Alias: Die Agentin Tuesday (2001–2006) Online

The return of the golden days of Alias; that was my comment after this one came to an end. Actually (Tuesday) proves seriously that this show had the great talent of course and had lost it for a long time too ! Just compare this fine episode to another crappy ones, then you'll find that the crappy are too many, yet the good are too few and too masterly enjoyable as well; quite like this one.

Here, we have one strong plot which had been divided into 2 good parts: How Marshall will save Sydney from burying alive in Cuba, and How Marshall and Sydney will make it together and steal a terrorist's secrets. Both of them were outstanding especially at that time of Alias, to the extent that you'll say : wow.. Maybe all the rest weren't that bad after all (Yes it's THAT good !).

Look at the idea of paralyzing the APO's agency by bacterial virus while Sydney is in a coffin under the ground in Cuba, then how the clumsy Marshall is the only agent who can rescue her from inescapable suffocation. It's all genius writing, and the ultimate result was as powerful as the script (I adore the entire sequence of Marshall in the cemetery). The second part was no less suspenseful when Marshall tried to imitate his ideal Jack Bristow !

There were some comic lines : "Now I've got hepatitis !" when a drunk girl kissed the scrupulous Marshall in the night club, "That means that you ripped the retina apart !" when Jack was sorry for Marshall's failure at cutting off the dead terrorist's eye !, and for sure "Marshall's song to his baby about the nonmetallic elements !

The previous episode was all for Nadia, and now they made one for Marshall who's a beloved character and the only un-brawny one in the team. So when we had the opportunity to watch him as successful as them in action; it was a victory for the poor un-brawny us !

It was all exceptional from the start till the great last scene of Sydney and Vaughn dancing romantically in the train station like it's a finale of a beautiful classic movie. Well, I kept telling myself while watching : this what made Alias a cult TV once, this had been made to watch not one time but several times, all the ones who may hate the show are the very unlucky ones who didn't ever watch that kind of episodes, and if only it was written like this all along !

Forget all about How the whole APO had no agents out of it to rescue Sydney ?!, or what was the need for Sydney's cell phone with whatever Marshall invented out of an old Cuban radio, while in the same time he could have easily used the satellite's thermal power as he did eventually (but after some real hot thrilling time), or How all the terrorists in the world had their offices in night clubs ?!, or even How bad the dance of salsa at the start was !, or the old trite one about How Sydney could work under Sloane's authority ??!! Here all of those silly questions are not allowed to be asked, simply you won't even have the time to ask them, since you're in the joy zone, having the most interesting time.

It is based on the original perfect thrill of the first Alias, meaning... an absolute fun.

High-tech gadget guru Marshall Flinkman has been out on the field before (season 2's "Abduction" and season 3's "Repercussions" come to mind), but he has never been as heroic as he is in "Tuesday". With the rest of the APO team in lockdown after a biological attack on APO headquarters, Marshall - who got delayed at home that day - is the only one who can go to Cuba and rescue Sydney, who has been buried alive in a coffin after a deal she made with a bad guy to betray his boss was discovered by the boss. Luckily for her, he forgot to take away her cell phone! There is a great moment for Sydney, when she repeats the same sentences because the lack of oxygen inside the coffin has begun to affect her brain, and a great moment for Sloane, when he asks everyone to shut up and listen to him, but this is largely a Marshall episode, and Kevin Weisman clearly has a ball with his expanded role. However, all the strengths of "Tuesday" cannot hide the fact that this is yet another filler-ish episode, of the kind that has "helped" make season 4 the weakest of "Alias" so far. *** out of 4.

When Sydney is sent to Havana to make contact with a man offering to give her details about the 'Third Faction' she has little idea just how badly it will turn out. The meeting appears to go well and she gets the information that leads Dixon to a computer hard drive. Afterwards however she is captured along with her contact; he is promptly executed but she is destined for a far worse fate… she is buried alive. Meanwhile back at APO Dixon hands over the hard drive to one of the technical staff but as soon as he tries to access it a deadly toxin is released, this forces APO to go into lock down. The only member of the team outside is Marshall, this means he must get to Havana, track Sydney's phone signal and dig her up before her air runs out. If that wasn't enough once he has got her out they learn that the man responsible has a lot more of the toxin so the two of them must go to Berlin to retrieve the data off the real hard drive. As he has seen Sydney this means Marshall will have to bluff his way into the man's office and keep him talking long enough to clone his computer. Of course it isn't quite that simple and Marshall is forced to do some fairly serious things with a spork before their inevitable success!

This was a great episode with gave Marshall a chance to get out of the office and be the hero for once. Kevin Weisman does a great job in the role. It also made an interesting change to see Sydney genuinely terrified; usually she has a degree of control under the worst of circumstances but here she just has to lie there hoping that Marshall will get to her in time.

This episode of Alias made me stop and take the time to write this review as it took me back to the first two seasons in which every episode was so action packed and covered so much story line I had a hard time taking it in. "Tuesday" is a great throwback to the first couple of seasons of Alias thus I give it a 10 for taking me back to the show that after the first two episodes I shared was the fastest paced, most intense show I had never heard of (found it on Netflix and streamed it 10 years after going off the air). But good is good and this episode is great in more ways than I will comment other than to document it here for the series watchers to know that even in Season 4 they can still hit one out of the park!!!