TVSquad

When Fringe premiered last September, critics around the country distilled the new sci-fi drama down to one simple sentence: it's like a cross between Alias and The X-Files. At the time, that's what pretty much guaranteed I'd tune in. I still found that assessment a little odd since I always thought Alias had a healthy dose of influence from Mulder and Scully to begin with.

Regardless, Fringe clearly took a few cues from both shows in many ways. However, after this past Tuesday's episode ("Bad Dreams", S01E17), I stared to get a little annoyed. I've seen this before.

One of the fun games to play when it comes to TV shows is "What If." What if Mickey Rooney had been cast as Archie Bunker on All in the Family? What would have happened to the show (and to Rooney)?

That's one of interesting revelations (though that one has been known for quite some time) in the new book Mickey Rooney as Archie Bunker and Other TV Almosts by Eila Mell. It lists a bunch of actors and actresses who almost got roles we know and love. For example, Jenna Fischer (The Office) tried out for the role of Sydney Bristow on Alias, but was deemed not sexy enough for the part (as we told you about before). Whitney Houston didn't want the role of Bill Cosby's daughter on The Cosby Show so the role went to Lisa Bonet. And Leonardo DiCaprio almost played David Hasselhoff's son on Baywatch (the role went to Brandon Call and later Jeremy Jackson). That one isn't surprising at all, considering DiCaprio did work on Growing Pains and other shows.

I'll admit I was first "miffled" by most ambiguous ending ever in the history of series endings. But I'm beginning to come around to the the side that sees The Sopranos finale as "brilliant" rather than "lame." David Chase left us wanting more, and that's pretty awesome. Besides, according to Ken Levine, it could have been a lot worse.

On his blog, Ken, a veteran sitcom writer, hilariously reminds us just how annoying The Sopranos finale would have been on network television. For starters, a countdown clock would have run across the bottom of our television screens for at least a month leading up to the finale. The two-hour finale would have been preceded by a one-hour clip show hosted by Bob Costas. Janice would have gotten her own spin-off called Widow With Children.

Welcome to TV Squad Lists (formerly 'The Five'), a feature where each blogger has a chance to list his or her own rundown of things in television that stand out from the rest, both good and bad.

Since I've already done a list of the greatest police detectives and the greatest private eyes, the next list is a natural: Greatest Spies and Agents!

The guidelines for this list? A spy that worked for an agency or someone that worked in an official governmental capacity, such as the FBI or CIA. Here we go:

1. Kelly Robinson and Alexander Scott (I Spy): These two guys weren't only resourceful, but they were the coolest cats around. Robinson and Scott were spies, but they travelled the world working on cases disguised as a tennis pro and his trainer. How awesome is that? The show was filmed on location (you hardly ever see that), and a lot of the dialogue was improvised and casual. Great theme song too.

(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.

(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 ...

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.

The ratings for the return episode of Alias last Wednesday were actually up 20% from the previous episode back in December. But it still wasn't enough to make an impact that night, as American Idol, The Amazing Race, Unanimous and Bones did better. The first hour tied for 9th on the night, while the second hour was 8th.

But who cares? The show is ending anyway! Ha!

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.

As part of the run-up to the series finale of Alias, seasons four and five of the show are now available on iTunes. You can buy one episode for the usual $1.99 or you can buy all of season four for $34.99. And, for the rest of the season, new episodes will be available the morning after they air.

Alias returns tonight for a two-hour episode from 8 pm to 10:01 pm (thus, no Lost).

After Bob reported that ABC hadn't placed the final episodes of Alias into the midseason line-up, I think most people (myself included), were how do you say it? Oh right, "pissed off."

However, it now seems that ABC has gone ahead and decided to air the last hours of one of the greatest shows on TV. That's right - Sydney, Jack, Sloane, and the rest of the Alias gang return in April (according to our friends at SpoilerFix.com, April 19 to be exact) for a two-hour midseason special. According to the report, which started with Kristin at E! Online, the two-hour return will be followed by four more hour-long episodes and the series will come to an end with another two-hour explosion sometime in May.

Now on paper, this sounds great, right? Alias is coming back! Wait! Except, that if these numbers are right... then we're getting an extremely shortened season. Normally Alias, like most other hour-long dramas, runs for a 22 episode season. If we're getting only 8 more new hours between now and the series finale, that means this season clocks in at only 17 hours. Can't say that I'm too pleased about that. We've had only nine season five episodes so far (I double checked here), so eight more makes 17. Well... at least it's coming back right? Maybe this will all change and we'll get more?

[Thanks to Susan for bringing this to our attention.]

When ABC decided that this was going to be the last season of Alias, J.J. Abrams wasn't in on the discussions. It wasn't until after the decision was made that Abrams was called while filming Mission Impossible 3 in China. While he's not all that surprised at the decision, he is saddened to see it end . . . make that "somewhat" end. Abrams has been discussing the possibility of doing something (spin-off? TV movie?) involving the characters Sark (David Anders), Peyton (Amy Acker) and Sloane (Ron Rifkin). Y'know, I might be OK with that idea, but only if they do something fresh with it; the whole Alias vibe to me is stale.