ALIAS to Go the Way of Vaughn, Danny, Noah and Pretty Much Every Guy Sydney Has Ever Boinked

R.I.P. ALIAS.

That's what I'm hearing from my top-level entertainment industry sources, the same sources who correctly informed me that Alias would be moving to Wednesdays at 10 p.m. just a few weeks ago.

If what they're saying is right -- and let's be honest, you didn't need to be MILO RAMBALDI to see this coming -- the ABC spy series will not be renewed for a sixth season.

Sometimes the truth hurts...

It's sad, but appropriate. The show never grew into the blockbuster hit the network had hoped (and now thanks to hits like Lost, Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy, now demands) and on a creative level, the show has simply fallen from grace.

With no more need to kowtow to network execs hoping for another season renewal, I hope the creative minds at Alias will make like JACK BRISTOW and completely ignore standard protocol for the sake of the mission: to end the series on a satisfying note for all the fans that stuck by it these past five years and to return the series to the glory of its peerless first two seasons (the first 35 episodes of which, I firmly believe are the greatest 35 episodes of serialized television ever).

So, what do we hope to get from the last batch of episodes?

Well, I've always felt that the series should always end with Sydney having a child of her own. Check! Good job guys, you're on the right track.

Bring Sydney's relationship with her father back to the fore front. We've seriously been missing on VICTOR GARBER this season.

SLOANE is never better than when he's slated as Sydney's arch nemesis. Make their animosity a central conflict of the series' final episodes.

Wake Sydney's half-spy-sis NADIA out of her coma so that we can be treated to the all-out, long-prophecied, Passenger v. Chosen One duel we've been promised for two seasons.

Return to RAMBALDI. Enough of this Prophet Five garbage. Connect it to the show's central mythology once and for all. That Big, Red Ball disaster of the Season IV finale could not have been Rambaldi's ultimate endgame. What was Sydney really chosen for? And what about her child? Let's come face-to-face with the big guy's grand design -- and perhaps the man himself -- in the final episodes.

Minimize the newbies -- now that you know there won't be a spin-off, no need to waste time developing RACHEL, TOM or RENEE.

Bring back ANGELA BASSETT, DIRECTOR KENDALL, ISABELLA ROSSELLINI, and WILL (God knows BRADLEY COOPER's gonna need the work). We miss these guys!

Have one of Sydney's parents die. It's time for one of them to make the ultimate sacrifice. (I'd love to see an Oedipal clash between Irina and Sydney, but I doubt that will ever happen.)

Make Sydney leave the spy biz by series end and set her up as an English teacher, just as she always wanted. And make the last line of the show "My name is Sydney," or "I'm Sydney." No more aliases, just her. It's the only logical way to go.

I don't care if you bring MICHAEL VARTAN and VAUGHN back or not. I sense the fans really want him back, but resurrecting him like you've done for a gillion other characters feels a little cheap to me. Whatever you do, just make sure that we get a satisfying bit of closure to their relationship that is as hopeful as it is satisfying.

I don't care what you have to do. Get LENA OLIN back for AT LEAST four episodes. IRINA DEREVKO stands as one of the most unfulfilled promises of this series. I know that's greatly Lena's fault, but come on. Fire all the new actors if you need to to pay for her salary and bring her back -- the conflict, the mystery, the shifting allegiances, the cold stares, and the triceps.

And finally, most importantly -- J.J. ABRAMS please come back to write the finale. I know you're super busy with Tom and Keri directing MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III. But by the time it comes to write this finale -- early March -- principal photography will be done and you'll be well on your way through editing. You conceived, wrote, cast, shot and edited the two-hour LOST pilot in, like two months. You've worked on an impossible, marathon TV schedule for seven years, I'm sure you can work up the energy and find the time to bang out the final episode. Fact of the matter is, no one writes these characters, balances the tone, or hits the notes of this series better than J.J. Just look at the episodes he's written -- the Pilot, "Almost 30 Years," "Phase One." Even in lackluster seasons, the episodes he wrote were bar none, the best of the year.

Please, J.J. Come back home and make things right. Don't leave us with Sydney's dew-eyed, about-to-cry expression (see left) for the rest of our days.

(NOTE: SINCE THIS HAS YET TO BE CONFIRMED BY ABC, TAKE THE NEWS WITH A GRAIN OF SALT. I WILL SAY, HOWEVER, THAT ALL SIMILAR AND RELATED INFO FROM MY INDUSTRY DEEP THROAT HAS BEEN ACCURATE, AND WITH THE SHOW'S DIPPING RATINGS, IT DOES SEEM LIKE THE WRITING'S ON THE WALL.)