I respectfully disagree. The new opening montage really holds true to the title of the show, which gets its name because the lead character has so many vastly different identities. (it just so happens that a lot of said identities require her to be in scantily clad clothing ) I think it fits very well.

These are the two things I didnt like about the episode. Keeping
Sloane around much as they did Spike on Buffy just "Because" just doesnt make sense and doing the whole secret organization thing again is lame. I know they want to get the show back on track after last season but basically hitting a reset button so things are like they were then smells of desperation.

I did Love Angela Basset and the character interplay but Alias may have lost alot of it's Luster. The verdict is still out.

To each his own, except you're wrong!

Does anyone think that this black ops might not be a part of the CIA? What's to stop Sloane & Angela Bassette from reforming SD-6 and tricking everyone into thinking it is a part of the CIA? Angela Bassett just has to be a double agent with the CIA to lead the others to this new group. Unless Jack/Syd/Vaughn/Dixon is in contact with known CIA people, how are we to know they are working for the CIA?

As you can see from some of my previous posts before last nights ep I was fuzzy on some of last season since it had been so long. I am also very glad they ditched the Project Christmas bit if that is how last year was to end. I kept thinking to myself, what's really that upsetting? You already knew PC was headed by your father and you were part of it.
I did feel part of it was rehash, but it did also feel fresh. Maybe that's because it was simply better than last year. Anybody who didn't laugh at the "Last year sucked." just has no sense of humor. =) I am a bit disconcerted that "We need to do whatever needs to be done to help America without the CIA caring." I guess that is their blank check for the season, but as somebody else said that leaves the season without a rudder unless they huge "payoff" is going to be a Nadia/Syd showdown. Personally, as much as Nadia was a hottie last night, I could definitely do without her. I would like it if spy mommy were back, as I think the stories and the character dynamics were better when LO was there, but if she didn't want to come back because of money, then I'm glad they decided to kill her off. There are plenty of other shows that had to tweak their storylines because of actors backing out or because they became popular and stuck around (Babylon 5, Buffy).
Overall I would say the premier was very promissing and I'm looking forward to how it is all going to play out...oh, I'm sure they will continue with the Rambaldi storyline, but it just won't be every week (thank goodness).

Meanwhile: Jack, round 4 - Sunday!

Oh, I did agree with whoever brought up a female foil. I would much rather have that chick from season one back to be Syd's counterpoint than Natalie to be her "Oh sister dearest!".

I agree. I think this storyline has more potential than the rumored one regarding Jack knowing about Nadia and documenting her entire life.

You can never be too sure, but that would be plain silly if they did that. I can see Sloane using his new position to do more evil things, but I dont think the whole unit would be another SD-6. Also, I agree with those who said dropping the project christmas story line was a good idea. I think now that Abrams has more of a hand in the show, he decided to drop that story and start with something else, hence the reason not a mention of the covenant. As long as they dont try and twist it that Sloane is actually Syd's father, I dont really care how outlandish it gets, I will still watch.

Jack did a blood test proving he was Syd's father. But then again, anything's possible.

My original guess about the Whittenberg documents after watching the S3 ender was that Sydney, Vaughn, and Lauren were ALL part of Project Christmas, along with Nadia, and that *they* were the follow-up documenst we didn't get to see. Think about it, Vaughn's dad could have signed his son up, and Lauren's dad was a high ranking official who could have originally sanctioned the whole thing.

Reading this, it makes even more sense:

Marshall's "Robot Dixon" bit had me


I was thinking the same thing early in the episode. They might not be totally evil like the Alliance, but maybe APO is really doing the work of a new version of the Trust (or DSR).

I also don't buy that Nadia and Sloane had a falling out the way he said they did. I think the two of them decided to set things up the way they are now so they can continue the Rambaldi quest.

I don't want them to completely drop the Covenant and Project X-mas storylines. That would be too retarded, imo. We don't have to be reminded of them every ep, but they need to chip away at them slowly like they seem to be doing w/ Rambaldi currently and bring them up every now and then. I would still like to know why Syd was missing for two years, why her mother ended the email w/ her father and eventually put a contract out on her head, what happened to her aunt at the end of S3 (I don't remember her dying), if they are ever going to bring Will back on occasion. And they brought up The Trust at the end of last season - are they ever going to mention it again?

I realize JJ is disappointed w/ last season, but they can't just drop what they went over last season - they need to improve upon it, not ignore that it happened.

