Alias - Season 4 [DVD]

Things are once again changing in Sydney's world. She has been recruited to join a new black ops unit of the CIA. Called APO (short for Authorized Personnel Only), Syd's thrilled to be part of the exclusive team. Until she meets her new boss. Sloan has not only been pardoned, but he's in charge of the new unit. On the plus side, all her friends are part of the team, which means she'll have lots of help making sure Sloan is really on the up and up. Also joining them is Sydney's half sister Nadia. Their missions, while dangerous, seem fairly routine, until hints begin to emerge that there is a greater danger afoot. Is Sloan up to his old Rimbaldi tricks? Or is someone from Sydney and Nadia's family tree behind the trouble?

After season three, I was hoping the show would get back on track, and with this season it did. The set-up feels a little too much like they were trying to recreate the first season magic, and that's just not going to happen. But they did do a good job of telling great stories over the course of the season.

Many fans didn't like the first third, which were mainly stand alone episodes with hints of a plot thread moving through them. Personally, I found them just as engrossing as the regular episodes. By the mid point of the season, things are beginning to gel with the storyline about Vaughn's father taking the forefront. The last third was another can't miss thrill ride that ended with the end of the world - almost - and the best cliffhanger of the series. Although I really wish they'd dump the Rimbaldi storyline already. That's the one aspect of the show I've never liked.

This six disc set continues the great season DVD sets this series has already been given. All twenty-two episodes are presented in full surround and wide screen, looking better then originally aired. Four episodes get commentaries by members of the cast and crew, which are always fun and informative. There are the usual deleted scenes and bloopers as well as a profile of new cast member Mia Maestro, an interview with Jennifer Garner, director's diary, info on Marshall's gadgets, and other behind the scenes featurettes.

While I don't think this show will ever regain the magic of its first season, this season was still well worth watching. In many ways, it could stand alone, although watching from the first episode would certainly help understand all the relationships and nuances. This is still one of my favorite TV shows currently on the air.

Before I launch into one of my enthusiastic and lengthy reviews of one of the most creative, dramatic, plot twistingy, cleverly written shows on TV... I urge newcomers to go back and start at Season 1. However "stand alone" the series was written to try and entice new viewers, back story is a must to appreciate the amazingly interwoven complicities of the lives of Sydney Bristow et al.

To summarise Syd - a kick ass secret agent, once working for SD6 who she thought was a black ops division of the CIA - it was not. On finding out she turns double agent working for the real CIA to bring down SD6 headed by the nefarious Sloane. On completion of her task and after many high octane adventures and close shaves she ends up working for their real black ops division and rejoins many familiar faces (her Dad Jack , soul mate Vaughn and work partner Dixon)including to our horror, let alone hers, Sloane as a "reformed goodie" Director of the new division which in itself opens the door to a "got to see next weeks episode" insatiable hunger.

The season opens with some edge of the seat fight and chase scenes and costume change / disguises. Whilst the "stand alone" nature of this season put many loyal fans off, I cannot fault it in general. All that we usually hope for in a show like this was there - stunts, drama, family tensions, twists and shocks and with all our favourite characters still at the fore. I loved the extra injection of humour by using Flinkman more often, the tension between Syd & Sloane added drama and even to the end I was unclear if he was bad or good. The gradual rebuilding of her relationship with Vaughn was realistic to me, given what they had been through in S3 as was the tension with her dad Jack.

There were a couple of eps that on repeated viewing I would be tempted to fast forward through, a first with Alias, however overall this was still far better than most other shows I have tried to get into and failed to be impressed by this year. Without giving any spoilers away, if you have not seen this try and stay spoiler free - it was the best cliffhanger of all time for me setting up a promising choice with regards to direction by the writers for season five.

I would not normally review prior to the DVD release, however given the sparce reviews already posted I wanted to ensure that new viewers are not put off by the minimal offerings currently on display.

Alias is exciting, fast paced, witty, heartbreaking and butt kicking fantastic as well as highly addictive. Based on previous DVD releases S4 is likely to be well presented with loads of Bonus features of behind scenes, featurettes, commentaries and my personal favourite gag reel. It is a definate recommend to continue a collection. Even as a first viewing of Alias it should meet its purpose to suck new fans in, but I urge you go back to day one, S1 and I guarantee you will end up with Season 4 anyway but with a full investment of backstory into this amazing show.

For me this knocks spots over ABC's "breakout hit" Lost, which I enjoy but it pales in comparison to Alias.

I urge you to buy this and be lulled into the world of espionage - even James Bond never did it so good.

This fourth season of 'Alias' is not the improvement on the third season that I was personally hoping for. To be extremely harsh I'd characterise it as the second disappointment since the unbelievably great second season. But still the same bottom line applies that's always applied with this magnificent show- 'Alias' effortlessly manages to be a cut above just about every other example of the genre there's ever been, or is likely to be- not only brilliantly mixing espionage, emotion, action and an incredible amount of visual flare, but also competing in terms of dialogue, performances and plot with every other show on television at the moment.

The first four episodes that comprise the first disc are even more disappointing than those of season three in terms of continuing on from a previously breath-taking season finale. I won't give away a single detail concerning this plotline, but suffice to say that the reason behind Sydney's teary-eyed, startled look and what was actually written on that fancy CIA paper...is not simply disappointing, but blatant nonsense, something that was clearly thought up in a writer's room on the spare of the moment with no appreciation for the subtleties and huge back-story of the programme and furthermore, it's just not adequately explained enough in the following few episodes to be credible. To truly be awarded a logical resolution of this top-secret misdeed the viewer is forced to wait until the last few episodes of the season. In the meantime it's the shake-up of the shows characters and a move away from the heart of CIA headquarters that's the other radical change in season four. A Black-Ops unit led by master manipulator Sloan and a return to the entertaining days of SD-6 may sound like a great idea to mix things up and inject some new energy into the show's formula, but not only is it an implausible set-up, it's also a much more restrictive and less involving environment in comparison to the headquarters of seasons two and three- the CIA Tundra base.

In episode 4- 'Welcome to Liberty Village' things take a turn for the better, it's not completely un-trodden ground in espionage territory, but in the hands of the Alias team it's magical stuff and the next handful of episodes continue in that same enjoyable vein. But it's episode 10- 'The Index' that's the turning point for me. By the standards of any other show on television it would be a story full of twists, turns and thrills, but by 'Alias' standards it's entirely predictable and while that may be understandable (in that 'Alias' has become a victim of its own success to some extent by educating its audience in spy games too well) it also means that in story-telling 'Alias' isn't ahead of its audience and that's not a good sign for the future in my opinion. From then on the action is definitely as thick and fast as always and some episodes even break new ground (episode 19- 'In Dreams...' is not only brilliantly executed, but very moving too), but things just never really take-off and with the finale, episode 22- 'Before the Flood' I just wasn't as connected with events as I always have been with the season finales of previous years. Since the very beginning of this magnificently crafted programme I'd always hoped, no- BELIEVED that there was an 'Alias' master-plan in the mind of creator J. J. Abrams for how all these characters would eventually end up and how all their complex lives would someday fit together and make sense, but with this convoluted and miss-directed season I realise that there is no master-plan, the makers are simply taking it a season at a time, which for me is an incredibly bitter blow. And yet...I still love 'Alias' and will continue to love it for as long as it's on television. Season four is no exception and despite only awarding it 3 stars (fairly I believe)...I still recommend it whole heartedly as nail-biting, sofa-hiding-behind, eyes-completely-glued television!