Alias creator J.J. Abrams is even busier than a jet-setting CIA operative these days. Besides launching the ABC hit Lost, he's preparing to direct The World's Biggest Box-Office Star (that would be Tom Cruise) in Mission Impossible 3 next summer. But never fear, Sydney Bristow fans: Abrams remains committed to his wildly entertaining spy drama, whose fourth season begins in January, partly because of his jam-packed schedule. "When I went away to [direct the pilot episode of] Lost," he says, "I got away from Alias enough to look at it in a way that was surprising again." So what's coming up for Syd? Here, we attempt to pry a few top-secret details out of the notoriously tight-lipped writer.
TV Guide Online: Many fans were thrilled when Vaughn (Michael Vartan) shot his wicked wife Lauren (Melissa George) in last May's finale. Is she really dead?J.J. Abrams: Melissa is not coming back at the moment. I know some fans
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When Alias kicks off its fourth season in January, fans are going to spy some big-time changes. Coming off a subpar season, which saw viewership decline 9 percent, series creator J.J. Abrams will once again embrace the show's original conceit. Namely, Sydney will go back to juggling her dual roles as an international spy and normal twentysomething.
"We got so deep in the Rimbaldi and Covenant [mysteries] that we lost sight of some of the stuff we fell in love with [in the beginning]," ABC entertainment president Stephen McPherson tells TV Guide Online. "J.J. is talking about getting back to some of the joy that she used to have in her personal life early on... while still living in this crazy world."
Abrams says he had an epiphany about Alias' disappointing third season while he was working on the pilot for his upcoming ABC thriller, Lost. "Going away to do Lost allowed me to look at Alias in a way that I could not
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How did Ricky Gervais follow up his double Golden Globe win for BBC's The Office last month? He went straight to work filming scenes for Sunday's episode of Alias (9 pm/ET on ABC). Here's what the British funnyman thought of his weird, wicked week in sunny Los Angeles.
TV Guide Online: Aside from The Office, you haven't really acted before. What was it like starring in a big TV action-drama?Ricky Gervais: The hardest part was keeping straight-faced. Everybody around me was in black and cool and wearing Gucci and Armani and guns, and there I was in a jumper looking like a country fisherman. I couldn't take myself seriously. I just pretended to be Jack Bauer from 24.
TVGO: Who do you play?Gervais: All I can tell you is he's a very, very bad man indeed. An international terrorist. Let's ju
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It's not just viewers who are blown away by the twists and turns on ABC's spy drama Alias. Dave Anders — the show's British bad boy Mr. Sark — gets his share of surprises, too. Sark has gone from a mere recurring character in Season 1 to a major player in the North American cell of The Covenant last month. His rising status as a TV terrorist is quite an unexpected coup for this 22-year-old actor.
"In the first season, I didn't know how long I was going to be around," Anders tells TV Guide Online. "I [even] wanted to get Jennifer Garner's picture and autograph. On the picture, she wrote, 'To David: Welcome to prime time. Get comfy. You're going to be here awhile.' I was like, 'What the hell does she know? She knows something I don't!'"
Not bad for an Oregon native with only two professional acting credits on his résum&ea
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Pity poor Urkel and Screech. Clearly, they were born at the wrong time. Today's TV geeks are such a far cry from the walking punch lines of yore, we're laughing with them more often than at them. And how's this for progress? Some — like Everybody Loves Raymond's unlikely newlywed, Robert Barone — even get the girl. Read on and see for yourself: The tube's new breed of geeks has made it hip to be square.
Seth Cohen, The O.C.:Though his own mom has called this green wallflower a late bloomer, it wasn't long before he put away his toy horse to sow his own wild oats. After all, in the span of a Summer (pun intended), the Chrismukkah elf went from Newport's Most Unwanted to the guy atop two — count 'em, two! — hotties' to-do lists.
Marshall J. Flinkman,
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Alias fans weren't the only folks shocked by last Sunday's post-Super Bowl episode, which climaxed with the murder of Sydney's (Jennifer Garner) sweet roommate Francie (Merrin Dungey) at the hands of her never-before-seen evil double. Not even Dungey's closest friends knew the actress would soon transform into a femme fatale. Since October, she's been suffering under a vow of silence about the plot twist, and now she's dying to tell us all about it!
"J.J. [Abrams, the show's creator] said he'd send my character to Disney World, never to return, if I said anything," she tells TV Guide Online. "I've been holding this secret and living [like] Sydney Bristow... No o
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If you thought last night's post-Super Bowl episode of Alias was big, you ain't seen nothin' yet. Exec producer J.J. Abrams confirms to TV Guide Online that there have been some informal discussions about transporting Jennifer Garner's double-agent alter ego onto the big screen in an Alias feature film.
"It has come up, and... it's an interesting idea," he says. "My agents have talked to me about it, and I know that they have talked to Disney about it, but it's nothing that is seriously being pursued.
"Given the fact that we try every week to do a movie version of the show, it's not clear to me what we would try to do that we aren't already trying to do," adds the former Felicity
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