Alias is famous for its multi-locational missions, its astonishing costumes, high drama storylines and its futuristic threats and villains. As far as “Ice” goes, all of these elements are present and accounted for.

Opening with a mission seems to be becoming the norm for the new season, once again showing why the APO team have been selected to work together – their various skills and the complexity of these new missions require something more than the usual two-man team. Although obviously at slower pace than last weeks Bahama’s mission, the teaser proves to be an intriguing one. The APO team are working on obtaining a sample of a new bio-weapon which may be released on the black-market. But when their suspect is made, they are forced to extract him. Moments before reaching the van, he shatters into a million pieces like a chunk of ice.

The whole incident was more closely related to an episode of The X-Files or Buffy The Vampire Slayer than it was to any of the previous Alias instalments. But the teaser was the only X-File-esque feature, as “Ice” quickly re-establishes the Alias trend in futuristic weapons in the world of tomorrow (or two years from now as the case may be). Not surprising considering this is the first episode both writren and directed by new showrunner and former Buffy genius Jeffery Bell.

Snippy Bristow was back in this episode, sporting her usual brand or sarcastic humour. The “seems to be all the rage among evil geniuses” is up their with some of her best, including her confrontation with NSC Director Bob Lindsay last season. The dialogue throughout the entire episode was exemplarary and among the best Alias has ever produced.

It was a shame though to see Nadia confined to a desk for the majority of the episode investigating a photo of her mother (which was not a photo of Lena Olin), but her interactions with Weiss were top-notch, and there is a certain spark existing between the two characters. Given Greg Grunberg’s reputation for stealing the light from lead actors in other shows, one might worry that very soon Nadia and Weiss will be a more entertaining couple to watch than Sydney and Vaughn.

As for Nadia’s investigation itself, it was an excellent attempt to give her character some connection to her mother Irina. A connection which may never exist. The idea that Sydney and Nadia do have cousins out there is a intriguing notion, although it could be potentially damaging to the series if another long lost spy-relative was discovered and worked into the story. They still have one more aunt out there – Yelena Derevko, and Katya hasn’t been seen since last season’s finale so there are still plenty Derevko's to go around.

Vaughn seemed to take the forefront of the episode, and his character was finally given some much needed emotional development – just four episodes ago he killed the woman he had been married to for over two years. The woman he’d loved for two years. That shouldn’t be an easy thing to get over, and the episode shows just how conflicted Vaughn truly is about the whole ordeal. Having him undercover as a preacher while he makes his confessions about Lauren was an ironic twist, and since it wasn’t Sydney he made these confessions to in the first place, their co-dependant trust will no doubt re-surface in future episodes. Michael Vartan done a good job, and although the Scottish accents of all involved in the operation were poorly done, and the conclusion was a tad predictable, the mission didn’t fail to entertain.

But it begs the question, why was Michael Vartan’s performance more captivating than anyone else’s? Normally it is Jennifer Garner who takes the lead with her complicated family drama, her desire to uncover some hidden secret whilst saving the world from international crime in the process. There is only one answer: this season Michael Vartan has been given more to work with. He has a drive to get over his wife’s death, forget that she was a traitor and to finally rebuild his life. What is driving Sydney? Her mother is dead as is the one responsible, she has no desire to expose her father’s part in the assassination and her sister Nadia is no longer pushing to learn who ordered the hit. This is what the problem was with the second half of the third season – once the answers of the two-year blackout were disclosed, there was nothing compelling Sydney to stay within the agency. Nothing pushing her to meet the objectives set and no clear cut direction to focus the series. It is an aspect which is missed in the series, and it is evident that something is missing from the Sydney character. Hopefully that aspect will be restored in the upcoming episodes.

There was still no mention of The Covenant, or of Arvin Sloane’s master plan for APO, cause lets face it, he isn’t in there to help the CIA – he has an endgame and he has killed powerful people to keep that endgame secret. Jack’s role was also very refined, and acted no more as a conduit to deal with Nadia’s investigation of the child in the photo of her mother. We know Victor Garber is capable of so much more, both emotionally and in the field. We’ve seen him in action, so why should he be confined to the background now?

But that doesn't matter - “Ice” was a fine addition to the fourth season and it's events are bound to return and cause all sorts of chaos for the characters involved. And lets not forget that Jeffery Bell once again proves how much of a genius he really is!