Rating: 
Summary: Best show now on American TV
Review: "Alias" is a great show. It's also wildly implausible. Jennifer Gardner stars as Sydney Bristow: grad student by day, spy by night, and double agent in her spare time. She does all this while racking up a million frequent flyer miles a year. It's not surprising that she's unlucky in love and often an emotional basket case. But when she's in the middle of a mission Sydney's got cool that James Bond can't match (OK, maybe the Timothy Dalton Bond could keep up).The ABC network has helped the series considerably with liberal deviation from the accepted hour show format. This began with an uninterrupted showing of the pilot when the series debuted: 66 minutes without commercial or other interruption, a nearly unheard-of occurrence in American TV. The following 21 episodes fit the standard 45 minutes of content for an "hour" show, but many ran for 15 or more minutes before the credits and first commercial break (in sharp contrast to the 2-3 minute convention before first ad break). The star and special effects crew of "Alias" are constantly pushing the envelope. Jennifer Garner had minimal action show work under her belt when she started on the series. Garner could run and dance, but was keen to learn more. It soon became apparent to the writers and stunt crew that she was adept at memorizing: not just scripts, but also stunt choreography and foreign language phonetics. The foreign languages in "Alias" are much more compelling than the usual cheat of English with some phony foreign accent. Garner has since studied kickboxing and wire stunts, and actually looks forward to jumping off 100' buildings as a regular part of her job. "Alias" is in many ways a very flawed show. The flaws do not keep it from being remarkably entertaining. There's lots of impossible spy gadgetry, but the Bond movies have made us come to expect that. No real spy agency would keep on an agent as prone to emotional collapse as Sydney Bristow, yet both SD-6 and the CIA consider her a valuable asset. The whole prophetic 15th century Milo Rambaldi technology schtick is WAY out there. And many of the effects over-reach. One particularly egregious example is the oft-shown exploding car sequence. The hood pops off and the car pitches up while fire lights it from below/behind. Since you can see through the engine compartment it's glaringly apparent that this stunt car did not, in fact, actually have an engine in it as it rolled down the road. "Alias" show honchos have hedged their bets by going with known quantities where possible. Series creator J.J. Abrams worked with star Garner on "Felicity", and has known Greg Grunberg (a "Felicity" regular) since childhood. Kevin Weisman played a recurring role on "Felicity". (Amanda Foreman, another "Felicity" regular, shows up in seasons two and three.) Executive producer Ken Olin appears in a small recurring role, and his wife and "thirtysomething" costar Patricia Wettig also plays a recurring character on "Alias". In the first season notable guest stars include Gina Torres, Quentin Tarantino, Angus Scrimm, Amy Irving, Lindsay Crouse, Terry O'Quinn, and Peter Berg. "Alias" is written as a continuous story arc and few episodes end without leaving the viewer eager to see what comes next. The first season has plot threads involving Sydney's graduate school studies, her secret agent work for SD-6, her double agent work for the CIA, clueless best friends Will and Francie, the thaw in her relationship with her distant father, the mysterious Alliance, the prophetic works of Milo Rambaldi, and the growing question of what happened to her mother. As Sydney's view of her mother changes, so does the casting. The character is played in the first season by Arabella Holzbog (in old photos), Natasha Pavlovich (in grainy surveillance footage), and April Webster in a quick backlit scene. The character gains major importance in the second season when played by Lena Olin. It's not surprising that the show's producers and writers spend considerable time worrying about ways to bring viewers up to speed if they've missed or forgotten plot points. There's a lot going on in "Alias", and you don't want to blink sometimes for fear of being thrown off the roller-coaster. The DVD first season collection of "Alias" is unremarkable for its packaging and extra content. This is mostly a good thing. The effort went into excellent video and audio transfer, and the menus are less annoying than most. Extra content is largely what they had lying around in the editing room: a few deleted scenes, and the ABC promo spots for a few episodes. Audio commentary was added in three of the 22 episodes, including the first and last.
Rating:
Summary: Great show, great DVD
Review: I had never watched Alias before due to it being on against other shows I liked and watched every week. I had heard good things about it on the internet and was curious about the show. I wasn't sure if I'd buy the DVDs since I had never seen it before but I do like espionage and spy stories so I was inclined to try it out. I also became a fan of Alias star Jennifer Garner due to her role in the movie Daredevil so that factored in. I went ahead and bought it after a few weeks of deliberation. I'm glad I did! I became hooked on the show after watching the first couple of episodes. I watched the entire set in a few days. I then went ahead and bought season 2 before I even finished season one. The stories are interesting and the cliffhangers are well executed and leave you wanting more and more and more. The picture and sound quality are excellent and the extras as interesting. All in all it is a total quality package. I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Everything that entertains
Review: The first season of Alias was the best season of any drama in television history. Packed with adventure and plot twists it has enough action to keep you on your seat. But what really makes it great is the integrating of Sydney's personal life with her secret double life. Each episode is filled with enough entertainment value and suspense to have you look forward to the next, and with 22 episodes they earn the value of your dollar.
Rating:
Summary: THE GREATEST SHOW ON TV
Review: Who would have thought that there were greater pleasures than seeing the shows on tv? Now, you can actually see them over and over again on dvd! No commercials, and if you just happened to miss an episode, well, you can see that too. The first show had the adrenaline of a rocket, and that adrenaline goes up and down with each episode as different situations arise!
Rating: 
Summary: This series is a lot of fun....
