TV Diary | Alcatraz: “Paxton Petty”

TV Diary | Alcatraz – Episode 1.06 – “Paxton Petty” – Original Airdate: 2/13/12

Episode Grade: B

Been a while since we talked about Alcatraz but I wanted to check in with some quick thoughts on “Paxton Petty.” While not a bad episode by any means, it was a clear step backwards from the series high that was “Guy Hastings,” but in some respects that helped “Paxton Petty.” By that, I mean that an episode such as this that came earlier may not have been tolerated as well as “Paxton Petty” was simply because of the goodwill that Alcatraz has been building with its audience of late. The plotline is pretty rote – Madsen and crew track a dangerous bomber creating havoc throughout the Bay Area in an episode that echoes some of the lesser Alcatraz outings like “Ernest Cobb” and “Kit Nelson” – and they eventually do subdue him as per usual, but the real meat of “Paxton Petty” is in the flashbacks that give us some more insight into Lucy’s past [1]. Since Parminder Nagra has existed almost solely in flashback since episode two [2], Alcatraz hasn’t fleshed her character out much to this point but in “Paxton Petty” we learned that she and Hauser shared a mutual flirtation back in the 60s, that she wasn’t averse to using shock therapy or drugging her patients without their consent, and perhaps most importantly that she shared time with Tommy Madsen at The Rock [3] and would later openly question Dr. Beauregard as to why Madsen was so important only to be warned off of that line of questioning. Interestingly, Soto also made mention that to his knowledge, there were no female doctors at Alcatraz which raised the question of where exactly Lucy came from. Were she and Hauser an item in the present day and whatever process brought the inmates forward in time also is capable of taking people back in time as well? And what exactly is this mysterious procedure that Beauregard has at his disposal that causes Hauser to bring Lucy’s near-death body to him at the episode’s conclusion? While Alcatraz had trouble balancing its standalone story with its mythology this week, the mythology portion of the episode raised enough interesting questions to keep “Paxton Petty” from being a complete dud. Call it half a dud and hope for better next time.

[1] The “Previously On” montage prior to the episode was a clear hint that the episode was headed in this direction.
[2] Other than playing a vegetable in hospital scenes, that is.
[3] Where he wondered aloud why he always seemed to find himself in the infirmary and why his blood was constantly being taken.

Miscellany:
*As I mentioned previously Paxton Petty, the inmate-of-the-week, was probably the least compelling prisoner since Kit Nelson. Boiled down to one sentence: former soldier who came home and decided he still liked to blow things up. Yawn. There was none of the internal strife that we saw in Cal Sweeney or even Guy Hastings. He was simply a paint-by-numbers villain and we’ve seen that Alcatraz can do better than that when it’s actually trying. Granted, that Madsen and Soto actually got the drop on Petty early in the episode only to lose him until later was a different shading than what we’ve seen in the past but it’s going to take more than that kind of twist alone to keep these self-contained stories interesting. The gore factor in “Paxton Petty” was amped up a little higher than usualy but it fit with the aftermath of a bombing, as did the effect where we “heard” things from Madsen’s perspective post-explosion. It was pretty obvious, though, from the minute Mehcad Brooks stepped on screen as a brash bomb expert/former colleague of Madsen’s that he was going to bite it by the end of the episode and sure enough.. he went boom after getting Hauser to safety when Hauser unwittingly stepped onto one of Petty’s landmines. Not the best standalone story that Alcatraz has told yet, but far from the worst at the same time.
*No Robert Forster again. Boo, Alcatraz. Boo.
*Potentially interesting theory of the week: Soto posits that someone is supplying the 63s with their arms. Who and why? This could possibly fit in with Petty’s revelation that he went to sleep a week ago only to wake up on the floor of a tomb in the Presidio. He also offers to tell Madsen and Soto whatever they want to know in exchange for informing him exactly what happened to him. Problem is, they’re in the dark as much as we are at this point.
*What was the deal with Sam Neill’s odd line readings in the scene where a doctor informs Hauser of Lucy’s dire prospects? Maybe he’s still getting a handle on the character but his performance – particularly in this scene – seemed more than a little odd to me.
*Struck me as kind of ironic that the “new guard” of psychiatric medicine back in the 60s was electroshock therapy. Egad.
*Looks like there could be a potential nerd love connection between Soto and the ME he and Madsen visit to try to glean some information on the bombing. Her comic book t-shirt could hold the key to Soto’s heart.
*Random observation: Alcatraz is threatening at times to become almost Lost-lite.
*”Dueling sawbones. Old school vs. the new guard.”
*”I gotta go back inside. I never wear the right clothes.”
*”You probably won’t want to move now.”
*”How about we just cut the cop-to-psychopath chitchat and you just tell me what you want.”
*”You said he’s a vet, right? Afghanistan? Maybe we crossed paths.” “I doubt it.”
*”Couple of things. You just killed a good man. And my legs hurt.”
*Episode embedded below via Hulu, as usual.

