Product Description

Sydney Bristow is a young athletic college graduate who was recruited her freshman year as a secret agent for SD-6 a top-secret branch of the CIA. After a few years -- after Sydney confides her lifestyle to her boyfriend the evil head of SD-6 -- Arvin Sloan has him killed. Sydney learns that SD-6 is part of a rogue international agency called the Alliance of 12 out to rule the world. She becomes a double agent working with the real CIA to bring down SD-6 with the assistance of her handler Michael Vaughn and her estranged father Jack Bristow -- also a double agent. Along the way Sydney fights various rival agents rival terrorist groups and traitors all the while keeping her cloak-and-dagger lifestyle a secret from her friends. (Season 1)DVD Features:Available Subtitles: English SpanishAvailable Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)29 discs with every episode of all five seasons plus bonus disc of never-before-seen extras including:Jennifer Garner's never-before-seen first interview as Sydney BristowExclusive J.J. Abrams interviewIdentity theft Alias' sexiest AliasesCase Closed: Emotional cast reunion from the series finaleDossier 47 The Secret of the Infamous NumberFan montage bloopers and more!Packaged in replica of Rambaldi artifact box with secret compartment holding the bonus discHardbound book revealing answers to the show's deepest secrets including introductory letter from JJ AbramsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS UPC: 786936721201 Manufacturer No: 5313003

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4776 in DVD
• Brand: Buena Vista Home Video
• Released on: 2006-11-21
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: English, German
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Number of discs: 29
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 4512 minutes

Amazon.com
From the moment Jennifer Garner appeared on screen, tied to a chair in a fluorescent red wig, Alias burst onto the scene as an intriguing "spy-fi" series that sucked viewers into a weekly action movie. Like its successor, Lost, creator J.J. Abrams spun a cult favorite show that held interweaving conspiracies, mysteries, and even some of the same actors. Unlike the island drama, however, Lost was really only about one central character: Student-turned-agent Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner, who was catapulted from obscurity to the A-list) learns the government agency she was working for isn't CIA at all, but a rogue baddie outfit called SD-6. Sydney, along with her father (Victor Garber, robbed of an Emmy) work as double agents to bring down SD-6 and its top gun, the ever-shifty Arvin Sloane (Ron Rifkin). Once that happened, of course, there were more bad guys and villainous networks to be brought down, and the rest of the series followed Sydney's adventures--always in various disguises--as she roundhouse-kicked her way through each one.

While season one was about the threat of SD-6 discovering her identity, season two dealt with her personal relations: her romance with CIA handler Vaughn (Michael Vartan), her reunion with her duplicitous mother (Lena Olin, The Unbearable Lightness of Being) and hiding her agenda from outsider friends while revealing it to her former SD-6 comrades. Season three catapulted Sydney two years into the future (with amnesia!) facing a suspicious new agent (and Vaughn's new wife) and more prophecies of Rambaldi, a cross between Da Vinci and Nostradamus whose writings and artifacts became a deadly obsession for Sloane. Seasons four and five went all over the map, introducing a new black-ops unit, a half-sister for Sydney (Mia Maestro), two new agents (Balthazar Getty and Rachel Nichols), and more bad guys before its final showdown between Sydney and Sloane. Due to the show's cancellation and hurriedness to finish season five in a shortened amount of time, some plot points and questions were never answered.

