Absolutely! I agree entirely about the necessity of Stan finding out - although this, I feel, was actually a bit rushed, and didn't have quite the pay-off I'd hoped (unlike Martha's ushering out of the country after she found out the truth about her "husband", which I thought was *excellently* done). But it still worked, and the show did have a lot of ground to cover in a short time, so I'm not mad at it for that. :-)

I haven't watched Alias, but yes, that is exactly the same assumption - that the viewers will automatically share certain common national viewpoints and opinions. I'm sure that by and large it's a correct assumption, for the intended audience, but as an outsider these moments range from interesting to extremely jarring for me.

Though I would have to think about this at more length, I must say that I suspect it isn't a coincidence that the shows that throw me out of my suspension of disbelief (and even anger me) with their false assumption are shows that are not particularly well-written, and tend towards hitting the wrong beats anyway.