episode and almost immediately forget what the hell everyone was supposed to be doing. Sure, you remember the set pieces and the good dialogue, and the Marshall scenes, but not what was actually going on. Well, I don’t, in any case, and I feel it’s because ultimately the story-telling in an average Alias episode isn’t considered as important as the character development. A bit of balance in this area is something that this episode delivers on. The goal of APO[ftn] in this story is reasonably simple, and their method of getting what they want doesn’t involve too many insane scenes of exposition setting up an almost completely irrelevant action sequence.

Well, alright, the action sequence is kind of irrelevant to the main plot, but it was cool, and flowed reasonably well. And involved a samurai sword.

The genius of the episode, however, is in the set-up. Let’s face it; Sydney working for the CIA was getting a little dull. Being a double agent is cool. Being a single agent gets a little straightforward. Especially when you’ve got evil double agents wandering around, it makes the good guys look simple and stupid — something that often happens in adventure drama, which is a shame. Your more exciting good guys are devious, involved protagonists, and they’ve found a way to push Sydney and Co. back into that model. Two words: Black Ops.

Alright then, at first, black operations sound a little daggy. But the CIA has decided that it needs a deniable unit who can do all the things that they, with their every move restricted by government pressure,[ftn] cannot. And so the CIA begins the SD-6[ftn] reunion tour (plus Vaughn). You don’t mess with what worked in the past when you have a comeback tour, so who’s in charge? Arvin Sloane. The man who had Sydney’s fiance killed. The man who had Dixon’s wife killed. The man who pulled Jack’s daughter into the spy industry under his nose. He probably did something bad to Vaughn[ftn] and Marshall too, but I can’t remember. The organisation is called APO, named after the “Authorised Personnel Only” sign on the grubby door leading to their ultra-secret location.

So suddenly, Sydney and her friends are really cool — wearing casual clothes, lounging around, breaking the law for the greater good. Your typical maverick behaviour. And they pull it off quite well. The odd group of characters assembled over the last few years now become a slick team of secret agents, and having them all working together and never having to deal with many CIA extras greatly enhances their coolness.

There are a few dodgy aspects to the episode, of course. The resolution to last year’s cliffhanger smacks too much of the real world of unavailable actors affecting the fictional world, with a touch of “we made this up during the season break” about it as well. The show also pushes the sex button a few too many times in the first half. Having Jennifer Garner in white lingerie is enough to sex up an episode — to then cut from this to her running and jiggling down a street made me feel somewhat patronised. It’s not like I can’t focus on a TV show without breasts to show me the way. In plot terms, the CIA choosing Sloane to be in charge seems a bit stupid, despite how good it feels in the narrative. But ultimately, this is the best season premiere I’ve seen in ages, and one that completely revitalises the series. Awesome.

Footnotes

1. I’ll explain later in the review. If you read footnotes in the way I do, though, I’ve probably already explained it and this bit is redundant.
2. Subtle semi-real world references in this episode, which I like.
3. The evil terrorist agency masquerading as the CIA which Sydney previously worked for, destroyed in season 2.
4. Though, having Sydney’s fiance killed is probably a good thing from where Vaughn’s coming from.

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This entry was posted by the illustrious Tom Charman on Monday, January 24th, 2005. It concerns such pressing issues as . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.