“I declare it’s marked out just like a large chess-board!” Alice said at last. “There ought to be some men moving about somewhere—and so there are!” she added in a tone of delight, and her heart began to beat quick with excitement as she went on. “It’s a great huge game of chess that’s being played—all over the world—if this is the world at all, you know. Oh, what fun it is! How I wish I was one of them! I wouldn’t mind being a Pawn, if only I might join—though of course I should like to be a Queen, best.” She glanced rather shyly at the real Queen as she said this, but her companion only smiled pleasantly, and said, “That’s easily managed. You can be the White Queen’s Pawn, if you like, as Lily’s too young to play; and you’re in the Second Square to begin with: when you get to the Eighth Square you’ll be a Queen—” (Looking-Glass, 207)

SLOANE (to Jack): I thought Rambaldi’s work was that window to the past. Today, I am one move away from proving to you that it is so much more than that. And this time, Sydney won’t be a pawn in our venture. (“Second Double,” 2-21)

What does a modern television hybrid of the spy drama and the glossy soap—Alias—have in common with a Victorian-era children’s nonsense book and its sequel—Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Wonderland) and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (Looking-Glass)? Perhaps  …