Alias is an American action thriller and science fiction television series created by J. J. Abrams that was broadcast on ABC for five seasons from September 30, 2001, to May 22, 2006.

[2] It stars Jennifer Garner as Sydney Bristow, a double agent for the Central Intelligence Agency posing as an operative for SD-6, a worldwide criminal and espionage organization.

The first two seasons of Alias mainly explore Sydney's obligation to hide her true career from her friends and family as she assumes multiple aliases to carry out missions as well as her efforts to take down SD-6 with the help of the CIA.

The series' later seasons deal with multiple character and plot driven storylines, with a recurring focus on the search for and recovery of artifacts created by Milo Rambaldi, a fictitious Renaissance-era figure with similarities to both Leonardo da Vinci and Nostradamus.

Alias is considered to be part of a wave of television series from the late 1990s and early 2000s that feature strong female characters, alongside Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed, Xena: Warrior Princess, La Femme Nikita, Veronica Mars, and Dark Angel.

Major plotlines from season 1 include Sydney hiding her triple identity from her friends, both in her personal life and in her SD-6 job, Will Tippin's investigation into Danny's death, the race to find Milo Rambaldi (a 15th century philosopher with an uncanny understanding of the future) artifacts, and the past activities of Sydney's mother.

Midway through the second season, the series underwent a "reboot" of sorts with Sydney successfully destroying SD-6 and becoming a regular agent for the CIA, still in pursuit of former SD-6 leader Arvin Sloane, his associate Julian Sark, and the Rambaldi artifacts.

Sydney's friends at SD-6, Marcus Dixon and Marshall Flinkman, are finally made aware of her dual identity and recruited into the CIA.

In the second half of the season, it is revealed that Francie Calfo, Sydney's best friend, was murdered and replaced by Allison Doren, a woman who was transfigured to look exactly like her.

The truth, however, is that Sydney was kidnapped by a terrorist organization called The Covenant, who tried to brainwash her into believing she was an assassin named Julia Thorne.

Eventually Sydney voluntarily had her memories of the two years erased in an attempt to forget some of the deeds she was forced to undertake as Julia and to ensure that one of Rambaldi's most dangerous artifacts would never be found.

There she deals with the facts that Arvin Sloane had become a world-renowned humanitarian after being pardoned, and that Michael Vaughn had married NSC agent Lauren Reed.

The National Security Council plays a role as a government organization that holds massive unsupervised power, with a Guantanamo-like detention facility, considerable influence over the CIA, and driven by questionable motives.

Vaughn shoots Lauren, and she dies, but before she does, she gives Sydney the number of a security deposit box where she can find information about her past.

Sydney's mom and dad help her deliver her baby girl while under attack in a high-rise in Vancouver, Canada, on a mission in season 5, episode 11: "Maternal Instinct."

However, he is trapped in Rambaldi's tomb by a critically wounded Jack, who sacrifices himself via a bomb to avenge all the pain Sloane caused Sydney over the years.

Daughter Isabelle exhibits the same ability to complete the CIA test that marked Sydney's inborn skills to be an ideal agent at that age.

In addition, Alias also featured many other famous actors in roles ranging from single-episode guest appearances to semi-recurring characters, including Jonathan Banks as Frederick Brandon, Raymond J. Barry as Senator George Reed, Tobin Bell as Karl Dreyer, Peter Berg as Noah Hicks, David Carradine as Conrad, David Cronenberg as Dr. Brezzel, Faye Dunaway as Ariana Kane, Griffin Dunne as Leonid Lisenker, Vivica A.

Fox as Toni Cummings, Ricky Gervais as Daniel Ryan,[6] John Hannah as Martin Shepard, Rutger Hauer as Anthony Geiger, Ethan Hawke as James Lennox,[7] Djimon Hounsou as Kazari Bomani, Richard Lewis as Mitchell Yaeger, Peggy Lipton as Olivia Reed, Sir Roger Moore as Edward Poole,[8] Richard Roundtree as Thomas Brill, Jason Segel as Sam Hauser, Christian Slater as Neil Caplan, Quentin Tarantino as McKenas Cole, Justin Theroux as Simon Walker, Keone Young as Professor Choy, and Danny Trejo as Emilio Vargas.

Produced by Touchstone Television and Bad Robot, film production primarily took place in the greater Los Angeles area.

[9] Despite its worldwide locales, only one episode was ever filmed outside the Los Angeles region, in Las Vegas, Nevada at the Aladdin Casino and Resort.

The site's critical consensus reads, "With dazzling action sequences, fine writing, and believable characters, Alias sets 'em up and knocks 'em down as solid escapist television, even if the narrative grows confusing at times.

The site's critical consensus reads, "Alias enters its fourth season having seemingly run out of rabbits to pull out of the hat, but Jennifer Garner's charm and a whizz-bang sensibility keeps these spy games fun.

Despite earning critical acclaim from USA Today,[32] and achieving series-high ratings of 17.4 million viewers, it was unable to fully benefit from the post-Super Bowl time slot due to ABC airing a 40-minute post-game show (unusually long even by Super Bowl standards), which pushed its start time past 11:00 p.m.

Coming off its most-watched season, Alias was moved to Thursdays at 8:00 p.m. in the fall of 2005 by ABC in an effort to invigorate the network's weak Thursday-night lineup.

[40] The ABC network gave the show a 4-month hiatus (allowing Jennifer Garner to give birth to her first child); however, when it was brought back in April 2006, its new time slot was Wednesdays at 8:00 p.m.

[42] In August 2003, the actual CIA enlisted Jennifer Garner to appear in a recruitment video, which would be shown at fairs and college campuses.

Online's Kristin dos Santos reported that ABC was toying with the idea of rebooting Alias, but getting rid of the mythological Rambaldi elements to make the storylines more accessible for a mainstream audience.

A soundtrack for Alias: The Video Game, composed by Chris Tilton (who also provided additional music for later episodes of the TV series), was also released, but can only be downloaded online.

The video game Alias, based on the series, is a third-person stealth action title developed and released by Acclaim Entertainment for the PC, PlayStation 2 and Xbox.