Review: I am so glad I waited to see this series on DVD...to think that the TV viewers had to wait for a week before resolving the weekly cliff-hanger! But now, my wife and I can watch one tense, dramatic, action-packed episode after another....What fun.
I have heard that Season 3 is really extraordinary - can't wait.
This series is well done, fraught with peril and suspense. How long can our gal maintain the perilous tightrope of being a double agent? How long can SD6 survive? Is the CIA and her Dad really on top of all of this?
We are now waiting for the next episode to arrive from Netflix. Too bad I have to work next week.
Rating:
Summary: Mad respect for Jennifer Garner
Review: I just started watching Alias for the first time this year and immediately was hooked. I decided to rent the previous seasons on DVD and instantly became addicted. Before this show, I wasn't a fan of Jennifer Garner's, however after watching the first season, I have gained much respect for her. This is a GREAT show. And I wondering how did I miss it when it first came out? I tell myself to only watch 1 episode a night... well I finished the entire first season in less than 10 days. It's my new addiction. And let's talk about her friend Will.... he is another reason I rush out to get the next DVD. The writing is superb. I can't wait to learn how everything turns out and when I'm caught up to the current season.
Rating:
Summary: Why right yet another review about Alias...?
Review: ...BECAUSE THIS SERIES ROCKS. Maybe it is because Alias has just the combination of what I would be looking for in a show, but it has blown me away from beginning to end, and this first season is so much of why that has happened. If you like the Amazing Race or are a world traveler who speaks many languages, but at the same time you have an open enough mind to get the humor in the fictionalized travels of a female James Bond/MacGyver, then this is the series for you. Plus, this series is as slick as any 007 film (okay, well maybe the budget is slightly lower, but they sure pull it off well considering), but with a campy touch for the twenty-first century that shows a slightly different level of sophistication for the overexposed viewer of the turn of the millenium.
As a translator who's always been interested in government and the Foreign Service, a friend recommended this show because of Sydney Bristow's amazing linguistic skills: she deftly switches from one tongue to another as she travels from Taiwan and back to the US and on to Arabic-speaking nations, Spain and so forth. While an expert eye can detect many details that give away an LA studio, the set decorators still do an excellent job at simulating backdrops from around the world, and the same goes for outdoor shoots. I think that is part of the magic of Alias: sometimes you are just laughing at how OVER-THE-TOP and outrageous it all is, but then you get wrapped up into the story and forget the you weren't initially taking it seriously. (A lot of people have told me this about Alias...as if they started making fun of the show when they first got hooked and then they just couldn't stop, because they were so into the storyline!) So, when Jennifer Garner appears with a wacky new hair-do in episode one, you just mock her, but by episode ten she is so good that you buy it.
All of these surface features are tied together with a great cast of actors (I can never decide which I like best, and as the series evolves, so do your tastes for the characters, since you discover so many unexpected things about them in the story) and an excellent script that has obviously taken the whole season into account as a unit. I don't know if the whole season's plot was planned beforehand, but it sure as heck seems like it, and I love series that do this, as do so many other people nowadays. The full-season plot is coherent and has some amazing cliffhangers, both at the end of the season AND certain episodes mid-season. The plot is well-balanced, too, because of Sydney's spy life and its interplay with her regular university campus times with regular friends. There are hot women and hot men, too, so everyone is left happy visually ;)
Thanks to all of these elements put together, I devoured season one in record time. Buy it, you won't regret it.
Rating:
Summary: What a ride!
Review: Ok, I honestly can't recall the last time I had so much fun watching a TV series.
My wife and I never heard of the show until I came home from Blockbuster with Season 1 Disk 1. After watching all episodes on that CD she kicked me out of the house at 11:30 at night to go rent Season 1 Disk 2. I want happily. I'm a little ashamed to say that we spend almost every night for the next month or so watching the entire first, then second, then third season.
The truth is, it's kind of silly show that is obviously fictional filled with characters that are so much larger then life we know they could never really exist. But who cares?!? Sometimes it's just plain fun to escape and be entertained, and that's what Sydney Bristow and her band of misfit agents and bad guys does for us... they entertain.
Very fun!
Rating: 
Summary: Quite OK, but so lame in comparison to LFN
Review: I'm halfway through the first season, and I must say that I'm quite disappointed. Spoiled by "La Femme Nikita" and by a better Garner in "Daredevil", I expected much more. Just a few examples:
- at the beginning of each episode, we get a recap of the last episode (sometimes even with changing dialogue).
- each episode consists of (a) the (unsatisfactory) resolution of the last episode's cliff-hanger (b) the return of S.B. to home base (c) some chitchat with friends to show the "normal side" of S.B. (d) the new mission (e) the final cliff-hanger.
- the foreign languages spoken by supposed native speakers or by people successfully posing as native speakers bear a *very distinctive* American accent - ridiculous and a shame, since with all the money spent on this production it would have been a small expense to get some native speakers' voices.
But the worst thing is that the characters and the overall plot remain flat, flat, flat. Watching this is like reading a novel by Follett or Grisham: Enjoyable and "quite OK" entertainment, but not really thrilling.
Rating:
Summary: not as expected
Review: I have watched alias a couple times on sony but was never really too impressed with the show but i still ordered it on dvd after reading the reviews,and i can say that it was not what i had expected.
It seemed to me like a soap opera with a little more action and sydney always getting captured made it more predictable than ever i hope that season two is better than this
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