On the DVD
The entire Alias series comes housed in a replica of the Rambaldi box, an intricately designed gold case with red velvet lining, embossed with "IRINA" on the lid just as it was on the show. Inside, each season's discs are housed in its own storybook case, and a small hardcover companion book features the show's cast and crew answering fans' burning questions, particularly the unanswered storylines such as "Who was Deep Throat?" (the anonymous tipster who kept calling Will in season one, whose identity was never revealed). Hidden in the Rambaldi case's false bottom(!) is a bonus disc of material not found in any previous DVD release. The featurette "Case Closed" interviews cast members at the close of the show, with footage of their very last set takes (It's touching to see veteran stars Garber and Kevin Weisman, who plays lovable techie geek Marshall, struggle not to cry while season five newbie Nichols weeps openly). The included fan tributes are amusing to watch; one inventive obsessor hangs a red Japanese lantern above his bed and calls it his own personal "Mueller sphere." Other featurettes explore interviews with the cast after the pilot was filmed; the significance of the number 47 throughout the series; the numerous networks of villains (The Covenant, K. Director, Prophet 5, etc.) But the best quote from the bonus disc comes from an interview with Rifkin, who assesses Sloane's complex motives with: "He's bad. Sloane is bad. Sloan is baaaaad. Sloane. Is. Bad." If you're a die-hard Alias fan and don't own any of the previous seasons on DVD, this one is for you. -- Ellen A. Kim

Customer Reviews

AMAZING BOX SET!!!
Awesome show, amazing package, you get a sweet box and all of the episodes of Alias with special features, it's perfect.

One of the better series of the past decade
Warning! Spoilers are littered throughout this review!

First, am I reviewing the series or the product? My five-star review is for the series, not the product. I watched ALIAS on TV when it first came out and having wanted to see various bits over the past two years, I decided I would buy the whole thing on DVD. I was very tempted by the complete set (with the Rambaldi artifact box), but after getting a good look at it I realized it would not mesh well with other DVD box sets that I owned, so I decided that I would pay a bit more money and get each season individually. I'm glad that I did. I was able to get three seasons used off Amazon and bought the other two seasons new.

I became interested in rewatching ALIAS for two reasons. First, I watched earlier this summer FELICITY for the first time. I thoroughly enjoyed the show and realized that many of the actors on FELICITY would later appear on ALIAS, like the romantically paired (on FELICITY) Greg Gunberg and Amanda Foreman (interestingly, the guy who played the hipster friend of Amanda Foreman's FELICITY character was Kevin Weis, with whom she was romantically linked on ALIAS as Marshall Flinkman's wife). Besides, I once heard an interview with J. J. Abrams in which he said he came up with the idea of ALIAS by thinking, "Felicity Porter in the CIA." The second major reason I wanted to rewatch the show was the impending (actually, only two days from now) debut of J. J. Abrams fourth major TV series (yes, he's been involved with others, but FELICITY, ALIAS, LOST, and THE FRINGE have gotten the big push others have not) THE FRINGE. After DOLLHOUSE (Joss Whedon's new series, due out this winter), this is the show I'm most anticipating this year, along with Alan Ball's new series TRUE BLOOD (and if Ron Moore's two series CAPRICA and/or VIRTUALITY make it to production by the end of the 2008-2009 season, those two as well).

When I was first watching ALIAS, my impression was that Seasons One and Two were the best, with a very slight dip in quality in Season Three, a sharper drop in Season Four, and further drop in early Season Five before getting very good again at the end. This largely corresponds with my reviewing. Season Three was a bit better than I remembered and Season Five even more enjoyable at the end than I recalled. Season Four still disappoints, however.

There are so many great things about this show. There are also a couple of things you simply have to learn to ignore, things that fall into the "Willing suspension of disbelief" category. For instance, the world is a very, very big place. But if anyone on the show needs to get to any spot on the globe, it doesn't seem to take more than a few hours. But short of an SR-71 (or presumably the super secret Aurora spy plane) this simply isn't possible. Plus, all the airplanes shown as transport o the show are subsonic. Nonetheless, international logistics never seems to be a problem for Sydney and Company. Still, the show as a whole is so much fun and so compelling, that as a viewer I have no trouble cutting them slack on this, unlike, say, PRISON BREAK, where you have to cut them slack on a few dozen things every episode (in my opinion, you can't call for a suspension of disbelief on everything that happens on a show).

