Alias (TV Series) Truth Be Told (2001) User Reviews

A solid opening episode that sets the scene perfectly for the series

[DVD_Connoisseur · 9/10 · 28 August 2007]

"Truth Be Told" is marvellously glossy, stylish and sexy escapist fun from writer / director J.J. Abrams.

Jennifer Garner is splendid as the lead, Sydney Bristow - college girl by day, super-spy by night. Garner is a convincing action figure and the scenes later in the show where she's bloodied and seeking payback are memorable. Sydney in a brightly coloured wig, beating baddies to a pulp, is definitely a sight to behold!

The rest of the cast are equally impressive, notably her fellow agent, Marcus Dixon (played by Carl Lumbly) and bad guy Arvin Sloane (Ron Rifkin).

"Phantasm" fans will be delighted to see Angus Scrimm play the chilling lie-detector expert, Agent McCullough.

This is top drawer television entertainment and the music from Michael Giacchino is equally impressive.

9 out of 10 for this pilot episode. The soundtrack is packed with great music from familiar bands and artists including The Cranberries, Peter Gabriel and Sinead O'Connor.

Truth be told, this is a kickass Pilot

[gridoon2024 · 8/10 · 24 September 2009]

The first episode of "Alias" does everything a good TV series Pilot is supposed to do: it grips you from the first few seconds; it introduces multiple characters; it sets up a complicated plot; and it also can stand on its own as a 65-minute little movie. At the same time, it's an innovative piece of television, both for the way it is structured like a puzzle, with flashbacks, flashforwards and constant twists, and for presenting a new type of female sex symbol for the 2000s, a super smart, capable, brave and yet sensitive woman as the main lead. Jennifer Garner has just the right lean physique for the part, and her fight scene with an assassin in a parking lot is simply awesome (especially the way she uses a car antenna to get out of a tight spot). J.J. Abrams directs in a cinematic style, and the music score drives the action forward. A good job all around. My favorite line: "I've got nothing to lose" - "That's not quite true. You have teeth". *** out of 4.

Love the show, but the imagination of Asia is too rigid and stereotype

[joshphotographer · 8/10 · 3 December 2021]

Love the show, but the imagination of Asia is too rigid and stereotyped.

The plot mentioned Taipei, Taiwan but the scene was shot in Hong Kong. People in Taiwan speaks Mandarin instead of Cantonese spoken in the show.

The beginning of the J.J. Abrams era

[MaxBorg89 · 10/10 · 13 December 2008]

Apparently, the plot of Alias began as a joke: while working on another show, Felicity, writer J.J. Abrams thought that it would be a fun idea to do a show about a young woman who goes to college by day and works as a spy by night (or something like that, anyway). After some polishing, that concept morphed into Alias, arguably the finest spy show to have ever aired on television (well, at least during its first two seasons), not to mention what made Abrams American TV's new god, leading to Lost and Mission: Impossible III (yes, the last one is a movie, but based on a TV show, so it counts). And this episode is where it all began.

The funny thing is, in retrospect, it's easy to notice how Mission: Impossible III's plot structure blatantly apes Alias' first hour (then again, Tom Cruise insisted on Abrams as director for the spy movie after seeing this episode): as a woman is about to be brutally tortured by an unidentified Chinese villain (the name given in the credits is the highly original Suit and Glasses), a lengthy flashback reveals how she ended up there.

The woman is Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner), a typical American twenty-something: college student, not getting along with her old man Jack (Victor Garber), earning a little extra by working for a bank, Credit Dauphine. Actually, that last part is all a lie, as Syd reveals to her boyfriend after he asks her to marry him: for the past seven years, she's been working for SD-6, a secret branch of the CIA run by the charismatic Arvin Sloane (Ron Rifkin). The only real rule surrounding SD-6 is that no one outside the agency can know it exists, which is why even Sydney's roommate Francie (Merrin Dungey) and best friend Will (Bradley Cooper) have no idea of what really happens when she goes abroad with her colleague Dixon (Carl Lumbly). And Sydney pays the biggest price possible for breaking that one rule when Danny (that would be the boyfriend) is found dead, his murder leading her to find out that SD-6 isn't really what she thought it was, and neither is her dad.

Abrams, who directs as well as writing the episode, thinks big right off the bat, with the ambitious storytelling, cunning camera-work and excellent location choice. If one weren't aware of the fact this is a TV show, it could easily be mistaken for a shorter-than-usual big-screen thriller, much in the same way as 2001's other groundbreaking series, 24. The comparison isn't accidental, as Abrams uses the 40 minutes of programming at his disposal to concoct a story that might as well end here, but is much more satisfying when seen as the beginning of something more complex and exciting (kind of like the pilot of The X-Files).

