Alias: The Complete Fourth Season

Following a season that some diehard fans considered lackluster, the fourth year of Alias gets off to an uneven start but rebounds significantly during its second half, ending with a cliffhanger that is positively shattering. Season four's intrigue and derring-do springs mainly from the creation of a new “black ops” unit called APO (Authorized Personnel Only), which Sydney Bristow (series star Jennifer Garner) leaves the CIA to join, only to discover that it's being headed by her old nemesis, Arvin Sloane (Ron Rifkin), whose beautiful daughter, Nadia Santos (Mia Maestro), is revealed to be her half-sister. The pardoning of terrorist Sloane doesn't endear him to Sydney, whose family travails take center stage in these 2004-05 episodes. As always, her duplicitous dad (Victor Garber) figures prominently in the turmoil, and as if she didn't face enough challenges from within and without, Sydney also tries to repair her broken relationship with Michael Vaughn (Michael Vartan), who makes a stunning admission in the season finale. The Rambaldi prophecy, revealed in the show's first season but pretty much ignored in season three, pops up again here, portending a conflict between Syd and her newly discovered sister. Although slow initially, the last dozen or so of these 22 episodes are as good as Alias gets. DVD extras include audio commentaries, featurettes, deleted scenes, and a bloopers reel. Recommended. (E. Hulse)