Customer Reviews

Alias - The Complete Collection (Seasons 1-5 + Rambaldi artifact box)

5 star:		(110)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

Other reviewers have mentioned this, but it's worth repeating: THE PACKAGING FOR THIS SET IS ILL-CONCEIVED AND WILL ALMOST CERTAINLY DAMAGE EVERY DISC. Each season's discs are packaged in beautifully detailed cardboard sleeves that are constructed so that corners and edges meet where the bottom of the disc rests. This means that each disc brushes up against four pointed corners each time it moves in the sleeve. Almost all of my discs were scratched upon delivery, and my older DVD player would not read some of them because of the depth of the scratches (my newer player didn't have any trouble, fortunately). I'd ask for a replacement set, but it would arrive in the same condition because this is a design flaw, not a manufacturing error. I'm thinking about contacting Buena Vista or its manufacturer to complain. For the price of this set, the discs ought to be protected better.

Packaging flaws aside, this is an excellent collection. The Rambaldi box itself is a great piece of eye candy and has magnetic sides and top so it closes easily; it's almost a toy itself. The bottom compartment is lined with felt and holds a bonus disc exclusive to this set. You also get a small book detailing some of the series' secrets, which is a nice bonus but not beefy enough to be a selling point.

I won't critique the content itself, other than to say that Alias is a shining example of dramatic television. It's one of my all-time favorite TV series and this collection contains every minute of every episode along with every bonus feature you could ask for.

Concerning the show alone, this product would easily merit a five-star rating, but the packaging is a real bummer. I'm as big of an Alias fan as there is, but even I have to knock off a star for the scratched discs. I'd recommend to anyone who already has two or three of the season sets to just buy the remaining seasons separately. You won't have to rely on scratched discs that way.

Just out of college, Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner) is recruited by Arvin Sloan (Ron Rifkin) to be part of a globe-trotting secret government spy agency known as SD-6. When tragic events occur Sydney realizes that SD-6 is not what it seems and joins up with her father (Victor Garber) at the CIA as a double agent to bring Sloan down with the help of her undercover handler and future lover Vaughn (Michael Vartan) and her partner Dixon (Carl Lumbly). Meanwhile, Sloan races to uncover the artifacts of an ancient profit known as Rambaldi, the possessor of all of them will become so powerful that they could become immortal and rule the world.

ABC was unusually good to "Alias". While they gave the show an opportunity to bring its 5-year story toward a satisfying conclusion, the show went through so many changes in the meantime it is hard to talk about it as one entity. Creator J.J. Abrams starts out keeping things very simple. Season 1 is like a run-and-gun video game where in episode after episode Sydney sneaks into a secret facility in a fantastic disguise, steals or downloads something for the CIA under the cover of SD-6 and then runs, kicks and punches her way out. Part "La Femme Nikkita", part "Mission: Impossible", it is a light and sound show.

In a rare example of positive network and creative collaboration Abrams got a call to reinvent the fledgling series (5th place will make a network start to get religion). What came out of the meeting was a complete dismantling of the series as we knew it and the establishment of something better. The show ditched the head-scratching cliffhanger endings for more self-contained episodes, but Abrams was given the freedom to continue his story arcs and flesh out the character relationships into what will ultimately be a tangled web of familial soap opera drama involving Syd's mother (Lena Olina) and Sloan's daughter.

Mid-way though the 2nd season and into the 3rd , "Alias" hits its stride. In a series filled with stupendous action sequences, a 2-hour finale that culminates in a rollicking, all-out brawl between Sydney and an evil duplicate of her roommate (just watch) that rips their apartment to splintered shreds ranks as one of the coolest scenes in modern TV for me. It is also here when the look of the show is expanded to a gorgeous cinematic scope it will have to the end. I could just drink up the colors and cinematography of this show. In addition to a perfectly short and sweet intro, Micahel Giacchino's on-target original score is laced with sound-alike Bernard Hermann violin riffs that beautifully puts a classic Hitchcock spy thriller spin on things.

Abrams has wrapped his core cast so tight with indispensable characters - including a show-stealing Kevin Weisman as computer ace Marshall (a 4th season bit where Marshall goes in the field, and must pass a retinal scanner, is classic) - that he has little room for twists and suspense. Unlike 2001's "24", we know that all of the "Alias" characters must stay safe to keep the story moving. He compensates by bringing in one long lost family member after another. Mothers, sisters, aunts and stepfathers all are revealed to be a close part of Sydney's universe. Some will find it a convoluted overkill, others will find it giving everyone more depth and resonance.

