TVSquad

As we reported last month, ABC has started an auction of Alias props and clothing. The money collected at the ebay auction will go to charity.

You can bid on one of Arvin Sloane's suits, or maybe one of Dixon's cool Hugo Boss suits. Or how about one of Sydney's wigs?

My birthday is in two weeks. If somebody could buy this for me, I'd really appreciate it.

On the one hand, painstakingly compiling a list of those television characters who perished during the 2005-06 season shows that America is still the home of ingenuity and hard work. On the other hand, it also shows that we watch waaayyy too much television and should really be using that ingenuity and work ethic to develop alternate fuels and build cities under the sea.

What would the end of a television season be without a list of the dearly departed (Well, it would just be the end of a season. But that's besides the point)? Thanks to the wonderful Internet, we now have such a list, and it looks like the body count was pretty high this past year. Leading the pack with ten dead was 24, with Alias slightly behind at seven. In a tie with six dead each were Prison Break and, surprisingly, Veronica Mars. The Sopranos, who you'd think would have been swimming in dead bodies, only had five deaths in the season-to-date.

The complete list, including deaths in shows such as Scrubs, CSI: NY, and The Shield (poor Lem) can be found at MagnetMediaFed. The list creators welcome any additional deaths that they missed. Perhaps you should add the death of Joey Tribbiani from Joey . . . no, wait, that was just the death of Matt LeBlanc's career. Never mind.

[A hearty thanks to Rick for the tip. Tombstone courtesy of Tombstone Generator ]

(S05E16/S05E17) TV finales can be so tricky. You want to please longtime fans, you want to bring some closure, but you still have to tell a good story. Some finales are great (Newhart, The Fugitive, Cheers), while others are downright horrible (Seinfeld, The X-Files). I'm happy to report that this episode ranked in the former category.  Was it perfect? No, not at all. But it certainly tired up all loose ends and provided a very entertaining last two hours. What else could you ask for?

ABC has been playing with the schedule lately, so it's sometimes hard to find out when our favorite shows are going to have their finales. The Grey's Anatomy season finale aired on a Monday, and that Oprah special got switched around because of the President's speech. And now, since Lost is having a two hour finale this Wednesday, Alias has to switch nights for its two hour series finale. (Lost gets first dibs over Alias on the ABC schedule, of course.)

The finale airs tonight at 9, and promises to answer all the important questions: what is the ultimate Rambaldi plan? Who will live and die? Will Sloane turn good again at the last second? What caused the crash of Flight 815?

Oh, wait, that's the other show.

Some of you long time readers of TV Squad -- in particular those who are Alias fans -- know that I've had a love-hate relationship with the show. I've been an avid viewer since its first season, and although I will say it's had its ups and downs, there's no denying that the show has retained one simple yet important characteristic: it's fun.

Unfortunately for some, the show comes to an end next week, having completed a solid five season run. Though I feel some may not find it so unfortunate, as the show gets to wrap up the way it should, giving it the proper send off it throughly deserves.

Speaking of fortunate, I was just that for having the opportunity to talk to Carl Lumbly last week. Carl's been playing Marcus Dixon on Alias since day one, starting out as Sydney Bristow's partner in what they both thought was the CIA. He's also supplied the voice of Martian Manhunter from the Justice League cartoon series. We talked about his work on Alias, Justice League, his new 'do and a little bit of golf.

(S05E15) It's funny that after five years of elaborate disguises, wearing tight dresses and bright red wigs and bright blue wigs and faking Eastern European accents, the biggest and most difficult disguise that Sydney Bristow has had to don is ... herself. Or, more accurately, Syd pretending to be Anna Espinosa pretending to be Syd. Kudos to Jennifer Garner for giving a good performance as Anna. She could have just played herself (since she was herself), but she plays it just differently enough to make you believe it's Anna underneath.

He's had Quentin Tarantino do it, now late night host Jimmy Kimmel will have Lost/Alias/MI:3 guy J.J. Abrams direct tonight's episode of his show.

Should be interesting. There's been a hatch on Kimmel's stage several times before, where funky celebs often pop up, so I'm sure that will be involved somehow. And maybe someone in the control room will have to punch in certain numbers or the show will go off the air.

Abrams himself will be on the show, along with Lost cast member Dominic Monaghan and Ben Stiller. But will Tom Cruise or Jennifer Garner show up? Maybe Stiller will do his Cruise impression for the episode.

