The majority of shows take great effort in their debut episodes to establish a new set of characters and set up intrigues that will continue to simmer throughout the season. This is certainly the case with the sublime Alias, but with one particular narrative strand the rug was quickly yanked from beneath the audience's feet in shocking circumstances.

The Context

Lead protagonist Sydney Bristow is an undercover CIA agent (or so she thinks) leading a double life as a university student in Los Angeles. She has an idyllic future planned with fiancé Danny, but feels that she can no longer hide the duplicitous nature of her existence from him, despite being warned not to. Nonetheless, Sydney then calls her husband to be and tells him the truth.

The Moment

After Sydney’s phonecall to Danny is tapped by operatives at SD-6, the agency’s director Arvin Sloane gives the order to send a man into the man’s flat, where he brutally slays him. Sydney returns to her flat to discover her beloved in the bathroom, butchered and bathed in blood.

The Aftermath

Understandably distraught, Sydney needs several months to recover from her loss and is full of anger towards SD-6 and particularly Sloane. Soon, her fury at this betrayal grows as she learns from her estranged father that SD-6 is in fact a terrorist cell masquerading as a government agency.

Sydney is eventually signed up for the real CIA to go back to SD-6 and report back to them, but she is understandably more cautious about concealing her real identity to her friends. However, her journalist buddy Will Tippen investigates the circumstances of Danny's death behind Sydney's back, which plunges him into big trouble...

After the success of the pilot, Alias ran for five seasons.