aliasXiolablue
Cadet
this is not about the baby but who the other little girl who was in the pics with Micheal and Jen 
Jonathan Storm | 'Alias' crew guarding the finale from spiesBy Jonathan Storm
Inquirer Columnist
SCOTT GARFIELD / ABC
Jennifer Garner plays Sydney Bristow in ABC's spy show "Alias."
More photosThey like their TV secrets on the staff of Alias.
There's no talking about developments on the previous night's hot TV show because somebody might not have seen it yet, executive producer and show runner Jeff Pinkner explained over breakfast at the Disney Studios commissary here late last month.
"Among us writers, there's a cone of silence... . But there is a statute of limitations. After a week, you're allowed to talk about it. If somebody hasn't caught up by then, too bad."
The crew is hoping silence will be maintained about the two-hour Alias finale, airing at 9 p.m. tomorrow on ABC. The spy show starring Jennifer Garner as Sydney Bristow is ending, promising answers to all the major head-scratchers, and there are some doozies, posed over five years.
It's just the kind of thing that excites know-it-alls. There is even a Web site, SpoilerFix.com, devoted to revealing TV show action before it happens. Those tidbits have been labeled "spoilers," even by the folks who trade in them, because they do spoil the show for people who want to be surprised.
"The viewing experience is that much better if you don't know what the twist or the secret's going to be," Pinkner said. "So we're hoping that people will practice some sort of radio silence."
Nine-year-old Rachel G. Fox, granddaughter of Victor and Rosemarie Kovacs of Voorhees, is one of those people. In the finale, she plays super spy Sydney as a child.
"It's all about who Jennifer Garner became, and why she's like that," Rachel said in a phone interview, "but we're not saying why. You have to wait and see.
"They made me swear not to tell," she said. "I sweared, and my fingers were not crossed."
Well, that's all fine, but couldn't a bad kid working on the show swear with her fingers crossed, and then run out and spill the secrets?
"Boy, I sure hope not," said Rachel, whose budding TV career includes stints on the Disney Channel's That's So Raven and Hannah Montana. "But I'm not a bad kid. I'm a good kid."
Sadly, Rachel, there have been blabbermouths associated with the show, a complex spy thriller in which Sydney and her pals and her father, played by Victor Garber, race hither and yon to try to foil villains intent, basically, on ruling the world. (Fun fact: Though the show has portrayed exotic locales from Bhutan to Brussels, it has been shot entirely within a 30-mile radius of Burbank, except for one trip - why not? - to Las Vegas.)
Said Pinkner: "Not this year, but in the past, we were subject to a lot of leaks, and we did an investigation and narrowed it down. We never confronted the person, but made it clear that we knew who it was. And it stopped."
The story of the investigation sounds almost like a plotline on Alias, never a huge hit, but popular with younger folks, whom advertisers love, and one of the few bright spots on ABC's schedule when it began in 2001.
To verify authenticity, the show hired a CIA consultant, who turned out to be unauthorized to comment on real operations at the secret agency. But one Alias staffer had a brother who was a spy buff.
"He managed to learn things about the CIA guy that were closely held secrets," Pinkner said. " 'So, when you were the station chief in Berlin in '93,' he'd say, and the CIA guy was, like, 'I wasn't the station chief, and how did you know that?' "
The real spy got the boot. The brother got hired. He eventually joined the writing staff, and, said Pinkner, "in a very Alias-like fashion, identified the leak."
It doesn't take a show regular to spill the beans. Extras, mailroom people, caterers - there's a vast world of potential spoiler-mongers.
"We've never filmed a trick scene" to throw real spies off guard, Pinkner says. "It's too expensive."
But the producers have distributed scripts by hand and published ones with fake pages, giving the real thing to actors and directors only on the day of shooting. Other shows, including Lost, which, like Alias, was created by J.J. Abrams, have done that, too. Producers communicate orally with the executives who need to know about what's really going on.
Maybe.
Pinkner told an ER tale: "When Julianna Margulies went back to North Carolina, and George Clooney was waiting for her, somehow, they managed to keep it secret from the studio and the network. They were furious, because they would have wanted to promote George Clooney's return. Our twists aren't quite that big."
Still, just before breakfast, Pinkner spent 10 minutes in a deep huddle with an ABC publicist trying to ensure that the network would not give away the farm in promoting the Alias finale. The resulting press release is somewhat obscure, but it does reveal some plot details and talks about a "deadly plan," hatched by characters who will remain anonymous here.
To avoid the American Idol season-ender, Alias, which has aired Wednesdays throughout its run, goes out on a Monday, opposite another tough customer, the season finale of TV's biggest spy thriller, 24.
"Our audiences have a huge overlap," says Pinkner. "Most of them are the sort of people who know how to work their VCRs and TiVo, thank God."
Rachel probably will be watching, said her mother, Victoria Bush, even though the show's on a little late for her. But what she sees won't be a complete surprise.
