Alias (TV series)

(Jennifer Garner), the daughter of Jack Bristow and Irina Derevko, is a graduate student in English in Los Angeles. She moonlights as an operative for SD-6, which she initially believed was a black ops division of the CIA. Her fiancé was murdered in the pilot episode, and she then learned SD-6 is actually a branch of an international criminal organization known as the Alliance of Twelve. She then becomes a double agent for the real CIA. She would later become a member of APO, a black-ops division of the CIA. Sydney has 41 confirmed kills through the series.

Sydney Bristow

(Ron Rifkin) was the head of SD-6 and APO, the show's main antagonist. Originally a loyal CIA officer, he is obsessed with the work of a 15th-century prophet, Milo Rambaldi. Though sometimes showing a genuine affection to the Bristows, he is always ready to hurt them and even kill them, and vice versa.

Arvin Sloane

(Michael Vartan) was Sydney's CIA handler and later partner. He and Sydney share a mutual attraction, which eventually leads to a relationship. At the end of Season 4, it is revealed that it was not a coincidence that he met Sydney. Despite departing in season 5 as a series regular, Vartan's character was still credited as a main cast member in the first episode then special guest star in the latter part of the season.

Michael Vaughn

(Bradley Cooper) was a reporter for a local newspaper, and he is one of Sydney's two best friends. After the death of Sydney's fiancé, Will begins to investigate, and eventually learns of the existence of SD-6. The discovery threatens his life, but he later is recruited as an analyst for the CIA. He is put into witness protection at the beginning of Season Three. The character makes occasional guest appearances in later seasons.

Will Tippin

(Merrin Dungey) is Sydney's other best friend. When Season 1 begins, she is Sydney's roommate and fellow graduate student. In Season 2, she drops out of her graduate program and opens a restaurant in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles. She remains largely unaware of the spy world until the middle of season two when she is killed, and her identity is stolen by a doppelgänger. She (and her double) also dated Will during the second season.

Francie Calfo

(Carl Lumbly) is Sydney's partner and friend at SD-6. He is the first one to notice signs of Sydney's betrayal, but dismisses his thoughts as foolish. During the two-year gap between the second and third season, he became a director at the CIA. However, he later resigns as he thinks the office job just is not for him. Dixon later joins APO.

Marcus Dixon

(Kevin Weisman) worked in tech support at SD-6. He takes up the same role in the CIA and at APO. Even though he is not field-trained, he has participated in missions on several occasions.

Marshall Flinkman

(Victor Garber) is Sydney's father, and also works for SD-6, but he is actually a double agent for the CIA. In Season 1, his relationship with Sydney is strained. He was devastated by her mother's "death," and kept Sydney at arm's length for the rest of her childhood. As a CIA agent, he is exceptionally ruthless and skillful as evidenced by his CIA call sign, "Raptor." After Sloane left, Jack took over as head of APO.

Jack Bristow

(Greg Grunberg) is a friend of Vaughn's, and also a CIA agent. He later forges a relationship with Sydney's sister, Nadia. Against his over-the-top colleagues, he keeps a more human and gentle demeanor.

Eric Weiss

(David Anders) is originally introduced as an operative working for Sydney's mother, but he later proves to be an antagonist on his own. He has an instinct for self-preservation, thus making his loyalty flexible. During the third season, he becomes the partner-in-crime of Vaughn's wife, Lauren, and eventually begins a relationship with her.

Julian Sark

(Lena Olin) was a former Russian spy, and she is also the mother of Sydney Bristow. During the 1970s, she was sent to the United States, with the objective to seduce and marry Jack Bristow so she could steal information from him about a project he was working on. She has also assassinated several CIA officers, including Vaughn's father.

Irina Derevko

(Melissa George) is a NSC liaison at the CIA and marries Vaughn during the two-year gap between the second and third season. She is later revealed to be a mole sent by The Covenant to watch over Vaughn should Sydney contact him during her involvement with them and also to steal crucial information from the CIA.

