Alias (TV Series) The Horizon (2005) User Reviews

Brilliant from start to finish

[gridoon2024 · 9/10 · 7 February 2010]

The mind-trip episodes of "Alias" have been among the strongest of the show so far: season 3 had "Conscious", season 4 had "In Dreams", and season 5 has "The Horizon". One thing they all have in common is how they surreally blur the line between dreams and memories: Sydney and Sloane do not just remember things as they happened; they change them in their minds according to their wishes - or their fears. These episodes are mind-bending in the same way that "Lost" at its best is ("Flashes Before Your Eyes"). But that's not the only strength of "The Horizon": we also get to see Peyton and Renée at their deadliest, Jack going all "Reservoir Dogs" on the captive Dr. Desantis to get him to reveal the location of the abducted Sydney (his answer is a cryptic clue: "it doesn't matter where she is, it matters where she's going"), the mythology of the show circling back on itself by using SD-6 as a major piece of the current puzzle, and a jaw-dropping revelation that the episode goes out of its way not to spoil by not announcing all the guest stars in the opening credits. The Sydney-Vaughn pairing rarely convinced me more than it does here. ***1/2 out of 4.

Vaughn returns... in a way

[Tweekums · 8/10 · 4 February 2012]

This episode begins the way many other Alias episodes do; with Sydney in a difficult situation before jumping back a couple of days to show how she got there. This time she has been captured and is being questioned using some sort of hypnotic technique that makes her believe she is back with Vaughn. When we flash back we see Payton accessing a CIA facility to steal all the files on dead agents... creating a couple more in the process. Prophet Five are looking for something called 'The Horizon' and hoped to find its location is Vaughn's file; they don't find it but do discover that he told Sydney. It is at this point that they kidnap her and begin trying to find out what she knows. In the hypnotic state she talks to Vaughn about it even though she is vaguely aware that her experiences aren't real. When Sydney is kidnapped her father and Renée interrogate one of the kidnappers who Renée captures but he won't talk and the only clue leads them to a rather sinister room in Hungary!

This was an enjoyable episode with the right mix of action, intrigue and surprises. It was good to see Michael Vartan return as Vaughn even though he wasn't real his presence has been missed this series. Once again Amy Acker was fun to watch as Peyton; I love how her character acts believable sweet and innocent right up until the point she does something horrible! The best surprises, which I won't spoil, are learning who is behind Sydney's capture and where she is being held; the ending is certainly a cliffhanger!

"We always find each other"

[pedroedro · 9/10 · 9 September 2019]

In this episode we have three of the most famous gimmicks of the show all combined in one episode . 1) The "We think this person it's on the good side...oh no it's not!" 2) The "Recall" sequence in which a person is linked to a machine in search of answers in the past (as it happened before with Jack, Sloane and even Will in the beggining of the series (who probably was the first object to this procedure) 3) The "Reset" Sequence, this is what i call to those episodes who start out in a cliffhanger, than it goes back a few hours, one day or in this case two full days. This episode was a suprise treat. You know that old saying "You don't know what you have till it's gone" , well with Michael Vaughn it's a little bit different, it's like I didn't knew what I had until he was back, but now I can see how he was a main structure of the show, all these seasons, for all season 5 I felt something was missing, and now I can say that a big part of that (coupled with Sydney being full in action) is Michael Vaughn. The episodes where they make a certain character go to the past, have always been the best ones, Conscious, In Dreams and Mirage have always been amongst my favorite in the whole show, and this one does not disappoint, we see all season long Sydney being heartbroken about Vaughn's death , but not to this extent. The twists were very nicely done. Most of the crew barely shows up (Dixon, Marshall, Sloane, Rachel, etc) but it isn't required for this episode. The actor who played the "doctor" trying to get the informations out of Sydney was very menacing too. And the ending is one that makes you very curious to see what happens next. What I most enjoyed about this episode, actually , is how the flashbacks are from scenes we have actually seen throughout the years, where in other episodes mentions above, we are taken (mostly) to scenes that we had no recollection of happening , or if we did it happened the previous episode (like in Will's case) here we have several scenes going back to the first season, and even the first encounter of Sydney and Vaughn, and for someone who invests the time too stick through this show through it's ups and downs (and it has manys) it's very satisfying to have this approach to an episode, so far the best of season 5 in my opinion. 9/10 ********* Peter Shelby