Like Sydney, ‘Alias’ kept reinventing itself

The effect of the first “reboot,” as fans refer to the changes, was to effectively kill the series’ major tension. The CIA took down SD-6, which, of course, was just a small part of a big, sticky web, and Sydney was able to level with her friends and develop a slightly more functional relationship with Vaughn.

Although it was clearly difficult for the writers to sustain the initial double-agent premise over time, that’s what gave the series its emotional weight and drama, and without it, Sydney just treaded water in her wigs.

The middle reboot went in an entirely new direction, and lost its way, marrying off Vaughn and spreading out the old SD-6 crew.

This last reboot is notable because it sought to bring everyone back together and return “Alias” to its roots. Marshall and Dixon returned, and, implausibly, Arvin Sloane came back to lead the new CIA organization. As before, he was eventually revealed to have betrayed his friends and family.

And along comes baby
The fifth and final season was a sort of mini-reboot, as it introduced new characters, one of whom, Rachel, came to work for APO after discovering that she’d been working for an SD-6-like operation.

The fifth season also resolved the fourth season cliffhanger, in which Vaughn revealed that his name wasn’t really Michael Vaughn and that he’d been working inside the CIA for reasons other than duty to his country. But that, like many of these latest twists, was a shock that drifted off to sleep with very little follow-up. Vaughn was later shot and killed, but by the time Michael Vartan was ready to make a cameo, we discovered that he’d survived and was in hiding.

These twists were remarkably anti-climactic, mostly because “Alias” set a high bar for itself in its early years, striving for more than silly, shocking plot twists. While the writers tried very hard, they could never quite recapture the tension that existed inside SD-6. As this sometimes complicated, often ridiculous plot unfolded, the series lost its greatest hook: the dilemma of a woman caught in the middle of a web of lies and conspiracies that she never really wanted to be part of, especially those that involved her family.

When Lena Olin appeared as Sydney Bristow’s duplicitous mother at the beginning of the second season, the series reached its creative peak. Watching Sydney navigate her relationship with her parents as they negotiated their relationships with one another and, eventually, went on missions together, “Alias” was at its best.

That was true even during the final season when one such mission ended with Sydney giving birth with her backstabbing mother at her side, a scene which played on all of viewers' emotions at once.

Not bad at all for a show that liked to play dress-up.

Andy Dehnart is a writer and teacher who publishes reality blurred, a daily summary of reality TV news.

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