"We saw some pictures on the Internet of some of my scenes," the little girl explained.
Jonathan Storm | 'Alias' crew guarding the finale from spiesBy Jonathan Storm
Inquirer Columnist
SCOTT GARFIELD / ABC
Jennifer Garner plays Sydney Bristow in ABC's spy show "Alias."
More photosThey like their TV secrets on the staff of Alias.
There's no talking about developments on the previous night's hot TV show because somebody might not have seen it yet, executive producer and show runner Jeff Pinkner explained over breakfast at the Disney Studios commissary here late last month.
"Among us writers, there's a cone of silence... . But there is a statute of limitations. After a week, you're allowed to talk about it. If somebody hasn't caught up by then, too bad."
The crew is hoping silence will be maintained about the two-hour Alias finale, airing at 9 p.m. tomorrow on ABC. The spy show starring Jennifer Garner as Sydney Bristow is ending, promising answers to all the major head-scratchers, and there are some doozies, posed over five years.
It's just the kind of thing that excites know-it-alls. There is even a Web site, SpoilerFix.com, devoted to revealing TV show action before it happens. Those tidbits have been labeled "spoilers," even by the folks who trade in them, because they do spoil the show for people who want to be surprised.
"The viewing experience is that much better if you don't know what the twist or the secret's going to be," Pinkner said. "So we're hoping that people will practice some sort of radio silence."
Nine-year-old Rachel G. Fox, granddaughter of Victor and Rosemarie Kovacs of Voorhees, is one of those people. In the finale, she plays super spy Sydney as a child.
"It's all about who Jennifer Garner became, and why she's like that," Rachel said in a phone interview, "but we're not saying why. You have to wait and see.
"They made me swear not to tell," she said. "I sweared, and my fingers were not crossed."
Well, that's all fine, but couldn't a bad kid working on the show swear with her fingers crossed, and then run out and spill the secrets?
"Boy, I sure hope not," said Rachel, whose budding TV career includes stints on the Disney Channel's That's So Raven and Hannah Montana. "But I'm not a bad kid. I'm a good kid."
Sadly, Rachel, there have been blabbermouths associated with the show, a complex spy thriller in which Sydney and her pals and her father, played by Victor Garber, race hither and yon to try to foil villains intent, basically, on ruling the world. (Fun fact: Though the show has portrayed exotic locales from Bhutan to Brussels, it has been shot entirely within a 30-mile radius of Burbank, except for one trip - why not? - to Las Vegas.)
Said Pinkner: "Not this year, but in the past, we were subject to a lot of leaks, and we did an investigation and narrowed it down. We never confronted the person, but made it clear that we knew who it was. And it stopped."
The story of the investigation sounds almost like a plotline on Alias, never a huge hit, but popular with younger folks, whom advertisers love, and one of the few bright spots on ABC's schedule when it began in 2001.
To verify authenticity, the show hired a CIA consultant, who turned out to be unauthorized to comment on real operations at the secret agency. But one Alias staffer had a brother who was a spy buff.
"He managed to learn things about the CIA guy that were closely held secrets," Pinkner said. " 'So, when you were the station chief in Berlin in '93,' he'd say, and the CIA guy was, like, 'I wasn't the station chief, and how did you know that?' "
The real spy got the boot. The brother got hired. He eventually joined the writing staff, and, said Pinkner, "in a very Alias-like fashion, identified the leak."
It doesn't take a show regular to spill the beans. Extras, mailroom people, caterers - there's a vast world of potential spoiler-mongers.
"We've never filmed a trick scene" to throw real spies off guard, Pinkner says. "It's too expensive."
But the producers have distributed scripts by hand and published ones with fake pages, giving the real thing to actors and directors only on the day of shooting. Other shows, including Lost, which, like Alias, was created by J.J. Abrams, have done that, too. Producers communicate orally with the executives who need to know about what's really going on.
Maybe.
Pinkner told an ER tale: "When Julianna Margulies went back to North Carolina, and George Clooney was waiting for her, somehow, they managed to keep it secret from the studio and the network. They were furious, because they would have wanted to promote George Clooney's return. Our twists aren't quite that big."
Still, just before breakfast, Pinkner spent 10 minutes in a deep huddle with an ABC publicist trying to ensure that the network would not give away the farm in promoting the Alias finale. The resulting press release is somewhat obscure, but it does reveal some plot details and talks about a "deadly plan," hatched by characters who will remain anonymous here.
To avoid the American Idol season-ender, Alias, which has aired Wednesdays throughout its run, goes out on a Monday, opposite another tough customer, the season finale of TV's biggest spy thriller, 24.
"Our audiences have a huge overlap," says Pinkner. "Most of them are the sort of people who know how to work their VCRs and TiVo, thank God."
Rachel probably will be watching, said her mother, Victoria Bush, even though the show's on a little late for her. But what she sees won't be a complete surprise.
"We saw some pictures on the Internet of some of my scenes," the little girl explained.