(S05E14) Can someone please tell me why Syd is being so casual around her home, especially with the baby? I mean, here she is, in the middle of a global conspiracy, with people trying to kill her, friends being murdered left and right, coworkers turning against her, not knowing who to trust, and she still stays in her house, alone, with her baby? No  guards, no security devices? And when someone rings the doorbell there's no camera to see who it is, she just goes and opens the door? I'll believe all this Rambaldi stuff before I believe that.

So Nadia and Renee' are both dead, and Sloane is back with the bad guys trying to decode page 47. While they hold a funeral for Nadia, an autopsy shows a 30 year old chip inside of Renee's body ... and it has Michael Vaughn's real name etched into it ...

Here's a good example of why some people are destined to write TV shows and movies and why some people are destined to write about them.

Julia Turner at Slate is in the latter category. She has an article that pretty much calls J.J. Abrams a "hack," and a "self-plagiarist," because he borrows ideas and themes from Alias for the new Mission: Impossible movie.

Of course there are similarities. That's bound to happen, especially when you consider that Cruise hired Abrams because he had seen Alias and loved it.

In fact, Turner sort of debunks her own thesis when she says "of course, every action movie rips off the action movies that came before it, and Alias itself is filled with references to spy capers past: It's no surprise that secret agents spend time in ducts and sewers, that prisoner transport is dicey, or that there's ample use of the body double and the dazzling speedboat getaway." She also dumps on him for using flashbacks in both, then mentions that Lost uses them a lot too. She then wonders if Abrams is a hack.

I think it's clear who the hack is.

Wahoo! Ron Livingston, of Office Space and Sex and the City fame, is going to be on the fall television schedule. Ahead of next week's upfronts, FOX has announced that it picked up Primary for the fall. The drama stars Livingston and Rosemarie DeWitt as hostage negotiators with the hots for each other.

FOX is also picking up American Crime, starring Alias veteran Victor Garber as part of an ensemble cast. The show is about high-profile defense attorneys. Good. Someone needs to counter all the adoration for prosecuting attorneys happening over at NBC on four different Law & Order franchises.

(S05E13) I like the disguise and accent that Syd uses at the start of this episode, on a mission with Renee' to steal a microchip at a call center in Jaipur. I think she was impersonating Kellie Pickler in five years.

While APO searches for Anna Espinosa, Sloane tries to use Prophet 5's cure for Nadia. But he has to kill her first ...

Alias-Media has a bunch of Alias news today. Not only is there a rumor that a special box set of all five seasons of the show will go on sale around Christmas (with lots of extras), but there is also news that next month, ABC.com will be auctioning off clothing and props from the show.

Sure, some might go for Syd's wigs or clothing, but I want one of the Rambaldi artifacts! Or, if I can't have one of those, maybe one of Marshall's gadgets.

[via TVshowsonDVD.com]

(S05E12) I really like the fact that ABC actually told J.J. Abrams that the show was not going to be renewed earlier instead of later. It really does, as Abrams has said, give the show a chance to end things correctly, to bring old characters back, and explain what all this Rambaldi/Prophet 5 plot is all about. How good was it to see Will tonight? I also like the fact that even if you don't know what's going on with the mythology, this was a pretty entertaining standalone spy mission as well, and you could enjoy it as a casual viewer.

But Will, when people come knocking on your door and just say, yeah, I'm with the CIA, here's a quick look at my badge, just don't invite them in for coffee and danish.

We're continuing to celebrate TV Turn-Off Week here at TV Squad, and by "celebrate" I mean ignoring it completely. We believe that everyone should watch TV, TV is good for you, and that there's no way we're going to shut off the tube for 7 straight days.  We'd miss too much.

Case in point: not only is Alias in its last season, but tonight is also the 100th episode of the ABC series. J.J. Abrams said in an interview recently that the past couple of seasons, ABC told him to get away from the Rambaldi/mythology storyline, and he complied. But now that the show is ending - and Abrams and company actually knew it was ending, it wasn't some season-ending "oh, by the way, you're not getting renewed" - they can really focus on Rambaldi all they want and end the show the way that they want to end it.

So, we all know that Alias fans have strong opinions about the show, the characters, the Rambaldi prophecy. Even the clothes that Jennifer Garner wears. But do you care enough to make a video expressing your thoughts on the show that will make you part of the season five DVD set?

ABC and Buena Vista wants to know why you're a fan of Alias. Why Sydney Bristow is such a great character. What your favorite storylines, scenes, and villains are. And many more topics. Check out the link above, plus all the other details at ABC. Deadline is May 8.