Alias (TV Series) Mirage (2005) User Reviews

Looking for Jack's doctor

[Tweekums · 8/10 · 17 September 2010]

This episode starts off shortly after the previous one ended; Dixon is still undercover trying to recover the Hydrosek poison. As the delivery man is approaches Sydney and Vaughn manage to intercept him and after an explosive fight manage to recover the Hydrosek. Jack meanwhile is getting desperate for a cure; his doctor found something that might possibly cure him but it has only been tested on rats and even then the 'cure' killed most of them more quickly that the radiation would of. He goes off to procure the 'cure' by which time Sydney is getting concerned about him. She breaks into his flat and finds his notebook which indicates what the matter with him is. With Marshall's help she tracks him down just as the doctor is about to administer the cure... only there is no doctor; Jack is alone in a derelict building, all his visits to the doctor were delusions caused by his illness! His delusion wasn't totally irrational though, the doctor he imagined does exist, Jack extracted him from the Soviet Union in the '80s and as his speciality is mutations caused by radiation he could indeed cure Jack. The only man who knows where the doctor is is Jack and he is too delusional to tell anybody. Using his delusions Sydney impersonates her mother and this works. Just because members of the team are busy doesn't mean the bad guys are taking time off; Elena wants the Hydrosek and as used her closeness to Nadia to access her computer and steal access codes.

This was a good episode; I was really shocked to learn that Jack's doctor was all in his head, I thought he was suspicious but never for one minute thought he was imaginary. Elena is proving to be an interesting character, she too provided a surprise, I wasn't expecting Sophia to be the third Derevko sister. The two halves of her characters contrast nicely; her public persona of Sophia is caring and friendly yet we see that behind that façade there is a calculating mind willing to kill anybody who comes between her and her goal.

"Even his delusions are lucid"

[gridoon2024 · 8/10 · 19 January 2010]

After an action-packed prologue where Sydney, Dixon and Vaughn manage to get their hands on the dangerous bioweapon of the previous episode (and where it becomes clear, once again, that red is Sydney's best undercover hair color), "Mirage" focuses mostly on Jack's health problems. His condition is getting worse and worse, to the point where he is hallucinating. There is one man, a doctor / spy / old friend of Jack's, who may have developed a cure, but Jack hid him under a new identity almost 25 years ago. Sloane devises a plan to "guide" Jack's illusions towards revealing the hiding place of that doctor, by convincing him he's living in 1981. And who better to portray his then-still-beloved wife, Laura Bristow, than Sydney herself? "Alias" has actually done something similar (creating a fake environment) before, in season 3's "Facade", but this is still unique for the way it allows one character (Sydney) to practically walk and live through another character's (Jack) flashbacks! By posing as her own mother, Sydney gets a first-hand look at how much Jack loved Laura before her betrayal, and how deeply he cared for his daughter that his profession was always keeping him away from. It's a sequence that's both suspenseful and moving. "Mirage" also gives us our first look at Elena Derevko in field action: having already been described as the deadliest of the Derevko sisters, Elena has a lot to live up to in that department, but she's certainly off to a "good" (in a manner of speaking!) start. *** out of 4.

Brilliant.. if Only You're Family !

[elshikh4 · 8/10 · 13 November 2007]

Yes, this one is fairly good, putting in mind (J.J. Abrams)'s main formula for (Alias) as a modern melodramatic continuous copy of (Mission: Impossible), because by knowing that, you may catch on this episode's and this season's real fun.

After (James Bond)'s movies; with one man, and (Mission: Impossible)'s shows; with one team, (J.J. Abrams) made the fourth season of (Alias) like one family! And regardless of that being so terribly unbelievable, and against any fact at any intelligence, it's how the show was running, and you may buy it or not. Therefore, (Alias), at that time, seemed more like a reproduction of (Dallas) but as a troubled less richer family, which all of its members are working in the spying business. As if (Sloane) is the vulpine (J.R) who is trying to redeem himself, with all the same old melodrama of cheater wives, amnesia, I have a daughter from a long past, I slept with my wife's sister!, my father is murdered?, No.. my father is alive?, who is my real mother?, who killed my mother?.. etc. In addition to the best action / sci-fi you'll ever have from TV at the first half of 2000s. By sticking to that, and sticking to that only, you'll get the intended meanings of this show as pure thrilling yet sentimental time.

(Mirage) made clear that this series had some gifted potentials that had been gone to naive irrational status lately. Actually, despite your enjoyment, you'll find yourself in the sorrow zone as this good work isn't in the right place, among the presence of too many wrong points. For instance, (Sloane) who gone sweet, the (Rambaldi)'s endless curriculum, the APO nonsense as a CIA secret branch which had been directed by the CIA's oldest enemy like it's the SD-6 again but with the good guys and for noble purposes!, and whatever had been made just to put (Alias) on air and utilize its earlier success. But anyway if you measure the last 3 seasons not by the first 2 seasons' quality, but by their own desire to make enjoyment, and how they were successful at it; then you may feel how good they were as absolute fun, however without a sense of solidness or persuasion.

Anyway, in this episode, while (Jack)'s illness came to a deadlock, it was a fascinating twist when we discover that the whole sequences of (Jack)'s funny doctor were his own hallucination all along. The discovery of that was one of the most surprising twists I've ever seen whether in (Alias) or any other show. You'll have fine storyline, as the team made (Jack) return to the year of 1981 in his house, with his wife and his young daughter, just to make him remember the place of the one and only doctor who has the ability to cure his destructive illness. It's a clever one indeed, making all the thrill without the usual action sequences, and further than that it fulfilled a look to (Jack)'s history as a loving father who couldn't have a time to spend with his family, his weakness as a spy so his confession to his wife (the enemy's spy later) about all of his work's secrets, and how the long disordered relationship between him and his daughter was a result of that fault of him as he didn't hate his traitorous wife in (Sydney)'s image only, he hated himself too. And then we have the marvelous finale of this charade as the only chance for (Sydney) to see herself in a loving moment with her father as a child through the smart part of the piano's playing. Ladies and gentlemen; this is drama!

There was strong performance from quite everybody, especially (Jennifer Garner) and (Victor Garber). Both of them made me unable to know who was better than the other!

Of course there was also the loose end of the previous episode, which we watched its end briefly at the start of this one, and the other storyline of (Mirage) about (Sophia)'s dark powers. But nothing compared to the emotive charade, which simply utilized the original good structure of the characters to expose their history in the same old formula of (Alias), namely some thrill + some emotions. And it's so brilliant here if only you're familiar with that unique new (Dallas)'s family, or part of (Alias)'s big family of fans.