"Alias" returns with a playful, twisting ride!

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<span style='font-size:12pt;line-height:100%'>'Alias' returns with a playful, twisting ride </span>
By Robert Bianco, USA TODAY, Jan. 5, 2005

Welcome home, Syd. We've missed you.

Coming off a slightly off season that moved too far away from its dramatic core and too far into overly dense fantasy, Alias returns with a pleasure-packed two-hour special that effectively returns the show to its roots. It's not just a great series episode; it's also as fast-paced and invigorating an action-adventure movie as you'll get from TV this year.

Good thing, too. This is a crucial season for Alias, a cult favorite migrating from Sunday to be paired with J.J. Abrams' newer and bigger hit, Lost. That time-slot switch will expose this underwatched show to a lot more viewers -- and the show is going to have to hang on to a lot more of them.

What newcomers will discover tonight is Alias at its pop-culture-clever best, a show that keeps its heart on display even when its tongue is planted firmly in cheek. The fun kicks in with the opening image: star Jennifer Garner, whose beguiling Midwestern innocence makes even the trashiest outfit seem both humorous and sexy, strutting through a train in a teddy to the strains of At Last.

Before you can catch your breath, Garner's superspy Sydney Bristow is off on a caper that echoes North by Northwest, From Russia With Love, Mission: Impossible and The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. -- with a little bit of Get Smart thrown in for good measure.

In rapid-fire fashion, the season-opener reconfigures the show, stripping it of some of the more arcane plot devices that grew up around last year's search for a Rambaldi artifact. If that "Rambaldi" draws a blank, don't worry: It no longer matters.

The big concern for ABC is whether Lost fans will be, well, lost. Though nothing happens tonight that the uninitiated won't be able to figure out in context, a little background may help: Sydney has discovered a secret about her CIA agent father, Jack (Victor Garber), that has turned her against him. We don't know what it is as the episode begins, but we will by the end of the evening.

Dressed down by the new CIA director (guest star Angela Bassett), Sydney ends up in a black-ops division of the agency. In the ultra-hip offices of her new employer, she's teamed with her father; her former partner, Dixon (Carl Lumbly); and her ex-boyfriend Vaughn (Michael Vartan). Soon, she'll recruit her half-sister, Nadia (Mia Maestro) -- who was fathered by Syd's arch-enemy, Arvin Sloane (Ron Rifkin).

Throw in an invaluable comic assist from Kevin Weisman as the team's tech-nerd genius and a grand villainous turn from Die Another Day's Rick Yune, and you have a two-hour block that neatly balances a complicated plot with Sydney's complex emotional life. Don't worry that you won't be able to follow it. Just watch.

This is one series that's too good to get lost in the shuffle.

ABOUT THE SHOW

Alias
* * * * (out of four)
ABC, Wednesday, 9 ET/PT

© 2005 USA Today

Everybody is talking about the show ... thats good news ... (y) (y)
 
Woo Hoo!!!!!!! Go Alias!!! I've read many article on Alias and most of them have been really good. I'm glad that everyone is really promoting this season.
 
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