TV Diary | Alcatraz: “Guy Hastings”

TV Diary | Alcatraz – Episode 1.05 – “Guy Hastings” – Original Airdate: 2/6/12

Episode Grade: A-

Now this… THIS is what I’d hoped Alcatraz was going to be all along. Following up its season-best episode in “Cal Sweeney,” Alcatraz managed to not only match the quality of its last installment but top it in the process. “Guy Hastings” advanced the mythology of the show in a compelling and fascinating way while managing to make its “inmate of the week” [1] story just as attention-grabbing. All along, we’ve been operating under the assumption that the only people who disappeared during the mysterious 1963 incident were inmates. However, “Guy Hastings” introduced the audience to the fact that it wasn’t just prisoners who mysteriously vanished – there were prison guards among the missing and Guy Hastings (Jim Parrack, True Blood), a training officer on The Rock, was one of them. That the episode focused on a former prison guard also gave the show occasion to bring back Robert Forster’s Ray Archer for the first time since the pilot [2] due to his status as a former guard himself and, sure enough, one of Hastings’ first moves is to track down his former protégé because he’s… wait for it… also looking for Tommy Madsen AKA Rebecca’s grandfather [3]. And just like that… BOOM. Mythology advanced. But the advancement didn’t stop there because in the process of the episode we would later learn that Ray got his job at the prison against the wishes of Tommy, which would lead to Tommy attacking his friend in full view of the other prisoners. After being advised by Hastings [4] that weakness will be exploited by the other inmates, Ray returns in kind by delivering a beating of his own to Tommy as a means of trying to regain respect, only to then later visit Tommy in the infirmary and tell him that he’s not going to let Tommy rot in Alcatraz alone because they’re… wait for it… actually brothers. That’s an incredible swerve that I admit that I did not see coming yet one that makes perfect sense. Of course Ray would take in Rebecca because she’s actually blood. Of course he would do what he could to try to help Tommy because they’re brothers. But Alcatraz went a step further by introducing a conflict between Ray and Tommy that seems to have taken place sometime between the flashback and present-day [5] because Ray IS aware that Tommy has returned and, in the episode’s final scene, there’s a confrontation between the two men that has Ray ominously warn Tommy, “Every moment you’re near puts her in harm’s way and if I see you again, I’ll kill you.” I’m really eager to see where this storyline is headed, probably more so than I’ve been about any of the show’s previous four episodes. I also really enjoyed getting a look at the mystery through the eyes of a former guard. While it’s difficult to feel sympathy for all of the inmates who were affected by the disappearance [6], seeing a straight-arrow such as Hastings be essentially ripped away from his family and then thrust into a different world while struggling to come to grips with what had happened to him helped to further illustrate the scope of the 1963 incident and the unintended effects it may have had. Watching Hastings wistfully looking at old family photos in what was once his home but has now long since been abandoned packs an emotional punch, as does his later declaration to Ray that the guards were told on the day of the disappearance that some kind of accident had claimed the lives of their families and that the guards themselves had been contaminated and were forbidden from leaving the prison. Hasting also confirms to Ray at one point that he’s searching for Tommy on orders from someone – “It’s what they told me.” – showing that, once again, Tommy Madsen is a lynchpin in whatever conspiracy is related to the disappearance. Without question, “Guy Hastings” was the best hour that Alcatraz has done yet. If there are more like this on the way, Alcatraz might really be onto something.

