Before joining Alias, Drew Goddard had a high profile career as a veteran writer on Buffy The Vampire Slayer and then its spin-off series Angel. All of his episodes are perhaps the most compelling and addictively entertaining of each series.

Buffy’s “Conversations With Dead People” very cleverly set up the tone of the final season, mixing up the agenda’s of all the central characters. “Lineage” from Angel’s fifth season saw one of the central characters butt heads with his own father in an attempt to justify his way of life whilst also fending off a siege, and then at the end of the season “The Girl In Question” done the impossible by neatly wrapping up the outstanding issue of the Angel-Buffy-Spike romance without the involvement of Sarah Michelle Gellar. And he accomplished it in a hysterical blend of action and sitcom style antics.

In joining Alias, Goddard has a lot to give the series, but there is also a high level of transition to be expected. Not only is Alias for an older demographic, but the tone and character dynamics are completely different.

“Welcome To Liberty Village” was Goddard’s first outing in the spy-drama, and what an outing it was. Delivering the usual blend of action packed adventure and heart warming romance, the episode also introduced a level of humour never before seen on Alias.

We’ve always known that foreign spies must have been trained to infiltrate the states during the cold war, including Irina Derevko who not only duped one of the CIA’s best operatives, but also relayed highly classified material to the KGB. The specifics of this training was always kept a little ambiguous,

The concept of a 10 mile Americanised housing estate in the middle of Russia was a little ridiculous. The funds required to create such a training facility must be huge, and the idea of having such a geographically large outdoor installation was a little hard to fathom. But Alias is no stranger to mixing the weird with the expected – the entire Rambaldi storyline was a little far-fetched, but it worked and is part of what makes Alias so interesting to watch. Liberty Village was no different.

Seeing Sydney and Vaughn in average clothing was an interesting and unforgettable experience. As was watching them shop for a convertible. The level of humour was similar to that of Goddard’s previous Buffy and Angel instalments.

Despite all the kissing and naked get-togethers, for the second episode in a row the developing romance between Weiss and Nadia has stolen the show from Sydney and Vaughn. It might be the scenario the characters find themselves in – Vaughn was married to a traitor and he killed his wife and both are still trying to deal with that. Weiss and Nadia are starting a relationship fresh without any emotional baggage. And the obvious chemistry between the two actors is astonishing, and never fails to entertain. In actual fact, it is surprisingly similar to Sydney and Vaughn in the first season…lets just hope they don’t go through the same bumps on the road.

And finally, like all of Goddard’s episodes, there is always some piece to the larger puzzle - confirmation that Sloane does indeed have an endgame was a welcome turn of events. But the shock that Jack is involved in Sloane’s plan was something which was unexpected and will surely come back in the future. Almost as shocking was the revelation that the codename Sentinal belongs to Yelena Derevko – the third of the Derevko sisters. The introduction of Yelena was handled rather well considering it was done without an onscreen appearance, and like the budding relationship of Weiss and Nadia, it was similar to the first season of Alias, when Sydney first learned that her mother was not actually dead.

Based solely on “Liberty Village,” Goddard’s addition to the Alias writing team is a welcome one, and will help return Alias to its roots and usher the series into new horizons of storytelling.