Alias

Thanks to the belated joy of Christmas giving and receiving, I am now the proud owner of all five seasons of Alias. I never thought I'd be a collector of TV show series! (Btw, if anyone would like to watch five years' worth of TV in a week straight, let me show you how.) As I embark on my fifth and final season of Alias, now seems like an appropriate time to reflect on the life lessons that I've learned from the show.

Top Five Life Lessons from Alias

1. Parking garages are veeery dangerous places. Every time you walk to your car and find yourself fumbling for your keys, you are going to get attacked.

2. They are watching you. They will find you. It will be good if you can hide in a heating duct.

3. Death is not necessarily final. When someone dies, you could very well see them again ... usually still on this side of glory. But they will show up when you least suspect it, and they will probably be allied with somebody evil.

4. There is such thing as good and evil; it's a deeply engrained truth that "tolerant" America just can't seem to shake. It's abundantly clear who are the "good guys" and who are the "bad guys," and good must triumph over evil. It's the hope that the characters cling to in the show, and it's the resolution we need at the end of each episode.

5. Watching Alias with my two dogs isn't nearly as fun as it was to watch Seasons 1-4 (not in that order, since we started with season 2) with the gang in the top floor of Machen. I can't label my living room "APO," I can't groan when yet another person turns out to be a double agent, and I don't have anyone with whom to speculate when/how/if Vaughan is going to be back (please don't tell me, but I just know he's coming back! - see point 3). Machen men and women of the world: I miss you!