[1] Though, in this case, we actually weren’t dealing with an inmate.
[2] Seriously, guys… you had Robert Forster as a part of your cast and then had him sit on the sidelines for three straight episodes? What the hell?
[3] Who, in a seeming retrofit, we learned was Ray’s best friend, thus Ray’s decision to take her in and raise her himself. At least, that’s what we thought for a little while…
[4] And, as a possible impetus for Hastings seeking Ray out in the present-day, he goes to bat for him with Tiller after Tommy attacks Ray and saves his job in the process.
[5] We also learn that Tommy was initially imprisoned for the charge of killing his wife. When Rebecca asks Ray if he thinks that Tommy actually committed the murder Ray replies, “I didn’t. But then I did.”
[6] There was a good deal of sympathy engendered by Jack Sylvain and Cal Sweeney, to be sure.

Miscellany:
*”I’m not the first Madsen you asked to be on this task force, am I?” With those words comes confirmation that Ray is farther in on the conspiracy than we’d previously anticipated and that Hauser wants to find Tommy Madsen as badly as whoever’s running the conspiracy/disappearance does.
*Seeing an inherently good man like Hastings brutally beat a security officer who comes to investigate his presence in his old home and then take Ray hostage via force certainly lends credence to the theory that whatever’s bringing the 63s back is making them more violent. It’s one thing for a criminal like Cal Sweeney to come back and begin killing people but when a Boy Scout like Hastings starts handing out beatdowns, you have to wonder.
*Due to Hastings’ status as a former guard, we see Hauser take special interest in the case and go out into the field with Rebecca and Soto right off the bat instead of in the late stages of the game as we’ve seen in previous episodes.
*Hauser’s Nerd Council, first introduced in “Cal Sweeney,” isn’t just investigating the keys – Hauser mentions something about a spike in seismic activity on the day that Hastings returned, so it would appear that they’re all in on the entire conspiracy.
*”You know your dad who you thought was dead for 50 years? Well.. He’s kinda… back.”
*”You shouldn’t have come here.”
*”Where have I been? I haven’t been anywhere.”
*”You’re a casualty in this. You don’t deserve what happened to you.”
*”My grandfather is more important to you than I ever imagined, which means you need me much more than I need you.”
*Episode embedded below via Hulu, as usual.

TV Diary | Alcatraz: “Cal Sweeney”