At the center of it all is Garner, who gamely goes for all the network's guilty pleasure requirements to put her in skimpy bikinis and lingerie. Strikingly beautiful, she has two modes as an actress (fighting and crying), but fills the heels of our kick-butt heroine perfectly - commanding the show and the audience around her just as a great hero should. Garber is an ever-present force of dignity and credibility. The show's fuel is arguably Rifkin who makes such a classically nasty villain and yet give him a vulnerability that, despite his pension for murder, makes you want to believe him.

Now, here's the problem with "Alias" and Abrams' writing style. Abrams spends a lot of time, for lack of a better word, stalling. Several episodes go by with nothing being revealed and wrenches being thrown into the gears of the story for no other purpose than to artificially drag out the over-arching plot until the end of the season, end of the series or maybe even until Abrams can finally settle on an endgame. Like many of the HBO serials, there is a lot of pointless running in place here.

Delivering a kick-butt girl-power action hero, a few David E. Kelley music-over-dialog montages and a focus on fashion and exotic locations mixed with some fierce violence, smashing guy-movie car chases and creativity in the gadgets and story lines that most women won't appreciate, "Alias" may have suffered a bit of gender confusion with the viewing public. I'm not sure if Abrams set out to create the ultimate gay man's spy series, but here it is. The big difference between "Alias" and the other spy shows is the endless imagination Abrams and his crew infuse it with. Tiny details like the inventive array of gadgets and weapons (like DNA replicating masks and microwave bombs) keep us enthralled.

Sure there are quite a few cracks in cinematically polished armor, but "Alias" is an overall solid, action-packed, visually vibrant piece of popcorn entertainment. Recommended for those that want something a little different and are willing to indulge its contrivances and trust that it actually might be going somewhere. The modern spy series given a little twist - Abrams gives it a refreshing imagination, Garner gives it strength, Garber credibility, and Rifkin a force to be reckoned with.

If you've never seen an episode of this amazing show you have no idea what your missing... from the can't-take-a-breath pilot, to the mezmorizing series finale `Alias' was always about the shock factor, and once it got it's claws into you there was no letting go. Serving almost as the Generation X, female version of James Bond, `Alias' is a heartpounding spy-series that does not know how to give the audience a break.

Throughout the Series 105 episodes we are given a glimpse into the life of Sydney Bristow and her unbelievable and crazy decade-long transition from a wide-eyed naïve graduate student, to the worldly and weathered woman that she became, with all the bumb's and bruises along the way; and let's not forget all the butt-kicking that came along with that as well...

With Seasons One and Two, starts off with a pilot that introduces us to the happy and excited Syndey Bristow, her relationship with her estranged father, her two best friends: Francie and Will, and her soon-to-be fiancé; not to mention her job as an undercover spy for the CIA. But it isn't long before Sydney realizes that she is not working for the CIA, but in fact for the very enemy she thought she was fighting, which leads her into a dangerous life as a double agent, fighting the war on both fronts. While leading this life her personal life becomes very stressed, and she learns that sometime its impossible to separate the work from the personal.

Season Three picks up approx 2 years after the season two finale, and to stay mostly spoiler-free all I will say is that her life has been turned upside down, and the season focus's on her quest for understanding her life.

Season Four picks up about a year after season 3, and finds Sydney starting a new job, going back to being a Secret Agent, but with a few surprises on the work front.

Season Five picks up again, about a year after season 4 and finds Sydney facing the realities of the world, and of her life...

As you can see not much can be said without giving anything way. This is an extremely complex/continuity heavy show that is really well known for being hard to follow (missing several minutes of an episode can affect your understanding of not only the next couple of episodes, but story lines several years down-the-lines) and this aspec's initially turned people off from the series in its broadcast run, in favor of the DVDs.

Presented here are all 105 episodes, on 29 discs, with all the special features from the individual releases, as well as a special DVD with new bonus features and a commemorative book all packaged inside the Rambaldi artifact (a thing that play's a centeral role throughout the series).

I first pre-ordered this item during the summer, and was very happy when it arrived weeks before the December 23rd shipping estimate. Yet when I opened the box, I was disappointed to see that they had used cardboard sleeves to keep the DVDs in. Even worse, they had a rough cardboard edge directly in the middle of the DVD.

