We look back at 2001-2006’s Alias, the TV series that launched Jennifer Garner’s career and created one of the coolest heroines of the era.
The mid-2000s were an excellent time for serialized action shows. There were 24, Lost, Chuck, Prison Break and loads more. But, perhaps the best of all of them – for a while anyway – was J.J. Abrams’ Alias, which starred Jennifer Garner as Sydney Bristow, a black ops agent for what she thinks is a unit of the CIA, SD-6. Of course, the truth turns out to be much deadlier, as Sydney finds out in the influential pilot episode, which aired September 30th, 2001.
The series immediately became a big hit, with Jennifer Garner rivalling Angelina Jolie for a while as one of the top female action stars of the era. It paved the way for her to be cast as Elektra in the early Marvel movie Daredevil (a role she reprises in Deadpool 3), and the show also offered an early part to a young Bradley Cooper, who played her friend Will Tippin. Plus, there was Victor Garber as Sydney’s father, Jack, and Michael Vartan as Sydney’s love interest, Michael Vaughn, among others. The show ran for five mostly acclaimed seasons, although as the show went on, some felt that it jumped the shark. After all, many of the folks involved were stretched thin at this point, with J.J. Abrams’ directing his first movie, Mission: Impossible III, in 2006, the same year the series ended. But, for a while anyway, it was a hip show, with guest stars like Quentin Tarantino, Christian Slater, David Cronenberg and even Roger Moore setting the show apart.
How does Alias hold up almost two decades after its last episode aired? Let’s dig into it in this week’s Gone But Not Forgotten, which is written, edited and produced by David Arroyo and narrated by Jesse Shade.
Do you think Alias holds up well? Let us know in the comments.