TV Diary | Alcatraz – Episode 1.04 – “Cal Sweeney” – Original Airdate: 1/30/12

Episode Grade: B

Without question, “Cal Sweeney” was Alcatraz’s most successful episode to date. It advanced the mythology of the show and raised some interesting questions while providing the most compelling inmate story yet. Case first, since it does a nice job of dovetailing into the mythology: Cal Sweeney (Eric Johnson, Rookie Blue) is the latest inmate to show up in present-day San Francisco. Seen in flashback running a contraband ring on The Rock, Sweeney has returned and begun hitting banks in order to rummage through safety-deposit boxes [1], using lonely-hearts bank tellers as marks in order to pull off his heists. He then tracks down the owners of the stolen items, gets them to tell the story of why the bank-housed items were important to them, and then murders them. Via flashbacks, we learn that Sweeney’s cell was tossed by Tiller as retribution for not cutting Tiller in on his operation and a small tin box – contents unknown – that was very important to Sweeney was stolen from the cell, thus providing the impetus behind his current-day actions. During the course of the investigation, Soto mentions that Sweeney had never killed anyone prior to the present-day spree, which could be an interesting development to keep in mind as Alcatraz progresses. All of the inmates we’ve seen thus far have been very violent in their present-day incarnations. While it’s true that both Ernest Cobb and Kit Nelson were brutal killers back in the day, that wasn’t true of either Jack Sylvain or Sweeney so, what gives? Could it be connected to the fact that both Sylvain and Sweeney – and not Cobb or Nelson – were in possession of the mysterious keys? Speaking of the keys, Madsen and Soto get the drop on Sweeney’s final target via his propensity for using the same florist when sending flowers to his marks and, in an inventive twist, Madsen actually breaks into the bank herself in order to smuggle Sweeney out in an attempt to keep local law enforcement in the dark about the nature of the 63s. She later learns that Sweeney is in possession of one of the mystery keys and tries to force Hauser to reveal the keys’ meaning after turning Sweeney over, but is unsuccessful. They’ve at least now broached the subject with Madsen serving as the audience’s voice in wondering what the keys’ purpose is. Whether Alcatraz follows up on that and keeps Madsen as determined as the viewers in her curiosity to uncover the keys’ importance remains to be seen. The keys also lead to one of the more intriguing dangling threads of the episode, told via flashback. During the flashes to Sweeney’s time at Alcatraz, we see him mentoring a younger inmate who, it turns out, was playing Sweeney all along in order to take over his contraband operation [2]. In the episode’s final scene, Warden James takes Harlan to a secret room in the bowels of the prison, uses one of the mystery keys to open the door, and tells Harlan, “Your future just got a heckuva lot brighter, kid,” before shoving him into the room to some unseen person/being/something. Pretty solid cliffhanger that raises no small number of questions including: Who was in the room? Is this person/being/something responsible for the inmates’ return in 2012? What role does Harlan play in the overall conspiracy? Couple this with another flashback to a 1963 dinner attended by Warden James, Tiller, and Lucy Bannerjee [3] that does confirm that Dr. Beauregard [4] shares the non-aging effect of the 63s and Alcatraz is starting to show some encouraging forward momentum. The Alcatraz creative team would be wise to use “Cal Sweeney” as a template for future episodes – an engaging villain-of-the-week storyline that does have bearing on the overriding Alcatraz mystery while not being afraid to “embrace the weird,” as I’ve put it. Do that, and Alcatraz may yet develop into one of television’s more appealing sci-fi hours.

[1] The episode also establishes that Sweeney is hitting safe-deposit boxes instead of the banks’ vaults because the boxes themselves aren’t insured by the FDIC and, thus, stealing from them isn’t a federal crime. It’s a nice little touch that bodes well for the show’s future. Attention to detail like this is usually rewarded in the long run.
[2] Harlan (Steven Grayhm, Smallville), the younger inmate, rigged the search of Sweeney’s cell and framed Tiller for stealing the box all so Sweeney would take a run at Tiller and, as a result, leave the contraband operation for Harlan to run after Sweeney’s thrown in the hole for a month as punishment.
[3] Introduced in the final scene of “Kit Nelson” and, who I’ve speculated, may be Alcatraz’s Re-Animator.
[4] Referred here as Sangupta or, “Sanguppy,” as Beauregard derisively refers to her while dismissing her research.

Miscellany:
*We got even more backstory on Soto this week. Along with apparently being abducted at a young age, he has what he termed a “complicated” relationship with his parents after getting himself kicked out of school instead of telling his parents that he wanted out. Surely, this is something the show will revisit down the line.
*Beyond being the best self-contained escapee storyline, I thought that the casting of Eric Johnson was impressive. Is it just me or does anyone else detect a bit of a blond, poor man’s Jon Hamm in Johnson? Put him in the right project and I think he really could surprise some people.
*I liked the Anton Chigurh-ish choice of a cattle gun for Sweeney’s dispatching of his victims.
*Hauser apparently has his own Lone Gunmen – a room of nerds whose sole purpose seems to be to analyze the mystery keys.
*I’ll admit – for most of the episode I really wanted to know, “WHAT’S IN THE BOX?!” that Sweeney seemed so attached to.
*”First time I’ve ever trailed someone so… you know… a little support would be nice.” “It’s TAILED.”
*”Four down and… a helluva lot more to go.”
*Episode embedded below via Hulu, as usual.