Lauren Reed

(Mía Maestro) is Sydney's half-sister, and the daughter of Irina Derevko and Arvin Sloane. Introduced at the end of the third season, she is "The Passenger," a person who provides a direct line to Rambaldi. Prior to joining the CIA, she worked for the Argentine Intelligence.

Nadia Santos

(Rachel Nichols) is a computer genius introduced at the beginning of Season Five as an operative working for an organization that poses as the CIA, known as The Shed. Unaware of this, she indirectly helps to apparently kill Michael Vaughn. After the truth is revealed to her, she joins the CIA in order to take down the organization that had lied to her, much like Sydney did years before.

Rachel Gibson

(Balthazar Getty) is an operative who is hired by Jack to join APO after the apparent death of Michael Vaughn. Years ago, his wife was shot and killed by an assassin who was intending to kill him.

Thomas Grace

(Élodie Bouchez) is an international terrorist known as "The Raven," who worked for years with Vaughn to investigate a group of people known as "The Prophet Five." After Vaughn's assassination by the Prophet Five, she allies with Sydney to take down the group.

Renée Rienne

(Amy Acker) is a friend and former colleague of Rachel's. She works for The Shed, and later directly for the Prophet Five. Together with the Derevko sisters, or maybe more, she is the most ruthless character of the show.

Kelly Peyton

– executive producer

J. J. Abrams

– executive producer (Season 1–3)

John Eisendrath

– executive producer (Season 2–3)

Alex Kurtzman

– executive producer (Season 2–3)

Roberto Orci

– executive producer (Season 4–5)

Jeffrey Bell

– executive producer (Season 5)

Jeff Pinkner

– executive producer (Season 5)

Jesse Alexander

Family: Describing the family aspects of the show, Garner stated that Alias is about "this woman and her father and trying to figure out what is always a complicated relationship in the context of life and death at work."

[9]

: A good deal of Alias revolves around the prophecies of Milo Rambaldi. The viewer is first introduced to a prophecy about a woman who will "render the greatest power unto utter desolation".^[10] Later, as Sloane completes part of the Rambaldi prophecy he has received his own prophetic message. The Rambaldi storyline seemed to come to a close with the conclusion of Elena Derevko's endgame at the end of season four, but the fifth season introduced its own "prophet" (also in pursuit of Rambaldi) in the form of the mysterious organization known as Prophet Five, which ended up being a reference to Rambaldi and the final part of his endgame, immortality, which had been set up in the first season, though this was only one part of his plan. The first part was world peace, which Elena Derevko perverted and attempted in Season 4.^[10]

Prophecy

and betrayal: Much of the first three seasons of the show revolved around issues of trust and betrayal. Most obvious is the betrayal of Sydney by SD-6 which starts the show. However, the show includes numerous other examples of betrayal including Irina's betrayal of Jack, Sloane's betrayal of the Alliance, Sydney's betrayal of SD-6 and Sydney's lying to her friends. The first season can be viewed as a story of Sydney learning to trust her father and the second season can be viewed as Sydney struggling with trust issues relating to her mother.^[10]

Trust

: The government agencies that Sydney works for are conducting secret operations in various countries regularly. The same applies of course to the mentioned illegal agencies which are battled against. Those clandestine operations deal with collecting the sought-after Rambaldi artifacts, but also with aspects like illegal arms trade or blackmailing. To further their objectives, the CIA or APO, respectively, arrest criminals from other countries and bring them to interrogation facilities of the CIA.^[10]

Clandestine operations

Karen Bartek (3 Emmy Award nominations)

Julie Woods (1 Emmy Award nomination)

Grace Hernandez (1 Emmy Award nomination)

Kathrine Rees (1 Emmy Award nomination)

Yesmin Osman (1 Emmy Award nomination)

Stacey Abbott and Simon Brown: Investigating Alias: Secrets and Spies. , 2007, ISBN 1-84511-405-1.

I. B. Tauris

at IMDb

Alias