MovieFreak.com - "Alias - The Complete First Season" DVD Review by Jon Harmon

Jennifer Garner is Sydney Bristow. Syd's not exactly your average grad student. Her life might appear normal, but she's hiding a secret life working as a spy for the CIA. Sydney's world is turned upside down when she learns she may work for the very enemy she thought she was fighting. Now she's entangled in a covert lifestyle where she is forced to question the allegiances of everyone, including those closest to her.

"Alias" is a good-looking, fast-moving, exciting and mysterious TV show. Jennifer Garner embodies Sydney perfectly. She handles the dramatic side of her character well, but also delivers all the deadly kicks and punches in order to survive and complete her missions. Much emotional impact is placed on Sydney as she tries her best to deal with several major issues all at one time. First, she needs to cope with the death of a loved one. Then, she realizes her father is not who he seems to be. The most shocking and confusing issue of all becomes the truth about the people she works for. On top of that she has to listen to the problems of her best friend when she gets home from "work". An intense and dangerous subplot in the season concerns her friend Will, a newspaper reporter, who investigates the death of Sydney's loved one.

In fact, "Alias" is full of subplots, almost all of which are compelling and interesting to keep track of to see what happens next. The beauty of watching this show on DVD is the ability to feature a kind of marathon by watching some six episodes in a row, all depending on your free time, of course. Following the show on DVD also makes plot threads much easier to follow as opposed to waiting a whole week to catch a new episode on ABC. "Alias" jumps into high gear right from its pilot presentation, which runs just above 90 minutes or so. The season finale is exciting and quite captivating. The continuous storylines and plot threads add intensity and danger to a show that's nicely shot, edited, composed, written, acted, and directed. What more could a viewer ask for when the lead character is portrayed by the beautiful Jennifer Garner? Hopes that Season 2 will kick just as much ass as Season 1, or perhaps more.

It's great to know the suits didn't deprive viewers of the awesome 1.78:1 widescreen aspect ratio the show is shot in. The image is enhanced for 16x9 televisions (anamorphic), also known as the pretty televisions that are stretched vertically. I personally like the black bars on the top and bottom of the screen because they give me a movie-like experience. "Alias" looks pretty good here with some very nice colors and fine detail.

Okay, the back of the box says "Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound" and they really mean it. The words flow like butter out of my tele's speakers. It's great. During some parts I was surprised to find out dialog appeared in scenes that I thought were just non-speaking soundtrack moments. Good job, Buena Vista. Actually, it's way better than watching straight from Digital Satellite.

Okay, someone missed the deadline on this. This seriously looks like high quality fan artwork. It's crappy work. Is it rushed? Uncared for? I don't know, but this is the first baby, the first of many more to come. Surely the design deserved much more. The cover, of course, has the "Alias" logo, which is great. But then you notice the different shots of Sydney. Fine, I can handle that, because that's what makes the show. Then you look closer and the two Sidney shots at the end are screen caps. I can no longer look at the cover without letting out a disgruntled sigh.

Pilot Production Diary: Usually when you see "Production Diary" on a DVD it's something you scroll down and read. Who wants to do that? No one. So many thanks to the people at the "Alias" camp for giving us the luxury of a diary in motion. It's informative and entertaining.

"Inside Stunts": Montages. Voiceovers. Explosions. Behind the scenes footage. Simple, but good.

Deleted Scenes: Considering what the deleted scenes are they should have just been edited back into the corresponding episodes to give some indication where these belong. There's nothing action packed here, some of it is funny, some over-the-top dramatic play. Overall these scenes are good.

Gag reel: Funny stuff. I hate seeing gag reels that are only 30 seconds long and show people tripping and falling. This one runs for a few minutes and shows the cast screwing up their lines.

Audio Commentaries: They're okay. I didn't really expect so much from a television commentary. But the track for the last episode featuring the principle cast of "Alias" is some funny stuff.

Special Season 2 Preview: I saw Season 2 already; the DVD preview doesn't do it justice.

Video Game Sneak: Granted, they use way too much footage from the show, but it's okay because the video game itself looks so good. So good, in fact, that I might just buy a Playstation 2 just for the game.

DVD-ROM Script Scanner: Hmm, I don't have a DVD-ROM. Oops. But I bet it's fun. And just a side note, the scanner is on Disc 1.

TV Spots: I love TV spots. There are like 20 of them here. Some are the same ones with slight changes, but I didn't care.

We can just forgive everything that was lacking on this set. Just think that almost every Season 2 boxed set out there has outdone the first season by a long shot ("24: Season 2" for example). Season 2 comes to shelves December 2. For fans of the genre the set comes HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, but for fans of the show it's a COLLECTOR'S SERIES item.

THE SHOW/SEASON	9
THE VIDEO	8
THE AUDIO	8
THE EXTRAS	7
OVERALL (not an average)	9