TV Diary | Alcatraz: “Kit Nelson”

TV Diary | Alcatraz – Episode 1.03 – “Kit Nelson” – Original Airdate: 1/23/12

Episode Grade: C+

“Kit Nelson” was not really the way that I’d hoped Alcatraz would come out in its second week, even as I understood its approach. The first couple of episodes of a season – particularly that of a debut season – usually see a show repeating itself, and its pilot in particular, as a way of reinforcing what the show is while at the same time creating an inviting environment for newcomers who may be seeing the show for the first time. So, I get that Alcatraz used the same formula for “Kit Nelson” that it did for its second episode, “Ernest Cobb,” but it didn’t make it any less frustrating. I have the sense that there’s a really weird and interesting show in here struggling to get out but it’s weighted down by the generic procedural aspect that’s in the show’s DNA thus far. Like in “Ernest Cobb,” Madsen and Soto track down a baddie but this time instead of a crazed sniper it’s a crazed child-kidnapper. That amps the stakes more than a little [1] even as it was doubtful that Alcatraz is the kind of show that’s gonna kill a kid, especially in its third episode. In a nutshell, Nelson killed his own brother back in the day as a child and then, as a response, began kidnapping and killing other kids as a way of working out his issues. Not particularly healthy, that. Ultimately, this episode – much like “Ernest Cobb” – felt waaaay too Criminal Minds-ish for my tastes. If this is something that becomes a regular occurrence, I’m going to have to reevaluate whether Alcatraz is something worth sticking with but for now the strange threads that pop up at various points in each episode are what’s keeping me around and there were a couple in “Kit Nelson” that caught my attention. First, Nelson is the first of the three Alcatraz escapees that we’ve seen who hasn’t survived [2]. What does that do to the dynamic of the show, seeing as Hauser has incarcerated both Cobb and Jack Sylvain in a mysterious high-tech prison in the middle of the woods? Even more intriguing – is Nelson actually going to be dead? The final moments of “Kit Nelson” introduced Leon Rippy [3] as Dr. Beauregard, the mysterious medical examiner at Hauser’s new facility and, after delivering Nelson’s lifeless body to the doctor, Hauser mentions something about possibly needing Beauregard’s services for a friend – presumably Parminder Nagra’s Dr. Bannerjee who is still near-death in the hospital following her shooting in “Ernest Cobb.” Sooo… are we re-animating corpses here? Something even more strange, perhaps? Either way, it’s these little hints of weirdness that make Alcatraz worth sticking with for the time being. Given the fact that the show’s been a breakout hit for Fox the past two weeks, they’re probably loathe to change the formula too much but less generic torture-porn procedural and more weird sci-fi is definitely the direction the show needs to be heading. Time will tell if that’s what happens.

[1] And allows a bit of backstory into Soto, as he confesses to the victim towards the episode’s conclusion that something similar happened to him when he was an adolescent. Nice to get a little insight into Soto, even if it came in a somewhat lackluster episode like this.
[2] After being shot dead by Hauser when Madsen’s unable to pull the trigger.
[3] Tom Nuttall! Deadwood represent, yo.

Miscellany:
*Through three episodes, Sam Neill isn’t being given much to do other than act like a hardass each time he’s on screen. Here he cancels the amber alert on the abducted child because he doesn’t want the photo of Nelson to be widely distributed due to his status as a 63. He also seems willing to boot Soto from the team until Madsen goes to bat for him, and later psychoanalyzes Soto by telling him that the incident from Soto’s past has caused a state of arrested development and that the only reason he’s keeping him around is because his expertise on the subject of Alcatraz. I said in my initial review that Neill is somewhat handicapped by Hauser’s role as the keeper of the secrets but Neill’s been a decent actor for much of his career. Maybe give him some more to do already.
*On the subject of giving people more to do… no Robert Forster again? What the hell, Alcatraz?
*Another one of those interesting threads that’s I’ve been talking about comes when we see Nelson at Alcatraz in flashback talking to a figure behind a curtain in the infirmary. For the second time, said figure cuts deeply into the psyche of the inmate who’s the focus of the episode. As I said, this is the second time that type of scene has played out in Alcatraz’s three episodes and, here, the man behind the curtain is revealed to be Madsen’s grandfather. That’s clearly something that’s going to be important going forward and is a nice nod to continuity.
*Admittedly, I didn’t like too much about the “Kit Nelson” plot, but the fact that he killed his victims within 48 hours of abduction provided a nice time crunch for our heroes to solve the case.
*On the other hand, the actress playing the mother of the kidnapped kid? Maybe act a little more broken up about YOUR KID BEING KIDNAPPED BY A PYSCHOPATH. Jesus… it’s like someone told her that her blender had been stolen – not her oldest child.
*I’ve generally liked Sarah Jones’ work in the past (Big Love, Sons Of Anarchy, Justified), but her line readings here are kind of odd and dispassionate. Am I the only one noticing this?
*Is Madsen always going to apprehend these guys in the rain? Something to think about.
*The first five minutes of this episode… I swear to God if you hadn’t told me that it was Alcatraz I would have sworn it was an episode of Fringe. Here’s hoping that Alcatraz ends up following a similar path as that show, at least from a content standpoint since Fringe has never drawn the numbers that Alcatraz has in its three outings.
*Doc’s attempts to stall Nelson after he happens upon him in the diner are great. “Hey… what are you guys up to?”
*”If he had tried my cherry pie, he wouldn’t be so unhappy.” I may have heard this line differently than intended.
*Episode embedded below via Hulu, as usual.

