Shark Bytes

I enjoyed all things Alias to a certain degree, but season 3 was a definite low point.

The show got so far off-course, they had to reboot the whole thing in season 4. Hell, they even had Vaughn flat out say "Last year sucked".

No matter how strange the later years got, the first two seasons will always be classics in my eyes.

I enjoyed it all the way through til season 5. JTS or not I love Alias and thought all the seasons were equaly great. 47

Definitely agree that the show jumped at the "waking up two years later" moment, if not earlier. Things started slowing down bigtime as soon as she stopped being a double agent inside SD6. And when she and Vaughn were together (I guess that was late season 2?) all the tension was gone and it was just boring happy/mushy.

And then the thing with her ovaries was just such a let down -- I mean, all that buildup about a prophecy concerning her, and then they're just after her eggs? (Okay, I admit I never watched anything beyond mid-season 3, so if something new came of that, I'm sorry, but really, by then the show was well and truly jumped already...)

2 words: season 5

Jumping the shark? Let me count the ways.
In no particular order
Rambaldi (the 300 year old man)
Nadia (love her as an actual character, but my god I never understood how she showed up)
Hong Kong wake up
Being able to trick Sark by having Sydney wear a lauren mask and a voice changer
Lauren.
Francinator
Julia Thorne
Vaughn never really being dead
Parallel plot between Sydney and the hot blonde that replaced her.
The Derevko sisters that magically appear

After season 2 I watched in hope of redemption. It was never the same. Oh, and as a side note, I'd also like to blame Ben Affleck for messing up my favorite tv relationship ever.

That "two years later" thing killed the show IMHO. I loved Alias, but after that, couldn't watch it again. It was a shame.

Never jumped end of story!

When they killed Nadia! They finally bring her out of the coma just in time to have her own father, who loved her so much, 'accidentally' kill her!
It made me so angry!!! I loved NADIA!

When Vaughn got married. That was completely out of character! He was supposedly so in love with Sydney, and then is so broken up about her "death" that he takes up with another woman just months later?? I've heard that JJ Abrams believed keeping lovers apart was good television, but come on!! That was just a contrivance. Vaughn would never have done something like get with someone else so fast. He was just too loyal and too much of a stand-up guy for that. That storyline really made me mad.

I think it was a 6 episode shark jump. It started with the season 4 premiere and the 4x06 episode with the attempted X-Files type Halloweenish episode with the vampires and hallucinations being the last straw.

"Quick! Jump in the Ford F150!!!!" in a chase scene in a parking ramp. Don't remember when that happened, but the shark was most definitely jumped.

Too many inconsistencies showed up over time. One particularly bothersome one was how Sydney was supposed to have met Sloane only when she was recruited into SD-6, but in reality she had grown up around him and he filled in for her father. What's up with that? And how could Vaughn have been working "secretly" with Renee for 7 years when he was always around? It's like season 5 was determined to take everything we knew (and loved) about the show and turn it on its ear, just for shock value. And to echo what numerous other posters have beeen saying, the loss of the Garner/Vartan relationship in real life came across loud and clear onscreen. The chemistry evaporated and Jennifer Garner seemed, somehow, a much harder person--not nearly as sweet or "nice" as before. Cruel, what she did to Michael Vartan. I haven't had such a high opinion of her since then.

Agree with most everyone that the loss of the Sydney-Vaughan connection was the shark-jumping point. Blaming Affleck is probably fair, as others have noted, but I would add that whenever the star gets to become Executive Producer the artistry and balance of a show becomes compromised. So, again, because Garner dumped Vartan in life, she (or Affleck, or both) dumped him on screen and I knew Vaughan was living on borrowed time.

Another Hint: When they start to recycle old plots from their first and second seasons, which Alias did. That is a telltale sign that their out of ideas, are under marketing and financial pressure to deliver more shows, and are waxing nostalgic about their "glory" years when the show was in its prime.

I agree with Paula T about Affleck and Jenn ruining the show. He went and got her pregnant during season 5!!!!

Totally agree that the show was over when Jen Garner dumped Michael Vartan for that idiot Affleck. She wasn't the same after that. Vartan just looked depressed all the time. They were strained when together. I still can't believe ANYONE would dump Vartan!! Garner and Affleck killed the show...