Season 4
Alias is an American sci-fi television series created by J.J. Abrams and produced by Touchstone Television and Bad Robot Productions which stars Jennifer Garner as Sydney Bristow, a CIA agent, who is usually seen wearing a colourful new disguise while undercover in some part of the world.
The series aired in the USA on ABC from 30 September, 2001 to 22 May, 2006. There are 105 hour-long episodes in five seasons.
Alias originally aired in South Africa on M-Net from Thursday 18 July, 2002 to Sunday 2 July, 2006. It later aired on SABC1 and on TopTV's Fox Entertainment channel. See "Seasons" below for seasonal broadcast dates and times by channel.
Season 4 premiered on Fox Entertainment on Monday 4 July 2011, at 12h45. New episodes broadcast daily, on weekdays. There are 22 episodes in the fourth season.
Synopsis
Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner), a vivacious, athletic grad student, discovers that her not-so-typical after-school job as an agent for SD-6, a top-secret division of the CIA, holds some deadly secrets that not only put her life in danger but also threaten the security of the free world.
Recruited freshman year, the then shy and lonely Sydney jumped at the chance to add some meaning and excitement to her life. Little did she know how great she'd be at espionage or how much she'd love it.
Today Sydney is no longer shy or alone. Boyfriend Danny has just proposed and her best friend Francie (Merrin Dungey) couldn't be happier. Her friend Will, (Bradley Cooper), however, has to feign happiness, keeping his unrequited love for her to himself.
Sydney now finds herself facing a moral dilemma: What does she want from the rest of her life, and what does she tell her friends and would-be fiancé?
Sydney's SD-6 partner, Dixon (Carl Lumbly), a devoted family man, warns her not to reveal her secret to Danny, and Sydney knows that SD-6 leader Sloane (Ron Rifkin) would not look kindly on any breach of security.
Even Marshall (Kevin Weisman), SD-6's highly inventive weapons and gadget maker - a super intelligent man with noticeably lacking social skills - knows that divulging their identities is strictly verboten. This is the one rule you don't break.
Season 4
Season 4 begins where season three ended with Sydney uncovering a shocking, classified document called "S.A.B. 47 Project."
It is explained that the document authorizes Jack Bristow to execute Sydney's mother, who had mysteriously placed a contract on Sydney's life (this was apparently something of a retcon to cover for actress Lena Olin's presumed not returning to the series, as the first page refers to Sydney as the "active" subject of a "project" that began 17 April, 1975, a possible reference to Project Christmas, and also setting up Jack as either the real head of, or somehow involved with, the Covenant and/or being a descendant of Rambaldi/Rambaldi himself).
Sydney joins a black ops division of the CIA, patterned after SD-6 and run by her one-time nemesis Arvin Sloane. The new division is dubbed "APO": Authorized Personnel Only.
Members of APO (all hand-picked by Sloane) include almost all of the recurring characters from previous seasons, including Jack, Vaughn, Sydney's former partner (and third season CIA director) Marcus Dixon, the computer and technical genius, Marshall Flinkman, and Vaughn's best friend Eric Weiss (brought in after having to be rescued by Sydney and Vaughn, who he previously believed to have left the CIA).
Sloane's daughter and Sydney's half-sister Nadia Santos also eventually returns to join APO.
During the season, an Arvin Sloane impostor, jokingly identified as "Arvin Clone," acquired the technology to implement a Rambaldi-predicted apocalypse.
Using Omnifam, the real Sloane had polluted the world's drinking water with chemicals that caused feelings of peace and tranquility.
However, these feelings can be reversed with the Mueller device. The third Derevko sister, Elena, had built a giant Mueller device in Sovogda, Russia, which drove the residents to insanity.
Sydney, Jack, Irina, Nadia, and Vaughn parachute in, destroy the device and kill Elena. But Nadia is injected with the tainted water and driven insane. She battles Sydney until Sloane is forced to shoot his own daughter.
Nadia is later put into a coma while a cure is sought and Irina escapes again.
The season concludes with Sydney and Vaughn becoming engaged. On a trip to Santa Barbara, Vaughn confides a shocking secret: his name isn't really Michael Vaughn; their initial meeting wasn't coincidental; and that his allegiance may not be to the CIA.
Before he can divulge any more information, another car hits theirs and the season ends.
Seasons
Season 1 (22 episodes)
Channel: M-Net | Premiere: 18 Jul 2002 | Finale: 12 Dec 2002 | Thursdays, 19h00
Channel: SABC1 | Premiere: 3 April 2004 | Finale: 28 Aug 2004 | Saturdays, 20h00
Channel: Fox Entertainment | Premiere: 23 May 2010 | Finale: 13 Jun 2010 | Daily, 18h00
Season 2 (22 episodes)
Channel: M-Net | Premiere: 30 Jan 2003 | Finale: 26 Jun 2003 | Thursdays, 19h00
Channel: SABC1 | Premiere: 10 April 2007 | Finale: 4 Sep 2007 | Tuesdays, 23h00
Channel: Fox Entertainment | Premiere: 14 Jun 2010 | Finale: 5 Jul 2010 | Daily, 18h00
Season 3 (22 episodes)
Channel: M-Net | Premiere: 6 Jan 2004 | Finale: 1 Jun 2004 | Tuesdays, 19h30
Channel: SABC1 | Premiere: 24 Sep 2007 | Finale: 18 Feb 2008 | Mondays, 22h00
Channel: Fox Entertainment | Premiere: 1 May 2010 | Finale: 22 May 2010 | Daily, 18h00
Season 4 (22 episodes)
Channel: M-Net | Premiere: 5 Apr 2005 | Finale: 30 Aug 2005 | Tuesdays, 19h30
Channel: SABC1 | Premiere: 3 Feb 2009 | Finale: 30 Jun 2009 | Tuesdays, 22h00
Channel: Fox Entertainment | Premiere: 4 Jul 2011 | Finale: 2 Aug 2011 | Weekdays, 12h45
Season 5 (17 episodes)
Channel: M-Net | Premiere: 7 Feb 2006 | Finale: 2 Jul 2006 | Tuesdays/Sundays, 19h30
Channel: SABC1 | Premiere: 15 Feb 2010 | Finale: 7 Jun 2010 | Mondays, 22h00
Channel: Fox Entertainment | Premiere: 3 Aug 2011 | Finale: 25 Aug 2011 | Weekdays, 12h45