Furthermore, as befits most of America's small-screen output, the cast is amazing: Garner is of course the show's queen, oozing charm and soul from the first moment we see her (and she deservedly won a Golden Globe for the first season), while Lumbly, Dungey and Cooper (plus the hilarious Kevin Weisman) offer terrific support. And then we have the shadowy father figures, Rifkin and Garber - whenever they're around, the show gains a little extra something.

Long story short: the first episode of Alias is, by all standards, a piece of television history. There's absolutely no excuse for missing it.

A great opening episode

[Tweekums · 10/10 · 21 February 2012]

The story opens with a girl with bright read hair being interrogated; the next moment we see her in a class at college and after the class is over her boyfriend proposes to her. Her name is Sydney Bristow; part time student full time CIA agent; life is good for her... until she tells her fiancé about her work for the CIA. Her world is then turned upside down when she returns from a mission and finds he has been murdered and when she doesn't return to work an attempt is made on her life. She is rather surprised when she is rescued by her father. It turns out that unbeknownst to her he works for the same organisation she does. What she didn't know until then though is that that organisation, DS-6, is not a covert division of the CIA as she believed but part of a group known as 'The Alliance of Twelve' which is in fact an enemy of the United States. He gives her the means to get out of the country so she can go into hiding but instead she goes to Taipei to get a device wanted by SD-6; she isn't planning to become a knowing traitor though; after handing the device over the her boss at SD-6 she pays a visit to CIA headquarters in Langley with the intention of becoming a double agent. He she learns that she isn't the only CIA agent working inside SD-6... her father is too!

This pilot episode did the job perfectly; grabbing the viewer with a scene showing the heroine in peril then showing us how she got to be there. It was surprising just how much was packed into this one hour episode; all the main characters were introduced and there was still time for more action than appears in some films of the same genre. Jenifer Garner does a great job as Sydney; presenting her as a believable character and being brilliant in the action scenes. The support cast are fine too; most notably Victor Garber as her father and Kevin Weisman who brings some humour to the situation as Marshall Flinkman; SD-6's answer to James Bond's Q. J.J. Abrams did a fine job as both writer and director; it is of no surprise that he has gone on to direct some major Hollywood movies. When I first saw this it got me hooked and I couldn't wait to see what happened in the rest of the series and even though I've now seen it several times it seems as exciting as ever.

After finishing first season of braquo series on 5221, i am here. I watch series season by season.

[CursedChico · 8/10 · 6 February 2021]

After finishing first season of braquo series on 5221, i am here. I watch series season by season.

I wanted to watch some adventure. I hope i can enjoy. I know jennifer garner from elektra and daredevil. It will good to see her again.

I will edit here after some episodes . I will copy this to episode 1 review also.

EPISODE REVIEW

At first i thought she was working for cia and cia was so cruel that killed daniel but it was not like that. OF course cia is not innocent, killed lots of innocent people in real life according to series, there is a worst agency, sd6 so because bristow wants revenge of daniel, she has to be agent.

I dont understand how she can study at same time but it is just a tv series :) so no need to question.

Until last parts, i did not like but then it started to be exciting.

Boring

[aramis-112-804880 · 9 March 2023]

Interesting premise drew me to this series. I like the way it starts in media res.

Unfortunately, despite some good actors (Ron Rifkin and Victor Garber being the most famous; Rifkin was great in A Nero Wolfe Mystery--who wasn't?--but first came to my attention decades ago in The Rockford Files: Roundabout, which has the greatest ending of any detective show episode, for my taste: please try it out).

I didn't care for the music, but I didn't much like music in my youth, either.

Much of the presentation was good, but for my taste Jennifer Garner (no kin to James Garner of The Rockford Files) wasn't strong enough to carry a series. In her commentary she says she auditioned five times. I'm glad I don't know whom she beat out; I might consider them superior.

I was also uncomfortable with the intensity of violence against women, something I've despised all my life, even before the cause became popular (I'm a gentleman, which fell out of favor in the sexual revolution, when violence againt women could be treated as humorous as violence against men, which never set well with me).

And I was confused whether the interrogators were Red Chinese or Taiwanese: our enemies or our allies. Or is there either anymore, according to the series?

Overall, I became bored, which is not good for an espionage drama (I love espionage tales) and I was not inspired to go on with the series. I may go back to it one day but not right away.