I liked most of last night's ep, but this show needs to retain some semblance of continuity - enough w/ this reboot horseshit.

As the season's go on, this show is getting more far fetched than before.

Thanks for the Marshall recap. I was miffed because I forgot to change the day for my Alias recording (I had it on only Sundays from last season, by habit, in case of strange scheduling conflicts, and forgot to change it to only Wednesday), so I only got about the last half hour recorded while I fixed my mistake.

The wife and I didn't care much for season 3 so we were anxious to see how it would go last night. Overall I'd give it an 8 out of 10. My biggest complaints were the "I HATE YOU DADDY!" to "YOU SAVED ME DADDY?!" That occurs about 2 or 3 times a season and is pretty tired. I agree with other posters that it was a pretty cheap plot point for Syd to be elusive w/ Nadia about their mother's death to create a vengence plot w/ Nadia.

Marshall remains the shiznet and delivered the best lines.

The panty snap was very nice too

Maybe we'll see a wish-granting tyrannosaurus rex in the next episode.

Yes, it was.

B.A. - due time to change your sig.

One of the main reasons I've enjoyed the show is its long-arc continuity and even if I didn't like a direction they were following, I still want them to acknowledge, continue and then resolve the plot points they create.

If the things that happen before not only don't matter but are changed in retrospect to be something they weren't, then it becomes significantly harder to invest in the characters, knowing that anything that happens to them may be changed retroactively later.

I'm someone who only watched season 1-3 on DVD. I didn't enjoy this episode at all. All the commercials probably had a lot to do with it. But also couldn't keep it out of my mind the whole episode about why the season finale document, and what they said it was about in this episode..didn't make sense. I mean they even re-showed the scene, and what was shown still implied it was the Project Christmas stuff. When I saw the finale I didn't even get THAT, because I thought that had already been revealed. So I figured well it must be an even more sinister of a project. Then they totally change it in the premiere..Total crap. Was watching with 2 other people and all we talked about was how none of that made sense, 'what was on the paper she was reading didn't have anything to do with Jack killing Irena' was basically what we were telling each other. I loved the first 2 seasons and didn't like last season that much..then this premiere even without my problems with what I wrote above didn't seem very good. Will keep watching at least for awhile though.

I just got done yesterday afternoon finishing watching 24 season 3 which totally blows away anything I've seen from the last couple seasons of Alias. I'd read that s 3 of both shows weren't up to par with previous seasons. I agreed with Alias but thought 24 s 3 was it's best ever.

Shady12, How were you able to read the document? It always looked liked they just showed the tops and the bottom to me, with a fast skim of the middle?

24 S3 was way too mean spirited for me. The writers seemed to want to create every perverse mode of killing possible,

S3, sadly, will be the first season of 24 I won't be purchasing.

Didn't you quit this show a couple of pages back? I may not have been threadcraps then but it's starting to seem like it is now.

Please start churning out better stories, because the few that are out there are too few and far between. It sounds like you have a handle on what quality is and may be able to make that happen... or maybe you can just berate this one after each episode.

Lost + Alias = an Awesome Wed night.

You could tell from the first and last line of the document that it at least implied that Sydney was a 'project' or part of one and that Jack ran it.

Don't forget the music, they changed that too. Booo!

I'm open to change but why break something that's already perfect?

Also, I get the feeling that Garner's becoming bit of a diva... she used to come across as the girl next door, now it seems like she's the "I know I'm hot and I wanna flaunt (it)" type.


Also why's everyone getting in a hissy fit over the documents... we may have all thought it was that, but they never came out and said it plain out that that is what they were. I looked at the document on tivo a few times and it could have been anything.

Anything that dates from 1975, a date that was on one of the documents we saw.

Plus, why would Lauren give that big speech about knowing who controls her in regards to documents regarding Jack getting authorization to kill Irina and carrying it out?

Not to mention, how would Lauren know about them at all given that Jack was still talking to Irina on the IM in 3.19, which was after Lauren was known to be dirty, but yet she managed to not only know about the hit and Jack's response, but also where Jack put the documents relating to it, even though she was strangely vague and misleading about the contents of the documents (as were the documents themselves, what with referencing Sydney's birthdate and a SAB - Sydney Anne Bristow - related project).

It's obvious they were planning on doing something else and then chose to go a different way after the fact.

Next week, every character changes names and pretends they never had a different one. And then the week after that, Sydney and Vaughn and married and living in the suburbs, and they just completely drop the whole spy thing and pretend it never happened.