User Reviews

After meeting her mother (who apparently is Khasinau's boss) in Taipei, Sydney manages to escape, but Vaughn is nowhere to be found. Dixon reports her to Sloane as a possible double agent, but Jack devises a cover story and Sloane is convinced of her loyalty to SD-6. So he sends her to plant a bug on the phone of a Frenchman who was financing Khasinau's operations. There Sydney will discover more than she was expecting....This (necessarily) exposition-heavy Season 2 opener does a good job of reminding viewers what happened at the end of Season 1 and advances the story in some unexpected ways. The only part I didn't like was the way Sydney just happens to find Vaughn at the very same basement of the house where she is sent on her SD-6 mission - just too contrived. Apparently Khasinau had some Dr. Frankenstein - like ambitions, but given what happens to him, I wonder if we'll learn more about them. *** out of 4.

Reviewers are people too and I think the most outstanding opening episode for a brand new series was, is, and always will be POI.

(Also a JJ Production, but who's counting?)

But setting the record best season-opener is this episode of Alias.

The first 3 minutes -- not a long time in the scheme of the universe -- hits the viewer with the following:

* new titles. Don't snicker. The old ones were terrible. These are better

* The Perils of Pauline ... oops .. Sydney .. who was left tied to a chair and seemingly stayed there all summer waiting for the story to continue. Boy that must have been uncomfortable

* the a-ha that the ringleader is Sydney's mom! Double play here. She gets to trump her already series-unique repetitive line of dialog from S.01 ("DADDY?") with something even better - "MOM?"

* Mom is played by Lena Olin, one of the most photographic faces of all time. (But this casting director knows how to pick em -- the series also features dual Amys -- Amy Irving and Amy Acker. No expense spared.)

and the piece de resistance

* in their first dialog since Sydney was a baby, Mom skips the introductions and starts to interrogate her daughter. Responding to the implied threat (a gun) Sydney responds bravely with "What are you going to do, ground me?

" following which Mom shoots her, but not fatally I repeat for the historical IMDb record -- best season opener of all time.

And there are still 40 minutes of content to go .. happy happy joy joy

The final episode of the first series ended with Sydney learning that Khasinau, the man SD-6 had been looking for wasn't 'The Man' after all; he merely worked for 'The Man'... Sydney's mother! How she escaped and later rescued Vaughn is shown in a series of flashbacks. Also dealt with is Dixon's suspicion of Sydney; he goes to Sloane but Jack explains that it was he who gave her the second call sign. After his unpleasant experiences Will's life is going to get harder; his paper published the story he wrote about SD-6 and Jack realises the only way to neutralise the threat to him is to discredit him; to this end he gets Will high on heroin and gets him arrested; will then claims to have been an addict for some time.

This was a good enough opening episode; it provided a fairly extended recap of the events leading up to the episode which was probably good for people watching on TV who hadn't seen Alias for some time but seemed to go on a bit long to me; but then I watched the previous episode yesterday not a few months ago! I thought Dixon's suspicions were wrapped up a bit too quickly but the way Will's problem was solved was better; probably because it wasn't a 'good' solution. Vaughn's rescue did rely on coincidence however I was too concerned with what was about to happen to him to worry about it at the time. The end provided a few good surprises although I won't spoil them here; I'm sure at least one of them will be a major part of this season.