Review: Alcatraz

Grade: C+

JJ Abrams has become a cottage industry unto himself over the past 15 years or so. He’s gone from moderately successful television writer/producer (Felicity, Alias) to moderately successful film writer (Joy Ride) to hugely successful television writer/producer (Lost) to hugely successful film director (Mission: Impossible III, Star Trek, Super 8). It’s because of these successes that his name value alone gets shows greenlit, particularly when looking at the last five years. Sometimes they become critical and niche champions [1] like Fringe, and sometimes they become generic [2] procedurals that either inexplicably hit with the masses (Person Of Interest) or flop terribly (Undercovers). Imagine, then, if Abrams were to use his name value to combine these approaches. The result would probably look something like Fox’s new Alcatraz.

Alcatraz somewhat fantastically posits: What if all 302 inmates at one of the country’s most famous prisons just mysteriously disappeared in 1963, only to begin reappearing without aging in the present-day? What if the prison’s shutdown was not because the facility was outdated, but because it was part of a massive cover-up? Is this conceit enough to sustain what is, in essence, a police procedural? Based on the two-hour premiere [3], the results are mixed. Alcatraz itself as a jumping off point is interesting. Personally, beyond the Nicolas Cage-starring The Rock, there aren’t many shows/movies that have used the prison as a setting that immediately come to mind. At the center of Alcatraz is Sarah Jones (Big Love, Sons Of Anarchy) as Rebecca Madsen, a San Francisco police detective turned quasi-government agent. Madsen stumbles upon the conspiracy central to Alcatraz’s premise while investigating the death of the prison’s former warden only to find that the perpetrator is none other than one of Alcatraz’s former inmates. The fact that the man was presumed dead for nearly fifty years leads her to seek out the help of a local Alcatraz expert, Dr. Diego “Doc” Soto (Jorge Garcia, Lost). In the course of their investigation, the two are clued into the mystery of the inmates’ disappearance by shadowy government agent Emerson Hauser (Sam Neill, Jurassic Park) and his assistant, Lucy Banerjee (Parminder Nagra, ER). Madsen also has a personal connection to Alcatraz in that the man who raised her, surrogate uncle Ray Archer [4] (Robert Forster, Jackie Brown), was a prison guard at Alcatraz in the 60s and also claims to be the best friend of her biological grandfather, supposedly a fellow guard at the prison. However, as the first hour progresses we learn that Madsen’s grandfather was not who she thought he was and instead is one of the escaped inmates – a fugitive that Madsen has been chasing for murdering her partner and the reason that Hauser [5] brings her into the fold.

Abrams’ shows have often been noteworthy for the actresses that he discovers to anchor them [6] and with Alcatraz, Jones is the next potential ingénue in line. Is she up to the task? It’s hard to say, at least initially. She’s fine in the role and has been compared to early-Fringe Torv in her style, which isn’t necessarily a compliment since it took Torv a season or so to grow into her role as that show’s protagonist. Jones is attractive and has impressed in smaller roles in the past, but the jury’s still out on whether she’s going to be able to carry Alcatraz as its nominal star. She’s almost like a poor man’s Reese Witherspoon – the potential is there, but she hasn’t quite harnessed it yet. Jones does have some support from her co-stars, particularly Garcia, who’s essentially playing Hurley if he were an expert on famous prisons, and Forster who is criminally underused – he only appears in one scene total in the first two episodes – if the show decides to use them properly. Neill is a little less impressive, which could be the fault of his role as the keeper of the show’s secrets and thus needing to play things close to his vest. There’s also a nice reveal involving Nagra at the end of the second episode that had me a little more encouraged about her prospects after her not registering much of an impression for most of the first two hours.

