The first season of Alias is one of the best DVD sets of the year.

The recent trend of TV series being released in the form of DVD boxed sets has provided me with countless hours of entertainment in the last few years. I currently own no less than nine such sets, and the latest, and easily best of them, is the action-spy thriller "Alias".

Considering how bad most television shows are these days, I'm surprised that I never bothered to tune into Alias when it debuted on ABC two years ago. Even after just one season worth of viewing, I can safely say that Alias is among the elite shows on TV which possess incredible writing, brilliant performances, and unrelenting tension. Never in a million years did I imagine I would get such a kick out of this show. My first impression was that it was simply a female James Bond going on one unbelievable mission after another, and after the decidedly lackluster first episode, I had my doubts.

The pilot, which premiered commercial-free, spends a great deal of time talking and a very minimal amount of time actually pulling the viewer into the spy-universe the show is set in. The basic premise goes something to this effect: Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner) has an after school job that is a little different than your average grad student. She works for SD-6, which is an ultra-secretive branch division of the CIA. She runs missions to foreign countries in order to gather intelligence for her superiors in order to protect the United States from terrorists and other threats. Or so she thinks.

She has been told not to share information about her employment with anyone, including her family and friends. However, after her longtime boyfriend Danny proposes to her, she feels compelled to let her life partner in on what she does. When the menacing Arvin Sloane (Ron Rifkin), head of SD-6, finds out about the information leak, he has Danny assassinated and orders Sydney's execution. After narrowly escaping death, Sydney finds out that she has been in fact, working for the people she thought were the enemy. This is revealed by her estranged father Jack (Victor Garber), who, as it turns out, is working as a double agent with the CIA in an effort to bring down SD-6.

When Sydney finds out that Sloane had Danny killed, she vows to destroy the agency, and so she enlists in the CIA under the watch of her handler Michael Vaughn (Michael Vartan). After she has captured a prized artifact for Sloane and won his trust back, she must attempt to play both sides all the while lying to her friends about her true identity. It sounds complicated, and that's just the first episode. After the initial plot points and characters have been established, the show begins to find its footing.

The other important characters are Sydney's partner Dixon (Carl Lumbly), who begins to suspect that Sydney isn't being entirely faithful to SD-6. Things are complicated when a nosy reporter (is there any other kind?) and Sydney's friend Will Tippit (Bradley Cooper) stumbles onto a man who claims to have dealt with the mysterious SD-6 agency and wants to shut them down. The series also features a handful of exceptional guest stars. Among them are Terry O'Quinn (Millennium), a former Bond agent in Roger Moore, and the always entertaining Quentin Tarantino, who makes a pivotal appearance in the two-parter "The Box" halfway through the first season.

Alias has also has mastered the art of the cliffhanger, a feat that I thought only "24" could accomplish successfully. Granted, there won't be a cliffhanger at the end of every single episode, but more often than not the show will leave you hooked into watching the next episode. Cliffhangers can be tricky, because you run the risk of tarnishing an episode of the ending seems forced in order to get the viewer to come back the next week. Thankfully, virtually every ending, and especially with the season finale, the producers have come up with a riveting way to finish off each episode.

The acting is equally superb. Jennifer Garner won a Golden Globe for her believable portrayal of Sydney, who is torn apart because she is constantly pushing away her friends and all the while working for a man she wishes were dead. Victor Garber is another excellent addition, as he is a helpful resource to Sydney, even when their relationship seems to be falling apart. Ron Rifkin perfectly captures the dark, sinister qualities of Sloane. Later on, however, we learn that this man may not be as much of a monster as we suspect him of.

This DVD set comes complete with the ever-popular audio commentaries, a featurette on the stunt work by Garner, several deleted scenes, and a few other goodies. Be warned that the commentaries do have some spoilers, so unless you've seen both the first two seasons of the show, I'd recommend skipping these. In any case, the other features aren't really spectacular, but the show alone is worth forking over fifty bucks, anything else is just icing on the cake.

Alias does have a few, albeit very minor flaws. It seems that whenever Sydney is in a tight situation, she always can rely on her amazing martial arts skills to bail her out, and this can get tiring after a while. The goods news is that there are no genuinely bad episodes; even at its worst, Alias is still better than most current TV shows. Give generous credit to J.J. Abrams, the series creator for continually keeping the viewers engaged in the plot lines and writing emotional characters that we can relate to.

To sum up, the first season of Alias has been one of the biggest surprises of the year. By episode three, the doubts I had about this show were blown right out of the water. Given the fact that the majority of television has become so stagnant and repetitive, it's nice to see a show like Alias stand out from the pack. With a seemingly endless string of terrific plots which are backed by outstanding performances from everyone involved, Alias is one DVD set you don't want to pass up.