ALIAS: THE COMPLETE 2ND SEASON - DVD review

I have a confession to make. My wife and I recently started attending AA. Never knew our problems would ever deteriorate this far but it got away from us before we realized it. Anyway, ever been to an AA-sponsored meeting? Well, let me describe to you how a typical meeting works as we recently held one at our home last Sunday evening. One by one or in pairs, the participants arrive and they are immediately gestured to the living room area where there are snacks and drinks at one end of the room and a row of comfortable chairs in front of the television on the other. Conversations are generally centered on a single subject and everyone seems excited about the planned events that night. There is a feeling of great anxiety in the room as it has been two weeks since the last meeting, which ended without the resolution of a tense issue. As 9pm approaches, everyone settles down on his or her chairs and the room slowly becomes quiet except for an isolated cough and some uneasy shifting. Suddenly, the television screen goes dark for a second and the image of CIA agent Sydney Bristow appears, bound and blindfolded as two burly men wearing U.S. military-issued uniforms drag her into a holding cell. By now, the audience in the room is totally hushed, some biting their fingernails, as their gaze is intensely focused on the screen in front of them. Forty-five minutes go by and every person in the room has had their emotions go through so many peaks and dips that I was afraid that many of them might just break down any moment. As Sydney's father, Jack and her former beau, Vaughn charges into the military facility to break her out of prison, the room spontaneously erupts in loud cheers, hoots and all-round genuine relief.

If you don't already know, I would like to welcome to a typical meeting of Alias-holics Anonymous (AA), a support group for the people who possibly care too much for a fictional television character! OK, OK, the account above may be exaggerated but I can finally understand why "Alias" is one of the most popular television series today. I am ashamed to admit that I never caught "Alias" during its past two season's regular broadcast schedule. I never knew what the fuss was about. So I decided to find out. After receiving the review copy of the first season of the show from John, I went to work, with my wife tagging along for the ride. That was perhaps her biggest life-altering mistake. As we watched between two to three episodes per night (depending on the amount of free time we had), it became instantly clear to me why "Alias" is so popular. Just take my wife, for example. When not watching the show, she is incoherent and sometimes even babbling about Sydney for no apparent reason. In fact after finishing the first season of the show in what must be a record-breaking period of seven days (for us, anyway), both if us went into some sort of a withdrawal, like an addictive drug has been cruelly yanked away from our collective grasps. Not helping was the fact that it ended with a major cliffhanger that had Sydney's previously thought dead mother, Laura being resurrected and confronting our beaten-up heroine. The excruciating pain of not able to find out the conclusion of that confrontation made us (yeah, you guessed it) incoherent and babbling. Luckily for us, our older kids thought we were imitating the baby and we managed to get away with it for a while! We had one consolation, though--Season 3 of the series is about to start and we can get our regular fix again! However, in some aspects, not watching the series in the correct sequence of order is probably worse than not watching at all. But we have to have our weekly fix of Agent Bristow and we caved in.

Which brings me to my review of "Alias: The Complete 2nd Season" DVD set. A total of twenty-two episodes are spread out over the six DVDs in the set with most of the extra features located on Disc 6. The episodes appear in the following order:

Disc 1: "The Enemy Walks In", "Trust Me", "Cipher", "Dead Drop"
Disc 2: "The Indicator", "Salvation", "The Counteragent", "Passage Part 1"
Disc 3: "Passage Part 2", "The Abduction", "A Higher Echelon", "The Getaway"
Disc 4: "Phase One", "Double Agent", "A Free Agent", "Firebomb"
Disc 5: "A Dark Turn", "Truth Takes Time", "Endgame", "Countdown"
Disc 6: "Second Double", "The Telling"

Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner) works for SD-6, an international shadowy group dealing in arms, intelligence and espionage. However, she is actually a double agent in the employ of the CIA and working to bring down SD-6. Together with her father Jack (Victor Garber), who is also a double agent like her, they cooperate in undermining the efforts of SD-6 in acquiring what is known as the Rambaldi artifacts. Milo Rambaldi is a Nostrademus-like figure from the 15th century who created fascinating inventions that were way ahead of his time. Season One of "Alias" focused on the efforts of SD-6 in recovering these Rambaldi artifacts from around the world.