On the subject of the second episode, it was interesting to see that Fox scheduled Alcatraz as it did by presenting the first two episodes on the same night. On the one hand, there was no wait to see how the series would settle in following its initial installment. There was an immediate look at what the show would look like post-pilot, which dispensed the need for much speculation. On the other, the second hour was by far the weaker of the two and if this is the type of show that Alcatraz decides that it wants to be, I don’t know how long I’ll have an interest in sticking around. It felt almost USA Network-ish in that it bookended itself with nods to the series’ mythology while the bulk of the episode focused on the not-very-compelling search for one of the vanished inmates, a psychotic sniper who was working through familial issues via his murderous rampages. Less of this and more of the overriding mythology in the future, please. As I mentioned, only an interesting development in the final minutes with Nagra’s character [7] saved the episode from a complete trashing.

It’s difficult to tell whether Alcatraz is going to be the type of show that not only has staying power [8] – an increasingly difficult proposition in today’s television landscape – but whether it’s going to be one worthy of any type of critical attention. In its favor: Abrams’ track record is pretty solid when it comes to female-fronted action dramas, it contains some of the elements of shows like Prison Break (before it became a parody of itself) and The Fugitive, and possesses an intriguing premise. Running against it: the second hour was dreadfully boring and Alcatraz seems like it could easily settle into the uninteresting bad-guy-of-the-week formula. One possible saving grace is that another Abrams-involved show, Fringe, also seemed ready to settle into formulaic boredom before embracing its weirdness and getting much, much better as a series. If Jones is able to find her rhythm and the show decides to be interesting instead of safe and boring, there could be something here. If not… the world will have the second Person Of Interest that no one asked for.

[1] Though terribly ratings-challenged.
[2] Read: boring.
[3] The premiere wasn’t so much a two-hour pilot because it was clear that these were two separate episodes that Fox decided to air on the same night.
[4] No relation to Sterling or Mallory.
[5] Who is himself revealed to be a former young Alcatraz guard who was to be transferring prisoners from The Rock on the night of the disappearance in 1963.
[6] Think Keri Russell (Felicity), Jennifer Garner (Alias), Evangeline Lilly (to a lesser degree on Lost), and Anna Torv (Fringe).
[7] SPOILER: She appears in a flashback to 1963 at the end of “Ernest Cobb” looking as old as she does in the present-day, meaning that the phenomenon affected the Alcatraz inmates seemingly has impacted her as well.
[8] The early ratings had to be encouraging for Fox as Alcatraz became Fox’s highest-rated drama debut in three years by attracting almost 20 million combined viewers in its first two hours.

Miscellany:
*I’d say that right now, Alcatraz is in some ways comparable to NBC’s Grimm. Both shows possess an interesting mythology that need to be fleshed out but the self-contained procedural aspects of each are pretty boring thus far.
*Another aspect of Alcatraz that I hope continues is the differing perspectives of the various inmates in the show. For example, when Ernest Cobb (the episode two baddie) is initially brought to Alcatraz, we see Jack Sylvain (episode one’s villain) in the prison from a different angle than what was presented in the pilot. It’s similar to how Lost handled flashbacks that eventually tied its own characters together.
*Beyond casting Hurley, Alcatraz’s producers also cribbed from Lost by landing composer Michael Giacchino to do Alcatraz’s score.
*After Madsen and Hauser capture Cobb at the end of episode two, Hauser shoots Cobb (an accomplished sniper) in the right hand, taking away his dominant hand to discourage more shooting. He’s a bastard and that’s kind of cool.
*”Is anyone else’s head exploding right now?” Yes, Hurley, they are a little. Alcatraz likes to pack a whole lotta exposition into a small little space.
*Episodes below via Hulu as usual. Enjoy.