Though we are introduced to a large number of characters over the seasons, the core cast is Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner), initially working for what she takes to be a black ops section of the CIA, SD6, but in reality part of an international criminal organization known as the Alliance. Though allegiances change over the years, on the side of the angels with Sydney are Michael Vaughan (Michael Vartan) of the CIA, her father Jack Bristow (the brilliant Victor Garber), her field partner Marcus Dixon (Carl Lumbley), and technical genius Marshall Flinkman. On the side of the devils are Arvin Sloane (Ron Rifkin) and recurring characters Irina Derevko (played by the beautiful and talented Lena Olin) and Julian Sark (David Anders). The thread that runs through the show are the artifacts of an unknown Renaissance genius named Milo Rambaldi, someone so brilliant that he makes DaVinci look slow witted. Arvin Sloane's driving obsession with Rambaldi along with Sydney's prophesied role in the culmination of Rambaldi's work remain unifying elements in each season of the series. One didn't have to be a Rambaldi to realize that the series, if allowed to end on its own terms (and while it was cancelled earlier than many of us would have liked, they were allowed to wrap up the series as they wished), that it would only end when the mysteries of Rambaldi and Sydney's role in them were resolved.

Along the way through the five seasons ALIAS helped establish TV as a medium in which movie stars were free to appear as guest stars. Few if any shows have had more remarkable guest stars than ALIAS. Faye Dunaway, Christian Slater, Isabella Rosselini, the aforementioned Lena Olin, Sonia Braga (the last three playing the Derevki sisters), Quentin Tarantino, David Cronenberg, Amy Irving, Joel Grey, Ethan Hawke, Peter Berg, Lindsay Crouse, Roger Moore, Rutger Hauer, and Djimon Hounsou, not to ignore series regular Victor Garber, were some of the actors better known for their work on stage and screen than TV, though the series also had some great TV veterans like Terry O'Quinn (before becoming famous as Locke on LOST) and Ricky Gervais. The casting from beginning to end was simply impeccable on the show.

One of the most important aspects of the show was its role in promoting female heroes on TV. My own reading of TV over that time is that Buffy had made TV irreparably safe for heroic female characters. Xena and Dana Scully had anticipated what was about to happen with empowered females on TV, but without Buffy they would perhaps have been remembered as exceptions. Buffy was the character that changed all the roles. Xena was too much of a cartoon to make people accept females kicking butt as something not to be taken as exceptional. But after Buffy it has been a commonplace. But there had to be actual instances of heroic females as evidence that the rules had changed. Aeryn Sun on FARSCAPE, Max on DARK ANGEL, and Sydney Bristow were the first -- and along with Veronica Mars and Starbuck from BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, still the best. When someone writes the history of heroic women on TV, there will be a pre-Buffy section mentioning characters like the 1950s Annie Oakley, Emma Peel of THE AVENGERS, Dana Scully, and Xena, then a section on Buffy, and finally the next wave. Sydney Bristow should and will get her own chapter. And what a great job Jennifer Garner did! Though not trained in martial arts, she used her considerable athleticism (and early dance training -- indeed, dance seems to be a wonderful training ground for cinematic martial artists, further proof being the absolutely astonishing fight scenes by Summer Glau in SERENITY, showing that for a prima ballerina it is just choreography) to bring Sydney Bristow to life more believable than any other female hero. In fact, to this day I've seen no TV female hero (and yes, I'm avoiding the word "heroine" intentionally -- "heroines" traditionally are anything but heroic) more physically convincing than Jennifer Garner as Sydney Bristow. On top of this she brought acting chops that should have earned her a string of Emmys. At least she got some nominations, unlike Lauren Graham, who astonishingly never got a single nomination for Best Actress in a Comedy when she should have won seven straight times.

I strongly recommend anyone interested in quality TV getting acquainted with ALIAS. Few shows have had higher production values or better casts. And while the overall story flagged a bit in Season Four and early in Season Five, the show took risks and kept striving to tell well an ambitious story. It is bound to remain one of the touchstones of great television.

The Alias boxset rocks!
This arrived in great condition and it is beautiful! I was so excited to get this and about $30 cheaper than it was at Barnes and Noble.
This was a limited edition boxset - so the fact that Amazon had it at a better price was awesome!