Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6629 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-09-29
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English, Italian, Spanish
• Subtitled in: English, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish
• Number of discs: 6

Amazon.co.uk Review
Created by JJ Abrams, Alias plays like a cross between Buffy the Vampire Slayer and James Bond. Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner) is a super (and super-sexy) spy, fighting nefarious villains and working for the good guys--or so she thinks. Recruited as a college freshman for espionage work, Sydney found her true calling with SD-6, a secret division of the CIA. When her hunky doctor-boyfriend proposes to her, she decides to let him in on the truth she's not supposed to tell anyone: she's not a grad student with a demanding job for an international bank, but a secret agent who constantly puts her life on the line for the free world. But when SD-6 discovers her security breach, her fiancé is brutally assassinated, and Sydney suddenly finds herself face-to-face with the truth: she's been working for the bad guys. Deciding to become a double agent for the CIA and bring down the evildoers, Sydney gets one more surprise--her estranged father (Victor Garber) is also working for SD-6, and the CIA as well. Welcome to the family, Syd!

Confused? This is all just the first episode. With its double-edged tension (how long can Syd play double agent?) and one heck of a MacGuffin (the dreaded Rambaldi device, the mythic creation of a Renaissance genius), the show leads its viewers from episode to episode with visceral, compelling action, not to mention the nascent romance between Syd and her CIA handler, Vaughn (Michael Vartan), and her clashes with her heretofore distant father. Sharp, smart and always suspenseful, Alias' centre was held by the gorgeous Garner, a stellar action heroine and an even better actress who could pull off Sydney's exotic undercover missions and conflicted emotions with equal dexterity. By the end of this first series, which concludes with a breathtaking cliffhanger, you'll be seduced into Alias' world with, happily, no desire to escape. --Mark Englehart

Special Features

• All 22 episodes in series 1 including pilot episode
  
• 6 discs in a book format
  
• 4 audio commentaries, including one by Jennifer Garner
  
• Alias pilot diary
  
• Inside shots
  
• 6 deleted scenes
  
• Gag reel
  
• 5 TV spots
  
• Video game preview
  
• Alias Series 2 sneak peek

Synopsis
Jennifer Garner stars in this television series as Sydney Bristow, a 26 year-old graduate student working for a secret division of the CIA. The mission of this arm of the CIA is to combat SD-6, a secret terrorist organisation whose agents believe that they, in fact, work for a secret organisation of the CIA that combats terrorism. This first season of the series begins as Sydney begins work as a double agent for the CIA, who want to destroy the organisation and its leader, Arvin Sloane. Sent all over the world on various undercover missions, Sydney must sabotage SD-6's efforts while maintaining her cover so that she can help take down SD-6 from the inside. Quite possibly the most entertaining show to debut on television in the last decade, ALIAS is a fast-paced thrill ride buoyed by Ms. Garner's performance as well as her penchant for wearing some outrageously risque disguises on her missions.

Customer Reviews

Fast Paced and always keeps you thinking
Alias is a wonderful show - with the death of Buffy (in terms of a series rather than in terms of a dead vampire slayer), it perfectly fills the void that has been left. Ironically for something that I started watching as a replacement, I feel that in many ways it is a better show that Buffy ever was.

The dialogue is razor sharp, the acting (while somewhat hammy at times) is compelling, and the characters are memorable. However, where Alias really excels is in the over-riding plot arc - the episodes are links in a chain of breath-taking cliff-hangers. There's something very appealing about a show that leaves you with your mouth open while you inch ever closer to the edge of your seat every time the credits roll.

The villans in Alias are more than the simple 'baddy of the week' stereotypes popularised in many shows. They are complex and multi-faceted - something that is inevitable considering how densely layered the plot is. Your perceptions are constantly shifting as the characters react in terms of their own personal agendas and their often complex emotional attachments to each other.

Arvin Sloane for example is rephrensible in almost all of his actions, but as a man you can't help but be impressed by his determination, his fortitude, and his devotion to his duty as he sees it. He has a deep affection for the main character (who despises him), which causes him considerable anguish when he must take steps that will harm her.

This is a most excellent show - you would be doing yourself a service if you checked it out.

High Octane Fun
Sydney Bristow’s life is going along fine. She’s just become engaged to a wonderful guy and she’s doing well in her graduate English classes. There is her secret job, but it’s not a problem working for SD-6, is it?

When she makes the mistake of telling her fiancée, however, she learns the truth. SD-6 is not part of the US Government but really deals in organized crime. Now, she must join the CIA as a double agent to try to take down the people who have been lying to her for six years.

But life is not that simple. She now must work closely with her father, someone she hardly knows and doesn’t trust. She must fight her attraction to her CIA handler. And a friend is investigating a story that gets him closer to finding out her secret and putting his life in danger.

I absolutely love this show. There are multiple stories going on all the time, but the writers keep all the balls going believably, balancing action with the stories of what’s happening with her friends and giving us very real characters. And you can’t miss a moment. All the actors are top notch, keeping what could be an over-the-top concept real. Extra kudos must go to star Jennifer Garner who makes Sydney real as an action hero with a very vulnerable side.

When I got this set, I intended to watch just a few minutes and then dig it out when I’d have the time to really enjoy it. Didn’t happen. Even though I’d seen every episode here twice, I got pulled right back into the story. Of course, the cliffhangers at the end of every episode certainly help.

This set is any collectors dream. It contains the pilot and the rest of the first season, and the episodes, presented in surround sound and widescreen, look and sound incredible. Each episode is broken down into several chapters, mostly around commercials breaks, although they aren’t listed anywhere. There are four audio commentaries with various members of the cast and crew. Especially fun was the commentary on the finale featuring the entire cast. Since the commentaries were recorded as season two drew to a close, they provide some interesting insight into both seasons and helped me understand a little more about their choices this last year. Also included are a few deleted scenes, bloopers from the season, looks at the stunts and the filming of the pilot, and more. About my only complaint with the set was that no where did they tell you where to find these special features. While most are on disc six, I had to put each disc in to make sure I wasn’t missing anything.

I can’t recommend this series highly enough. It’s highly addictive fun that you’ll come back to time and time again.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I hear the pilot calling me again.

Who'd be a spy?
Your dad's a spy whose lied to you and shut you out for years, your love life has been ruined cos' of it, and worst of all, you cant even tell your friends the cool stuff you get to do: who'd be a spy?

Sydney Bristow, played by Jennifer Garner, that's who.

What can you say about Alias? This show is hip, sexy, and as Quentin Tarantino, who guest stars in the two-parter, "The Box", puts it, "It fulfills the promise of Man From UNCLE". That isn't to say it's corny and stars David McCallum, either, but rather that it's a globe trotting, action packed drama, with the fantastical spy-devices of Bond, the romance and intrege of a top notch drama, and the suspense of a man on a high wire with no safety net and no experience. And that doesn't even get to the plot, which is a twisty, turny, shocking and exciting story which even puts the shows action in the shade.

What else can I say? Well, the first and last episodes of this season are on a par with anything to have been released at the cinema... ever. The final episodes final cliffhanger is a work of genius. Any one who says Casablanca has the best final line ever, obvious has never heard the final, loaded for bear, line of Alias season 1.

Do your self a favour - buy this and then buy the next season. If you dont, you'll just feel left out.