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Munsu
Mon, 01-16-2012, 06:32 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MszNSnJPMxs

Show starts tonight on FOX with a 2-hour premiere, and it looks like it could be a good one. Another J. J. Abrams' project. Any of you planning on watching?


From executive producer J.J. Abrams (FRINGE, “Lost,” “Star Trek,” and the recent blockbuster “Super 8”) comes ALCATRAZ, a thrilling new series that follows a unique trio investigating the mystifying reappearance of 302 of Alcatraz’s most notorious prisoners and guards, 50 years after they vanished.

When San Francisco Police Department DET. REBECCA MADSEN (Sarah Jones) is assigned to a grisly homicide case, a fingerprint leads her to a seemingly impossible suspect: JACK SYLVANE (guest star Jeffrey Pierce), an Alcatraz inmate who died over 30 years ago. Given her family history – both her grandfather and surrogate uncle, RAY ARCHER (Robert Forster), were guards at the prison – Madsen’s interest is immediately piqued. When the enigmatic, knows-everything-but-tells-nothing government agent EMERSON HAUSER (Sam Neill) tries to impede her investigation, she becomes doggedly committed to it.

Madsen finds herself working with an unlikely partner, Alcatraz expert and comic book enthusiast DR. DIEGO “DOC” SOTO (Jorge Garcia), to help piece together the inexplicable sequence of events. The two discover that Sylvane is not only alive, but he’s loose on the streets of San Francisco, exacting decades-old revenge and leaving bodies in his wake. And strangely, he hasn’t aged a day since 1963, when Alcatraz was ruled by the iron-fisted WARDEN EDWIN JAMES (Jonny Coyne) and the sadistic ASSOCIATE WARDEN E.B. TILLER (Jason Butler Harner).
Detective Madsen and Soto must team with Hauser and his associate, LUCY BANERJEE (Parminder Nagra), to stop Sylvane’s vengeful killing spree. By delving into Alcatraz history, government cover-ups and Rebecca’s own heritage, the team will ultimately discover that Sylvane is only a small part of a much larger, more sinister present-day threat. Because even though he may be the first, it quickly becomes clear that Sylvane won’t be the last to reappear from Alcatraz.

During the course of the investigation, Madsen and Soto will learn that Hauser has been awaiting the prisoners’ return for nearly 50 years. Soto will witness his life’s work – the history of Alcatraz – come alive, while he and Madsen fight to keep the country safe from history’s most dangerous criminals.

ALCATRAZ is produced by Bonanza Productions Inc. in association with Bad Robot Productions and Warner Bros. Television. The series is executive-produced by J.J. Abrams, Bryan Burk (“Lost,” “Fringe” and “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol”), Jennifer Johnson (“Cold Case”), Daniel Pyne (“Fracture”), and Jack Bender (“Lost”), who also serves as a director. Elizabeth Sarnoff (“Lost”), Steven Lilien (“Kyle XY”) and Bryan Wynbrandt (“Kyle XY”) co-created the series. Danny Cannon (“CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” “CSI: Miami”) directed and executive-produced the pilot.

http://www.fox.com/alcatraz/

Assassin
Fri, 01-20-2012, 12:05 AM
hmm....so another JJ Abrams series that has something to do with time travel.....interesting. Will definitely check it out, let you know what i think

Penner
Fri, 01-20-2012, 05:38 AM
Aye, going to watch both eps tonight, been looking forward to this for awhile, it looks really good judging from the trailers and what i've read about it.

Munsu
Fri, 01-20-2012, 08:01 AM
Watched them, alright so far will certainly need to see more. Main problem is that I don't care much for any of the main characters.

Y
Fri, 01-20-2012, 05:09 PM
I like how shows that jock on Lost's style completely miss the fact that it was the character drama in season 1 that was the focus, not a ridiculous mytharc. It had one simple, central mystery for the longest time, and the worst seasons of the show were when it realized it had nothing more to do with the characters than turn them into chess pieces in a game the writers no longer knew how to win. Now shows like Alcatraz are desperate to stuff as much late-period Lost-style horseshit as possible. This show is not going to make 3 seasons.

Munsu
Fri, 01-20-2012, 05:27 PM
I like how shows that jock on Lost's style completely miss the fact that it was the character drama in season 1 that was the focus, not a ridiculous mytharc. It had one simple, central mystery for the longest time, and the worst seasons of the show were when it realized it had nothing more to do with the characters than turn them into chess pieces in a game the writers no longer knew how to win. Now shows like Alcatraz are desperate to stuff as much late-period Lost-style horseshit as possible. This show is not going to make 3 seasons.

Difference is that this is a procedural, not a serial drama like the rest of the clones. But I agree with what you're saying. This has more in common with Fringe with a mix of The 4400, but this has always been Abrams' style rather than simply a show trying to jock on LOST's style. He did plenty of these types of dynamics in ALIAS too.

Though it's easy to make the LOST connection, there are plenty of procedural shows that have more in common with this show than anything we can connect to LOST other than sharing Abrams and the whole flashback stuff with mystery mythology.