0 Comments | Add

 

Rate & Share:

 

Related Links:

 

Info:

ALIAS

Jennifer Garner is the lastest TV La Femme Nikita in ABC's ALIAS
© Touchstone Television/ABC

For those of us who reckon there's no such thing as too many movies and TV shows about beautiful women kicking bad-guy butt, the prospect of a new series about a foxy grad student with a secret life as a covert operations agent is a welcome one indeed. Silly, yes... shameless exploitative, OK but isn't that what great television is about? Besides, BUFFY and DARK ANGEL account for only a combined two hours per week, leaving something like six days and 22 hours of the TV schedule wide open for additional genre grrrl action-adventure.

As a concept, ABC's ALIAS would seem to fit the bill perfectly. Hot on the heels of the heroine-driven feature blockbusters CHARLIE'S ANGELS, TOMB RAIDER and CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON, this fashion-conscious new spin on the venerable superspy genre boasts some compelling elements: an attractive, sympathetic star in newcomer Jennifer Garner, plenty of action set pieces and a plotline filled with more back-stabbing conspiracies than an Oliver Stone acid trip.

But how well those elements come together as a dramatic whole is another story, at least in the case of tonight's somewhat uneven premiere episode. Creator/executive producer J.J. Abrams (FELICITY) has crammed the first show with so many twists, reversals and shifts in tone that even the highly limber Garner has trouble not stumbling over them. Trying to give equal emphasis to serious secret-agent action and the heroine's FELICITY-like coming-of-age emotional journey, the series opener ends up not delivering fully in either area.

Written and directed by Abrams, this somewhat over-plotted yarn follows Garner's Sydney Bristow, a young woman for whom life, on the surface, seem to be working out very well indeed. She's got looks, brains, money and a handsome, caring British boyfriend a doctor, no less. She also has a big secret, since it seems she's really a highly trained special-operations agent for the CIA accustomed to carrying out missions in far-flung corners of the world (a sideline that apparently doesn't conflict with her graduate study schedule in the least).

The dual life Sydney has managed to live for years hits a wall when Mr. Right pops the question, forcing the heroine to decide whether or not to divulge her true profession to the man she loves. She opts to violate security procedure and let him in on the truth, a choice that has grave consequences for all concerned when it turns out Sydney may not have been working for the CIA after all. Without spoiling any of the story's major surprises, virtually everything in Sydney's life up to that point has been built on lies, and when those lies begin crumbling, her life falls apart along with them.

Abrams and company deserve credit for trying to flesh Sydney out as a real character rather than the sort of 007-style cardboard protagonist common to the action-espionage genre, though the overall effect might strike hard-core spy fans as a bit soft and soapy. We also see the beginnings of what might turn out to be a compelling troubled relationship between the heroine and her equally secretive father (Victor Garber), as well as the introduction of smoothie up-and-comer Michael Vartan (THE MISTS OF AVALON) as an Agency man who seems likely to emerge as an important figure in Sydney's future.

Garner, who appeared in the Jennifer Love Hewitt show TIME OF YOUR LIFE as well as the feature comedy DUDE, WHERE'S MY CAR?, does respectable work when it comes to the debut episode's primary acting challenge: navigating the compacted character arc that has her going from a relatively wide-eyed innocent (for an intelligence agent, anyway) to a much grimmer figure who has seen most of what she held dear fall apart before her eyes. She also acquits herself well in the show's action moments, which are kept on a relatively realistic level to emphasize danger and suspense rather than the cartoonish, high-flying martial arts choreography currently in vogue.

Overall, ALIAS owes a clear debt to Luc Besson's 1991 film LA FEMME NIKITA and the well-regarded USA Network TV series it spawned. While Abrams' workmanlike direction can't compare to the stylish intensity Besson brought to his international breakthrough, the combination of ABC's marketing muscle and the non-accidental timing of ALIAS debuting in the middle of the present chick-action craze gives the new show the potential to overpower the TV version of NIKITA if Abrams' creative team can streamline things a bit and build on the strengths of this first episode. Much like its main character, however, ALIAS will have to get its act together fast if it's going to accomplish the difficult task at hand.