Last night, Fox debuted J.J Abram's new show Alcatraz. I never wound up watching J.J Abram's Person of Interest show like I had intended, but I was psyched for Alcatraz. And I still AM psyched for Alcatraz after last night's series premiere. Since it was the series debut and two distinct episodes, I'm going to break format a little to talk about it.
Alcatraz has a high concept premise. In 1963, 302 prisoners and guards mysteriously vanished from island prison Alcatraz. Now in present day, they're popping up again having not aged at all somehow. Detective Rebecca Madsen discovers this while investigating a case and gets drafted onto a secret Government task force along with Alcatraz expert Dr. Diego Soto, which is charged with tracking down and recapturing these criminals. The task force is headed up by the mysterious Emerson Hauser, who knows more about what's happening then what he's saying. In addition, Rebecca learns she has a personal connection to what's going on: her grandfather was one of the prisoners who disappeared and he's responsible for the death of her partner. Interesting stuff.
The pilot episode sets up everything I've mentioned above and a couple other things (Emerson has an assistant, Lucy, and Rebecca has a surrogate uncle who was a former guard at Alcatraz. Oh, and Emerson was one of the two prison guards who discovered that the prisoners had gone missing.) and does it rather well. It gives us a basic formula for episodes going forward: the task force takes on a prisoner of the week, flashbacks reveal background about the prisoner and their time in Alcatraz, and we get some smatterings of mythology and character development on the side. It's a good formula, for now at least, and it gives plenty of opportunity for some interesting stories. So that's the basics of Alcatraz. But how were the episodes that aired last night?
Well, for starters, I'm glad Fox aired two episodes instead of one, because Ernest Cobb got me a lot more excited for the show than the pilot did. Don't get me wrong. The pilot was a nice, solid episode of television. It set-up everything, and got me invested in what was happening, but it just seemed to be missing a spark. There was no real 'wow' factor to the proceedings. No big twists to really get me hooked. (Well, the twist that Rebecca's grandfather was the criminal who caused her partner's death came pretty close to doing the job, but not quite.). It was still good and still made me want to see the next episode but wasn't enough to make me want to commit to watching the whole season.
But Ernest Cobb was enough to make me want to tune in for sure. It offered plenty of character development as Doc Soto began to grasp the reality of the situation he was now in (with some great acting from Jorge Garcia, who was one of the reasons I was excited for this show). It had a more compelling villain (And the prisoner from the pilot was pretty compelling to begin with) with Ernest Cobb, the psychotic sniper with a serious desire to be alone and some also serious abandonment issues. It also put one of our characters (Lucy) in life-threatening danger, which helps remind us that they're not dealing with your average run-of-the-mill criminals. Putting Lucy in danger also allowed us to see a different side of Emerson Hauser, and showing that there is more to him than just the mysterious government agent who used to be a prison guard. And of course, the episode provided a huge twist at the end that the pilot lacked: Lucy was apparently alive in Alcatraz times, looking exactly the same as she was now!
Overall, I quite enjoyed the Alcatraz premiere event. I find Rebecca and Doc to be good characters and I'm interested in their journey. Plus the sci-fi serial elements should help make this show more than just your typical procedural drama. The pilot was good, though lacking, and episode 2 was a lot better. Anyhow, I'm now super excited for next weeks episode and can't wait to watch this show all season (and hopefully talk about it on this blog all season.)
Pilot Grade: I was going to go with Enjoyable Enough (Pretty Good), but on second thought, it was just plain Awesome! (Good)
Ernest Cobb Grade: Totally Awesome! (Great)
No comments:
Post a Comment