< Alias (TV series)

Alias (TV series)/YMMV


  • Alas, Poor Scrappy: The shot of the dead Francie, after the double takes over is heartbreaking.
  • Complete Monster: Dr. Lee and Sloan.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Sark was supposed to be a one-off character, a gofer for K-Directorate or Irina or the Alliance. Fan reaction to David Anders was so great that he became more and more high-profile, eventually taking over the Big Bad mantle in the series finale flash-forward.
  • Fanon Discontinuity / The Chris Carter Effect: Depending on when you think the show Jumped the Shark, you could argue that this set in after season two, season three, or season four.
  • Fan Nickname: Fans nicknamed the nameless recurring scientist and torturer "Suit and Glasses" or Television Without Pity's name for him "The Sadistic Dentist of Asian Persuasion".
    • "Suit and Glasses" was the character's official name until his real name was given a few seasons later.
    • Jack Bristow is also often referred to as "Spy Daddy" by fans.
    • Ditto Irina Derevko as 'Spy Mommy', Syd as 'Spy Baby'/'Spy Barbie', and Nadia as "Spy Skipper".
    • Once Francie was killed, and her identity assumed by an identical imposter, she went by the name Evil!Francie or The Francinator.
  • Foe Yay: A rare, married couple example - Jack and Irina. Syd/Sark and Syd/Anna also fall under this category.
  • Ho Yay: Between Vaughn and Sark mostly. Though Sark also managed to get his yay on with Marshall at one point.
    • Weiss and Vaughn were also a very popular pairing. Check out the below exchange for proof:

Weiss: Okay, whenever you want to have that talk...
Vaughn: What talk?
Weiss: About the cologne or whatever the hell you're wearing.
Vaughn: I'm not wearing cologne.
Weiss: Well, something's going on. No man naturally smells as good as you do right now.

      • And Jack and Weiss. And Jack and Will. And Jack and Vaughn. And Vaughn and Will. And Will and Sark. It really got ridiculous.
    • Dr. Brezzel's assistant, Kaya, looked at Sydney (and everybody else for that matter) like she wanted to tear her clothes off.
  • Jumping the Shark: Most people think this of Season 5, by gloriously abandoning and then reviving the Myth Arc, replacing various integral characters with annoying alternates, and swapping genres from a Spy Drama with slightly surreal tones to veritable Speculative Fiction what with the zombie apocalypse in Moscow.
    • The end of S3/start of S4 was the sharkjump. They show had gone off the rails because of the utter failure of Abrams and Co. to cope with the absence of Lena Olin (not her fault, theirs), and they tried to reboot the show, more ot less recreating season one with a new SD-6 under Arvin Sloane. The broke continuity, rewrote Rambaldi's prophecies, scrambled characterizations around, and stumbled around in search of a plot. This whole thing was SUCH a huge insult to WSOD that the writers often Lampshaded it themselves, especially through the rational, accurate assessment of the Arvin Cloane character, who points out aloud the sheer absurdity of the idea that Sydney and Dixon would be willing to work with Arvin Sloane at all after the things he'd done to their loved ones.
    • A large amount of people would say Season 3 was the jump point, but after Season 5 it definitely got worse.
      • Things went off the rails in Season Three, but not irreparably. The show could still have recovered if the producers and writers had simply done the rational thing and written Irina out of the show. Granted her fan base would have howled, but the absence of Lena Olin meant they could not be satisfied anyway.
    • Many fans blamed this on JJ Abrams shifting his focus to Lost, which premiered around the beginning of Alias's 4th season.
      • I don't buy it. The problems had already been brewing from the start of S3, though it could have been fixed up until the last few eps of S3. They utterly bungled the absence of Lena Olin, and they made the error of trying to make all their fanatic raving fan factions happy at once, and ended up infuriating them all.
  • Magnificent Bastard: Sloane. And to a slightly lesser extent, every other character.
  • Moral Event Horizon: Sloan crosses it in the first episode by ordering the murder of Sydney's fiance, but keeps going. Killing Dixon's family in retaliation for Dixon accidentally killing Emily is another. Accidentally throwing Nadia through a glass table and killing her is a third.
  • Narm: Vaughn trapped in the compound in Taipei, during "Almost Thirty Years", complete with slo-mo drowning, and yelling at Sydney to leave.
  • Nightmare Fuel: A lot, with the torture.
  • One-Scene Wonder: The show had many, many memorable guest stars.
  • Retroactive Recognition:
  • The Scrappy:
    • Lauren.
    • Marshall can be very funny and an integral part of the show, but his constant awkward yammering and Sloane/Jack/Dixon/Sydney/Vaughn/etc yelling "Marshall, get on with it!" got very, very annoying.
    • Not that everyone hated Francie, but she was easily the most boring character on a show full of badasses and Badass Normals.
  • Seasonal Rot: Some say this of Season 3, 4 and/or 5.
  • Shipping: Sydney/Vaughn was extremely prominent, followed closely by Sydney/Sark, Vaughn/Sark, and Jack/Irina.
  • Tear Jerker:
    • The scene between Jack Bristow and Elsa Caplan in Season 2's "Endgame." [1].
    • Emily Sloane: The scene in "Almost Thirty Years" where she drinks the wine, her betrayal of Sloane, then her almost-escape and death scene in "Truth Takes Time" and the scene in "In Dreams" when Jacqueline's death is revealed.
  • Unfortunate Implications: Many fans were not too happy that iconic Action Girl Sydney Bristow ends the series literally barefoot and pregnant, and refusing to help her old colleagues.
  • Villain Decay: One of the saddest things about season five is how it reduces Irina from a woman with complex loyalties and even more complex motivations to a simple Well-Intentioned Extremist Evil Matriarch. Most definitely a point of Fanon Discontinuity; Irina's storyline really ends when Jack lets her walk away at the end of "Before the Flood".
  • Villain Sue: Kelly Peyton
  • What the Hell, Casting Agency?: Wait, is that Ricky Gervais playing an Irish terrorist?!
    • Wait... Sonia Braga is supposed to be Russian?
      • So was Isabella Rossellini.
    • This troper didn't even realize Lauren was supposed to be American until he came to this site and noticed the actress didn't care about her accent.
  • The Woobie: Sydney and Nadia. Especially Nadia.
  1. ↑ Elsa Caplan is a Russian spy who was tasked with marrying scientist Neil Caplan. Thinking she is as duplicitous as Irina Derevko, Jack spits insults at her, eventually promising that she will "never see [her] child again." Elsa shouts "Don't you dare take my son away from me! Don't you dare--!" before bursting into tears. It's heartbreaking and very real, and Jack is stricken speechless by his realization that she deeply cares for both her husband and child
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