My Tale of Sydney Bristow

The year was 2001. The United States was brutally attacked, George W. Bush was President, and some stuff probably happened in sports that year as well. On a smaller scale, a confident man, an unfortunate man, and a rich girl engaged in a morning ritual late in early October, visiting their company cafeteria for breakfast and delaying the start of the work day for as long as possible. The confident man raved to the unfortunate man about a really cool new show he had seen about a female secret agent. The show was called Alias and starred a then relatively-unknown Jennifer Garner as CIA agent Sydney Bristow. The unfortunate man had seen the commercials and idly wondered if it was connected to ”that movie with that girl with that hair”, but this only irritated the confident man who didn't like to be interrupted while speaking. The confident man went on to explain how this girl was a college student by day and a spy by night, did a lot of running to German techno music, and could really fight. He explained how she was tortured by a horrific Asian dentist, pausing to note the Marathon Man similarity. The unfortunate man nodded understandingly, though it would be another year before he'd admit to never seeing that movie and subsequently borrowing it from his friend.

Sydney thought she worked for the CIA but when her fiancée was murdered after she confided in him, her father, Jack Bristow, tells her the truth, after saving her from an assassination attempt in a parking garage. She's shocked to learn that her father is not a salesman, but in fact a fellow agent, deadly and proficient in his career. He too works for the same agency she does, SD-6, but he's a double agent, reporting the bogus agency's evil deeds to his superiors in the real CIA. To avenge her fiancée's death, Sydney makes the same deal as her father, and she too becomes a double agent, a spy within a spy organization. The premise sounded very exciting, but the unfortunate man brushed it aside, noting that he watched too much television already, and certainly had no plans to add another show. As he made this statement, he held a styrofoam cup with one hand, using the finger of the same hand to dispense hot water for tea. In his other hand was a breakfast burrito, bacon and eggs wrapped in pita bread. The cup buckled and scalding hot water poured over the unfortunate man's right hand. The cup slipped from his grasp, splashing him. Immediately, he scanned the room, making sure few if any cute girls noticed his stupidity. Casually, he set down his burrito and asked the confident man to watch it. The unfortunate man strolled out into the empty hallway, then ran into the nearest bathroom where he ran cold water on his hand until the redness faded. He checked for other burns, then returned for his breakfast, sans beverage. Later that week he'd catch an encore and be hooked, through good times and bad, for the next five years.

Sydney's life was complicated and dangerous. She had a roommate, Francie, and a good friend, Will, neither of whom had any idea what she did for a living, assuming she traveled around the world on business for a bank. Within SD-6 she had friends, her partner Dixon and technical genius Marshall. Other than her father though, she had no idea who to trust. Could her friends be unaware of the true nature of SD-6 as she once was? Arvin Sloane, the creepy and calculating leader of SD-6, already robbed her of the man she was going to marry. She couldn't risk the lives of anyone else, and had to endure a man she detested daily without breaking her cover. Her missions were always twofold, and she often had to get the information or artifacts SD-6 sent her after to the CIA. It was difficult to intentionally sabotage missions and not get caught, especially with her partner around. Adding to the tension on the homefront, Will was a reporter who, in investigating Syd's fiancée's death, got dangerously close to the truth each episode, a truth that could mean his own demise. Will was also in love with Sydney, unaware of his competition with Michael Vaughn, Syd's CIA handler who also wanted to handle her.

Each episode presented a new challenge that, contrary to conventional dramas, was not resolved in the course of an hour. For nearly two seasons, the show offered cliffhanger after cliffhanger, the resolution of the previous week's dilemma leading in to a new one that wouldn't be resolved until the following week. People watched loyally and paid close attention. Halfway through the second season, following the Super Bowl, an exciting episode aired in which SD-6 was finally taken down, Sloane was on the run, and Dixon and Marshall learned the truth. The show would be less complicated in an effort to attract new viewers, and thus would slowly decline. Sydney's mother would play a major role throughout the second season but subsequently would leave the show only to return for occasional guest appearances, when actress Lena Olin sought more money for the role. While plots began to sort themselves out in the course of an hour with fewer cliffhangers, the show veered into more unbelievable territory with prophecies based on the works of 15th-century inventor Milo Rambaldi. While such supernatural plots were welcomed on shows like Angel, it was an odd tangent for a series otherwise grounded in reality and intrigue. At the end of the second season, Sydney would be knocked out, and awaken in Hong Kong to discover two years had passed and Vaughn had gotten married. By the end of the third season, she would learn of the existence of her half-sister Nadia, the result of an affair between her mother and Sloane. Season four tried to restore the show to the basics, putting the cast together in yet another covert agency, this time officially sanctioned by the CIA, but the damage had been done. Worst of all, while Sydney's ability to take on any alias, wearing wigs and costumes and speaking foreign languages proficiently made her unique, eventually everyone on the show was going on missions in funny costumes with funny accents, giving it all a sitcom feel. For most of season five, thanks to Ben Affleck, Garner's real-life pregnancy has been incorporated into the show. The show jumped the shark, then jumped a shark that was on fire, then jumped a shark branded with a DHARMA logo, with a laser strapped to its head.

The show's not bad, but what's disappointing is remembering how exceptional it was when it started. Now, with the final season announced and the episode order cut short, only five episodes remain to wrap things up. Will everyone survive? Will the Rambaldi prophecy resurface? Will dead characters show up again? Will anyone care about the host of new characters introduced this season as old ones left and Garner was unable to run, despite her unlikely pregnant kung fu in a few episodes? The only new cast member I'm really enjoying is Amy Acker, having enjoyed her work on Angel and brief appearance on an episode of Supernatural earlier this season. Acker plays a very devious villain and femme fatale, last week taking down a helicopter with a rocket launcher from inside an office building and calmly strolling away as it fell past the windows in the background. It was a very cool scene in an otherwise absurd episode. I'd also enjoy the addition of Rachel Nichols if not for the fact that she played a far more interesting character on The Inside, a show whose cancellation freed her up for Alias.

Five episodes remain, and I'm there until the very end. I don't know whether the final adventures will regain the power of the first ones, shocking and scalding me like a cup of hot water, or if they'll merely drain away, tepid at best.