The Prestige TV Podcast - 'Alias'

Episode Date: May 12, 2020

Kate Halliwell tries to sell Liz Kelly on why she should be watching 'Alias,' the action series starring Jennifer Garner and created by J.J. Abrams that just landed on Amazon Prime. Hosts: Kate Halliwell and Liz Kelly Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

and welcome to TV concierge, a daily podcast where ringer staffers help you navigate the crowded TV streaming landscape. I'm Kate Hallowell, and today I'm joined by my Tea Time co-host, Liz Kelly, to discuss one of my all-time favorite shows, Alias, which is finally available to stream on Amazon Prime after far too many years of exclusively watching and re-watching my personal DVD set. Alias, of course, stars Jennifer Garner, Michael Varton, and Bradley Cooper, and comes from a budding talent you may have heard. of named JJ Abrams. So we're doing things a little differently today because my dear sweet Liz has never seen alias, which is just a crime. So instead of giving her a quick pitch on the show, this whole episode is going to be my pitch on why it's the most bingeable show out there.

It's going to be a monologue, so apologies to Liz and all of you listening. But first, Liz, you've never seen alias. So in a sentence or two, give me some guesses on what you think the show is about because I know you just don't know much at all. Yes, I don't. I have two different ideas that I feel like are both. plausible, okay? Hit me.

First idea. Alias is a show about a crime-fighting woman who, like, loves a good costume, loves a good wig, and then she takes down each of her enemies from her childhood, and then each person in a different wig. Okay. You're actually, like, really close. Wait, can I get my second one before I say which, okay, because I feel just as strongly about my second idea.

Great. Okay. Second idea is, Alias is a show about a regular woman with a... an affinity for leather pants who needs to be in the witness protection program after she witnesses a gruesome murder. And then she becomes a trained fighter who takes down aliens for the government. Okay. Your first one was closer, but she does have an affinity for leather pants. Every Google image has Jennifer Garner and leather pants. I mean, that's the show. That's the whole pitch. You're very close. And that's kind of the charm of it. But I'll give you the basic premise.

Please. And then we can go from there. Okay. So, alias was a spy drama. You were right about that part. Okay. That aired on ABC from 2001 to 2006, hence the special fashion. Right. Because the early 2000s had some special fashion. Jennifer Garner plays Sydney Bristow, who is a grad student turned spy. And she thinks she's working for the CIA.

Turns out in the pilot, she's actually working for the enemy who has fooled a lot of its lower level agents into thinking they're working for the CIA. So she turns on them, becomes a double agent, ends up working with her dad, who she didn't know was a spy. for the CIA. Wait, the dad works for the CIA? Yes, but he also works for the enemy. So they both work for the enemy. And basically, okay, basically the whole premise is she goes out on these missions for SD6, who is like her original bad employer.

And she has to figure out a way to like turn the mission without them noticing so that she can make it help the CIA take down their employer. So she's working with like this handler who she ultimately falls in love with. She has like a fractured relationship with her dad. And that's the show. Are you still with me, Liz Kelly? I am. There seems to be a lot. So she only has one secret identity. She's only one time a double agent. It's not like she's tricking multiple. The CIA, yeah, the CIA knows. But they're working with her to take down her employer. So she's like still, quote unquote, working for the bad guy.

Is the main conflict at the show and you don't have to give spoilers because we're trying to sell the people to watch it and follow along? But does she ever get caught in this lie? Or is the bigger premise, like her rise? through the ranks of whatever this? It's iffy. She never, well, they take it down relatively early and then it's kind of like levels and then it comes back and like, I think the first season essentially is taking down the original employer and then it kind of grows from there. So she comes close to getting caught and that's kind of the conflict is like keeping her safe.

Okay, I have other plot questions. Where did the wigs come into play? Because on Google Images, if you just say alias Jennifer Garner, she's in a different colored wig all the time. I'm so glad you asked. So basically every episode is like. one of these missions for the most part. She needs a disguise for every mission. Of course. So it's kind of like JJ Abrams when who was making this show just like drew things out of a hat and was like,

okay, for today's mission, you're going to be stealing Indonesian nuclear launch codes, but you're going to do it dressed as. And then he like, pull something out of a hat. And he's like, you're going to be Swedish. And he's like, and you're going to be a goth. But you're going to be a schoolgirl. And then you're also going to have blue hair. And Jennifer Garner was just like, sure. Like, okay. Does this mean Jennifer Garner has different accents or attempted different accents. Oh, yes. Oh, wow. She's great. Jennifer Garner is great in this show. What we forget about Jennifer Garner is that she's an action star. Yes. And you forget because of like, Electra. She was in that horrible Daredevil movie. So that bad peppermint movie recently where like they kind of

tried to do the alias thing, but it was bad. But she's such an athletic actress. And like you can tell that looking at her, but like it doesn't come across if she's sitting on a couch like in Juneau, like crying, you know? But it's like very believable that she's like a grad student. one day and then the next day she's like kicking bad guys in the face because it's just kind of the way she's built you know you can tell she was like she's just really athletic does she pull off the badass vibes because now all I see Jennifer garner on instagram is she's just like lovely loving lovely mother who just bakes and is like really kind of corny and I love her but does she pull that off in this show she really does and it's almost weirder for me now because I was watching this I guess in

middle school my sister and I were watching this and like this was kind of my introduction to jennifer Her Garner, even though, like, I think a lot of younger people know her better as, like, you know, the mom and, like, love Simon or whatever from her Instagram stories. And yeah, it's almost weird to see her as, like, the mom figure now because she was like this action star to me early on. And she was great in this show. She got nominated for four Emmys. She won a Golden Globe.

