Alias was an incredible episode last night, despite having to follow a dreadfully dull post-game special. After a painfully gratuitous lingerie scene (designed to keep Super Bowlers from changing the channel), and some stilted dialogue written for new viewers (This is the bad guy. Over here is the CIA headquarters), the episode kicked off into high gear and culminated with the apparent destruction of the evil organization, SD-6, which pretended to be a branch of the CIA. This had been the goal since the pilot of season one, but it turns out to be the first step in some long range plan by one of the villains who used the real CIA to destroy everything after he'd safely vanished with millions of dollars.

With this plot twist, the big baddie can continue to be bad without having to pretend to be good, and it's pretty much created a blank slate for the rest of the season. It takes balls to essentially eliminate your show's original focus mid-season, but judging from the way it was foreshadowed and last season's twists, I bet J.J. Abrams can do it.

It looks like the lingerie ads worked though, as Alias had a 13.3/23 Nielsen rating, when it normally hits a high of 9 or 10. Season One comes out on DVD in September. If you've never seen the show, go buy it, or borrow mine.