Last night, before I drifted off to sleep, I caught a few minutes of a first-season Alias re-run, and I think I’ve put my finger on at least part of what’s been missing from subsequent^* seasons, and what I liked so much about those early episodes. In the beginning, Sydney Bristow’s life as a spy actually was an alias. She was leading a double-life (within an a double-life, within a double-life, etc.), and a lot of the fun arose when those lives overlapped or interconnected and Sydney had to juggle to keep them separate. Case in point, in last night’s episode, Syndey traveled on assignment to Las Vegas only to run into her best friend and her fiancé. Espionage comingled happily (for the audience anyway) with the mundane day-to-day.

Nowadays, however, the show doesn’t have that. It seems like practically everyone knows that Sydney is a spy. Individual episodes can be fun, and I’m actually enjoying this (I hope last) season more than I expected to, but I miss what the show used to be.

* certainly everything after season two