Due to the packaging, the DVDs shifted around during shipping, and several were scratched. Approximately 5 would start freezing while being played - but not until a good part of an episode!

I contacted Amazon, who sent me another box, and allowed me to pick and choose between the better DVDs. I managed to get a complete set that works, with minor scratches, but I'm afraid that storing them inside the Rambaldi DVD sleeves will just scratch them further.

Great idea, but the packaging is horrible. You'll spend more time trying to assemble a working set, then it's worth.

Don't get me wrong, I'm an Alias obsessee. But the packaging for this item was horrible. I received the first one and 90% of the discs were scratched. I then received a replacement and every since one of the discs were scratched. The box sleeves are just not a good structure at all and damage the discs. It will be much easier to simply have all of the seasons separately, the discs have a much greater chance of not being so damaged then.

As the previous review stated, this is poor manufacturing. I just recieved my set today, and EVERY disc in the entire collection, with the exception of the hidden disc, had lots of scratches on it. If you're going to pay over 130 dollars for an item, it had better be in very good condition. It's obvious it was a rush job when they were designing the sleeves which hold the discs. What do they expect when you slide discs in like that? It won't get scratched at all? Please. Despite all that, I still love this show and the Rambaldi Box design.

I have all 4 seasons of Alias on DVD but I bought the Complete Collection because of all the bonus features. Whoever marketed this product is really stretching the truth by saying a hardbook 'book' is included. I would call it more of a 'booklet' considering it is about the size of liner notes in a CD case and maybe 20 pages. The contents of the 'book' are disappoining as well. It featues questions and answers that most fans already know and pics from episodes - I thought mayeb they would include some behind the scenes footage but nope.

If you don't have any of the Alias DVD's then this set is worth getting. If you are just buying it for the 'bonus features' that could only be found in the set, then I would skip it.

This set looks to be a terrific investment for people who loved "Alias" and don'y yet own any of the DVD sets. For people who've been purchasing the DVDs all along, it looks like a mixed bag. Additional special features have been promised, but will they be worth the price tag? Probably not. Expect prices on used individual season sets to plummet soon.

As for the series itself, well, I'm forced to say it's a mixed bag, too. It never, thankfully, turned into a bad series, but I think that the last couple of seasons were inadequate, and failed to deliver on the promise of the seasons that came before them.

Seasons one and two, in my opinion, would have to rank as amongst the finest single seasons of TV ever produced. Those 40-plus episodes are relentlessly excellent, beginning to end, and sometimes seem more like movies than TV episodes.

Many critics and fans disparaged season three, calling it "convoluted" or the like. Personally, I found it pretty terrific. For the most part, it flows almost like a single long story. It must have been difficult for some people to keep up with what was going on week after week as these episodes were airing; in any case, this is not a problem on DVD.

Season four represents a major step down, in my opinion. Again, it doesn't become bad at ANY point . . . but certain storylines vanish, other hard-to-credit storylines crop up, and every time it seems as if something really great and meaningful is about to happen, the story takes a sharp left turn and goes somewhere less interesting for two or three episodes.

Season five is better, featuring at least two excellent new characters. Things really pick up toward the very end of the season, until the quality level is almost at the same peaks it was in the first two seasons.

Unfortunately, for me, the series finale was fairly weak. Some of the series's major plot points are resolved, some very poorly in my opinion; others are not resolved at all. Many fans seem to disagree with me, of course, and in the end it's going to be a matter of personal taste. But even if you hate the way the series ends, this is a box set well worth having.

Simply, if you are a collector, don't buy this set. It has an essential designing defect. for example there is not even one simple DVD in this box that you can find defectless. all of them are scratched because of wrong desiging of Disc holders, Some have been caused scratches during the packaging line, some in transportation and some at the first time you pull each of them out!. worse is, there are finger prints on many of discs. Box is very good looking inside out, maybe unique but when you want to pull out a disc and play it and when you see the scratches all over not most, ALL OF THEM, you feel you want to throw it out in trashcan! Yes it comes in shrink wrapp but in Amazon terms, it's status is "ACCEPTABLE" not "NEW". if they sell it at the price of 30 to 40 dollars it may worth it but in this price buying it just like you roll you money and light is as a cigar!

I my husband bought me this set as a gift for Christmas, and I couldn't wait to open it. When I did, I found that the entire set was scratched and dirty. I haven't been able to watch a single episode. I am so disappointed.