Created by JJ Abrams, Alias plays like a cross between Buffy the Vampire Slayer and James Bond. Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner) is a super (and super-sexy) spy, fighting nefarious villains and working for the good guys--or so she thinks. Recruited as a college freshman for espionage work, Sydney found her true calling with SD-6, a secret division of the CIA. When her hunky doctor-boyfriend proposes to her, she decides to let him in on the truth she's not supposed to tell anyone: she's not a grad student with a demanding job for an international bank, but a secret agent who constantly puts her life on the line for the free world. But when SD-6 discovers her security breach, her fiancé is brutally assassinated, and Sydney suddenly finds herself face-to-face with the truth: she's been working for the bad guys. Deciding to become a double agent for the CIA and bring down the evildoers, Sydney gets one more surprise--her estranged father (Victor Garber) is also working for SD-6, and the CIA as well. Welcome to the family, Syd!

Confused? This is all just the first episode. With its double-edged tension (how long can Syd play double agent?) and one heck of a MacGuffin (the dreaded Rambaldi device, the mythic creation of a Renaissance genius), the show leads its viewers from episode to episode with visceral, compelling action, not to mention the nascent romance between Syd and her CIA handler, Vaughn (Michael Vartan), and her clashes with her heretofore distant father. Sharp, smart and always suspenseful, Alias' centre was held by the gorgeous Garner, a stellar action heroine and an even better actress who could pull off Sydney's exotic undercover missions and conflicted emotions with equal dexterity. By the end of this first series, which concludes with a breathtaking cliffhanger, you'll be seduced into Alias' world with, happily, no desire to escape. --Mark Englehart

Critics greeted Woody Allen's 1990 opus Alice with sighs of resignation. Here was yet another of Allen's bemused heroines-at-a-crossroads/crisis, falling prey to all kinds of temptation and fantasy and emerging at the other end a more complete, fulfilled or at least self-aware human being. But, though it's a minor work by his highest standards, it has weathered rather well. This is a softer exploration of territory Allen had previously covered rather more intensely and seriously in Another Woman (1988). It's often very funny and ultimately affirms one of Allen's most persistent themes: however confused you think you are, the answer probably lies somewhere inside you rather than in anybody else.

As Alice, Mia Farrow gives one of her most versatile and unmannered performances, revealing a real gift for comedy. However bitter the breakdown of her long personal relationship with Allen, there is no doubt that he took her to new professional heights in their cinematic collaborations. At the start, Alice is little more than a well-heeled housewife and mother, a lady who lunches with bitchy friends. Her dissatisfaction with her marriage (to patronising rich guy William Hurt) leads her into the path of Chinese herbalist Dr Yang, whose potions set her off on a series of experiences which include the affair she has been considering, becoming invisible (cue some great gags, especially one involving a New York cab) and a brief flirtation with opium (here Allen's trademark soundtrack of old standards includes the evocative "Limehouse Blues"). There's also some great dialogue. "He's very deep," says Farrow of her putative lover (Joe Mantegna). "Yeah, and very deep is where he wants to put it", cracks back her visiting muse (a glittering cameo from Bernadette Peters).

On the DVD: Presented in widescreen (1.85:1) format with a Dolby Digital stereo soundtrack, Alice on DVD replicates the hallmark intimacy of Allen's films in the cinema with good picture and lush sound quality (the importance of his romantic, referential musical choices should never be underestimated). There are no extras, apart from the original theatrical trailer. --Piers Ford