Like, she's legitimately really, really good. Damn. Do you know if this show was liked at the time, or do you think now people are just revisiting it? It was, like, critically liked. It wasn't super, super popular. I mean, it was popular. It went on for like six seasons or five seasons, but it wasn't like super popular. But I mean, it was nominated for stuff left and right.

I also want to sell you on the love story. Please. I know you love a love story. I do. So Michael Varton, who plays Vaughn, which is like her CIA handler, is my personal favorite of Jennifer Garner's real life boyfriends for obvious reasons. Ooh. Yeah.

So they dated during a couple seasons of the show. It's a little controversial because she was married to Scott Foley in the first few seasons of this show. Divorce Scott Foley started dating Michael Varton a couple seasons in. You go, girl. Timelines. They were only together for a couple years, but they're still pretty friendly. She posted, like, an Instagram story about him recently.

Anyway, Sydney and Vaughn have kind of this slow burn thing going for the first season and then kind of on and off due to various twists in later seasons. But I love the dynamic because you don't see that often where, like, she's on the front lines. She's, like, actually kicking ass shooting people. And, like, he's, like, in her earpiece, like, sitting at a desk, like, being worried. You know? Yeah. So, and he's, you know, I always thought he was really hot and this kind of, like, all-a-man. American way, but he's just like this very clean cut, like CIA agent who's like worried for his

girlfriend out in a wig, like doing God knows what. So you're saying it's not so much like a will they won't they, which TV shows notoriously like just span for seasons and it's so freaking frustrating. It's more like they date and then it becomes complicated in the show. Yeah. Over the course of the first season, they do kind of have the will they won't they. They eventually get together, which is great. Great chemistry, obviously, because they were in love in real life. Yeah. Can you see that as you watch it? I think so. I think they have really good chemistry. But obviously I'm biased.

But I want to point out that the main breakout kind of hunk of this show was not Michael Varden. It was poor friend zoned, Bradley Cooper. How did I not know that he was in this show? Is this where he comes from? This is like his breakout. Yeah. So he's like the friend character who's in love with Sydney in this show. He's a journalist.

He's like kind of comic relief. That's wild. I thought he just like appeared out of nowhere as like a 37-year-old hunk. Yeah, so he went from like this to like wedding crashers and then kind of blew up from there. And he is really hot in this show, but like J.J. Abrams like never made anything of him in this. And he kind of famously begged J. Abrams to write him out in later seasons because he was like, I have nothing to do. Why am I still in this show? But obviously he has recovered from that experience because he cast in a star is born, obviously which Bradley Cooper directed. He cast two alias co-stars in in like supporting roles. So he like still has a good relationship with them.

Oh my God. So. fondly on the show. You're telling me that Jennifer Garner had the option between Bradley Cooper and Michael Varton and she chose Michael Varton? It was never even close. In real life and in the show? Yeah. Okay. Correct. Interesting. That is correct. So yeah, basically my main pitch is the alias is just extremely bingeable because it's, it has, you know, these long character arcs. The first season is defeating this agency, the second season. You know, she has family drama that comes up. But every episode, it starts out with a mission and then it kind of ends when she gets, it's when she starts off her next mission. So it like cuts off not when something's wrapped up,

but like in the middle of the next one. So like you always have to watch the next one. And this actually was like my first real binge watching experience. I remember I was in like middle school summer break. And my parents were gone. And my sister and I watched seven episodes in one day of Bailey. Jesus, Kay. And this was like, we were not allowed to watch TV.

You know that about me. We like were not allowed to watch very much TV. And so like we had the DVD set. And my sister and I were like, should we watch another one? And she was like, yeah. Oh, my God. Okay, yes or no.

Are there any aliens at any point in alias? No, I don't think so. It does get a little mystical in later seasons. JJ kind of went like into lost form where like he started like going out the rails a little bit. But if I remember correctly, there are no aliens. I could be wrong. It gets weirdly later seasons. And then second question, I know we have to wrap up.

Does it have a good ending? It has a good ending. It has a little bit of like an almost inception-esque ending where it's like people have written articles about like takes on it. It goes a little off the rails and later seasons. But the first season is a perfect season of television. Okay, perfect. I might have to tune in. So watch the first season.

Give it a shot. And this is on Amazon Prime, right? Yes. On Amazon Prime. Newly on Amazon Prime. It wasn't streaming anywhere for a long, long time. Which is why we're talking about it now. So yeah, I know you historically hate to listen to any of my viewing recommendations.

So anyone listening, let me know if you give alias a shot and if you ultimately end up loving it. For TV concierge, I'm Kate Hallowell here with Liz Kelly and Kai McMullen producing. Thanks for listening and heck and streaming.