On a personal level, Sydney's relationships with her CIA handler, Michael Vaughn (Michael Vartan), her friends, journalist Will Tippin (Bradley Cooper) and restaurateur Francie (Merrin Dungey), her colleague Dixon (Carl Lumbly) and especially her father Jack and SD-6's boss Arvin Sloane (Ron Rifkin) fluctuates and changes--some dramatically--over the course of the entire season. The first season ended as remarkably as it started, with the revelation that Sydney's mother is not dead but worse of all, she is in fact the brains behind another syndicate that is also in pursuit of the Rambaldi artifacts. So, the fact that the Bristow family has come full circle in one season is a delight to watch. With a cunning story that starts out with Sydney being a solitary SD-6 operative and slowly transforming into having her estranged father and her working for the CIA and finally ends spectacularly with her mother Laura (aka Irina Derevko, former KGB agent) (Lena Olin) exposed as the real identity behind "The Man", the mysterious head of the equally mysterious organization fighting with SD-6 and the CIA for the much sought after Rambaldi artifacts.

Season 2, of course, brings bigger and more profound surprises to the series. If there is a single word that can sum up Season 2 succinctly, it is "conflict". With the emergence of Sydney's mother, the stable equation of her life has been dramatically altered. It used to be a simple scenario of the good guys against the bad guys, CIA against SD-6. Now Sydney has to fight her own inner demons when facing her mother, a known killer and confirmed traitor, who has just voluntarily turned herself in to the CIA. Sydney's sweet childhood memories of Laura Bristow has now been shattered and replaced by the horrible image of a cold-blooded killer that did not think twice about shooting her and betraying her family and her country. Now the CIA has to mine Derevko for valuable intelligence in fighting SD-6. Obviously, Derevko won't talk to anyone but Sydney, which puts Sydney's utter contempt for Derevko front and center. Trust is, unfortunately, a priceless commodity that is hard to gain in the spy business. Sydney's initial lack of trust in the information provided by her mother is explicable but things get real messy when her father, Jack intervenes. Jack Bristow is perhaps the most conflicted one when it comes to dealing with his former wife. Trying to get everyone who would listen to subscribe to his view that Derevko has a hidden agenda and that she is not to be trusted, Jack, being Jack, gets real creative. To complicate things further, Agent Vaughn's father, also a former CIA agent, was assassinated by Derevko years ago and he too has to deal with her in his own way. As you can see, conflict is everywhere and in every capacity, whether it is on a personal or professional level.

Victor Garber as Jack Bristow almost always steals the show in every single scene he appears in. From being a distant father to Sydney early in the first season to becoming her self-appointed personal protector now, Jack has transformed himself and perhaps tries to atone for his lack of parental attention towards Sydney's life when she was younger. Garber's magnificent performance with his menacing stare and his unflinching focus to the job at hand sends chills down my spine. Not to be left out is the outstanding comedic talents of Kevin Weisman as the SD-6 tech guru, Marshall Flinkman. Single-handedly, as Marshall, Weisman brings comedy to a whole new level on the show. I can't remember the last time I laughed so much at a single character. At every operations meeting at SD-6, Marshall's op-tech presentation is the event that I most anticipate. While Q has to deal with Bond's wisecracks, the rest of SD-6 has to deal with Marshall's pronounced eccentricity. New to Season 2 is perhaps the series' biggest lure to date, Lena Olin. Although she has an extensive body of work, Olin is virtually an unknown due to her small supporting roles in various movies. As the villain Irina Derevko, Olin can be cold-blooded and intimidating one moment and motherly the next. She is the perfect complement to Victor Garber's Jack Bristow. Jennifer Garner is by and far, the undisputed star of the show, with not only her high-flying kicks and physically challenging stunts, but her brilliant acting performance as well. Acting with such a strong supporting cast, Garner is able to bring out great performances as the emotionally-conflicted daughter of Derevko, looking for assurance from a long lost mother while at the same time, looking behind her back for that knife that may appear at any time.

If you enjoyed Season One of "Alias", Season Two is many times better. The plot gets more intriguing and intense and is able to suck you in to experience the world of Sydney Bristow, albeit for 42 minutes at a time. Every episode presents new surprises and unexpected twists, giving its audience a compelling reason to look forward to the next episode. For the many fans out there, "Alias" has been a guilty pleasure that is hard to resist. With Season 2, the show simply reaffirms its position further.

Well, thank you for visiting us at AA and do grab a complimentary pair of X-Ray glasses on your way out. See you next Sunday at 9pm.

