Likeable season with a split personality
I'm an admittedly big fan of "Alias," so you'll probably have to take some of my comments with a grain of salt. Season Four, for the most part, is likeable and fun, suffering only in comparison to the heights the series reached in its first two years. Even though "Alias" creator J.J. Abrams seems to have run out of ideas regarding the series, he's established the characters and situations well-enough so that series can continue on sheer momentum for a while.
This season, like every other season, focuses on the adventures of a small group of CIA agents who work together. Despite the opening credits' insistence on the importance of series star Jennifer Garner, this season is more a team effort than ever before. There's Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner), who's a multilinguist and a master of disguise. There's her love interest Michael Vaughn (Michael Vartan), a decent straight-arrow of an agent troubled by his recent past. There's her father Jack Bristow (Victor Garber), who is...
The road to recovery
An amazing thing happened in the last minutes of Season 4's penultimate episode "Search and Rescue": I had a feeling flood over me that I hadn't felt watching Alias since it was revealed Lauren was evil at the end of season 3's "Full Disclosure": I was hooked. It had been so long since Alias was the vital, nail-biting show of high excitement and high melodrama that I almost didn't recognize it anymore. Now, here was Lena Olin exibiting the full capacity of her greatness - equal parts loving mother and twisty snake, Jack was at the edge of his wits, Sydney was frantic and focused, and Nadia, thankfully, wasn't that important except to earn welcome gooeyness out of Olin. How exactly did this happen?
Season 3 was widely viewed as a disappointment at the time, but at the beginning of season 4, it seems fans like me were nostalgic for its chaos and ambition. To say the format for the season stretched the limits of credibility does a disservice to the limits of credibility...
Alias stands alone
After the disappointment of season 3 to many fans, Alias goes back to basics. Alias basically started over. A new night of the week helped Alias grab its best ratings ever for season 4, and unlike the first 3 seasons most of these episodes play as stand alones, and with the complexity of most of the storylines, that may have helped new viewers jump into the action without needing to hear the back story.
Being a hardcore Alias fan, I didn't like the idea of stand alones at first. Part of the reason I love the show is the season long storyline that twists and turns after every episode. Having said that, the first two episodes of season 4 blew me away, with one exeption. The cliffhanger of season 3 isn't even resolved until the beginning of episode 2. That bothered me a lot at first but the more and more I watched this season the more I think it worked out brilliantly. The new plan to make stand alone eps they resolved it in such a way that didn't require you to have seen the...
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