Video:
"Alias" is presented in the show's original aspect ratio measuring 1.78:1. Its anamorphic video is clear without any visible artifacts and just a slight grain in scenes shot in low light. Skin tones and general colors are natural and sharp but the black levels are a bit too high, losing some definition along the way. It is hard to find fault with the video quality and it compares favorably to the previous season's DVD release. Overall, it offers a solid video presentation that justifies the quality of the series. Only Spanish subtitles are available, together with English captions for the hearing impaired.

Audio:
To go along with an impressive video presentation, the show's Dolby Digital 5.1 surround audio mix is a good companion and a joy to experience. Although I would have preferred much more dynamic activity in the surround channels, the audio track generally performs well enough to give the audience a sense of atmospheric intrigue. Surprisingly, no other audio track is made available, not even an English Dolby Surround 2.0 mix.

Extras:
On Disc 1, there is a set of "Sneak Peeks" for "Hidalgo", "Pirates of the Caribbean", "Alias Season 3" and the "Alias" video game.

A total of 4 audio commentaries are included as bonus material. On Disc 4, you will find a commentary for the episode "Phase One" featuring JJ Abrams, Jennifer Garner, Jack Bender, Greg Grunberg, Michael Vartan and Victor Garber. Then on Disc 5, there is an audio commentary on the episode "A Dark Turn" with Ken Olin, John Eisendrath, Jesse Alexander and Jeff Pinkner. The rest of the extra features can be found on Disc 6. Coincidently, the other two audio commentaries included in this DVD set are for the final two episodes of Season 2, which puts them on Disc 6 as well. On the penultimate episode titled, "Second Double", you can hear commentaries by director Ken Olin and actors Bradley Cooper, Carl Lumbly and Terry O'Quinn while on the season finale, "The Telling", audio commentaries are by series creator JJ Abrams, director Ken Olin and actors Merrin Dungey, Ron Rifkin and Kevin Weisman. Not much can be gleaned from these commentaries except for some interesting tidbits of information regarding these two episodes.

The first bonus material is "The Making of ‘The Telling'", which is an inside look at the planning and filming of the final episode for Season 2. It consists of interviews with Abrams and the cast and an in-depth look at the stunts performed for that episode. Next we have a feature called "The Look of Alias" that is essentially a piece that chronicles the various costumes and wigs used by Jennifer Garner in every episode. You will hear interviews with Garner, Abrams and the show's hair stylist, make-up person and costume designer. In "Deleted Scenes", seven such scenes from the cutting room floor are resurrected in anamorphic widescreen. No commentaries are provided with these scenes but there is a handy "Play All" function. Anyone who loves bloopers will enjoy the "Season Two Blooper Reel", which consists of line flubs, practical jokes and stunt mistakes. An audio-only feature comes to us in the form of "KROQ's Kevin and Bean Radio Show Interviews". You get to hear audio interviews from the radio show with JJ Abrams, Victor Garber, Kevin Weisman and Jennifer Garner (from Season 1). Also included as a bonus feature are seven brief TV trailers for the following episodes: "Passage Part 2", "A Higher Echelon", " The Getaway", "Phase One", "Looks Can Kill", "Truth Takes Time" and "Countdown". Video game enthusiasts can tune in to the next feature, "The Making of the Video Game", an insider's look at the making of Acclaim Studios' "Alias" video game. In it you will find interviews with the cast member who provide the voiceovers for the game and also the British game designers from Acclaim Studios. Last but not least is "Alias Scripscanner", a DVD-ROM feature.

Packaging:
The Season 2 DVD set comes in an attractive package. The exterior box holding the six discs that are contained in 3 regular 2-disc DVD boxes, is nicely decorated with the hand-drawn portrait of Sydney from the Rambaldi artifact shown in Season 1. Over this box is a clear hard plastic cover with an image of the Bristow family, Sydney, Jack and Laura (aka Irina Derevko). One more nice feature of the packaging is the design of the spine of the 3 DVD cases that combine to make up an image of Garner in a martial arts pose. Overall, this packaging is far superior and more eye-catching than Season One's rather ordinary offering.

Film Value:
"Alias" is a rare breed on television. Seldom will we find a successful combination of action, drama, romance and suspense rolled into such a masterful package. I will be the first to admit that some of the scenarios that Sydney gets herself into are probably too far fetched to be realistic but that is also exactly the same reason why the James Bond movies are so popular. Combine the back-stabbing action-packed SD-6/CIA plotlines with Sydney's struggle with her parents' individual motives, her growing feelings for her handler Vaughn and her evolving relationship with her best friends and you get an almost perfect show that just has something for everyone.