Alcatraz "Pilot/Ernest Cobb" Review

Alcatraz is a series about a group of people who work together to capture inmates from Alcatraz, who disappeared in 1963 and now reappear in present day San Francisco without explanation. The series is a Bad Robot production. The promos boasted about the connection to LOST (which is now wrong). There's an island, time-travel, Hurley and flashbacks. However, Alcatraz isn't LOST-lite (Once Upon A Time IS LOST-lite). This show has more in common with Undercovers and Person Of Interest, or maybe early Fringe. The procedural element looms large. The serialized sci-fi elements are sprinkled in. The show, as a whole, needs work.

I wonder if a universal beat sheet exists for writers who pen a pilot for a procedural. The first hour, which is the actual "Pilot," hits many of the beats I imagine exist on the universal beat sheet. Our female protagonist, Rebecca Madsen, is a damn good detective. At a young age, she used to read her guardian's police files for bed time and leave post-it notes to help him solve the crime. We meet Rebecca as she and her partner chase a criminal across various roofs. Rebecca's lagging behind and watches her partner hang onto a wire for dear life because he didn't jump far enough. The suspect tries to kick her partner off, but runs when Rebecca jumps in to rescue. Unfortunately, her partner loses his grip as she tries to pull him up, and he falls to his death. The narrative jumps in time to an office where the captain insists Rebecca choose a partner. Like all fictional detectives, Rebecca's introduced with baggage, and an overarcing purpose that transcends rote cases-of-the-week.

Sam Neill portrays the rough-and-gruff federal agent Emerson Howser whose reasons for investigating the lost souls from Alcatraz are entirely personal. A young Emerson discovered the empty prison cells in 1963, and then devoted his life to the day when the missing men reappeared in the present day. Emerson transformed parts of the prison into his own laboratory. Once the men are found, they're placed into the cells they thought they left behind. The entire floor's obnoxiously lit. The set looks inspired by The Initiative set from BtVS. I digress. Emerson's a mysterious individual. Rebecca asks questions he's reluctant to answer. Jorge Garcia portrays Dr. Diego Soto, a comic book geek and Alcatraz historian. Diego's arc throughout the first two episodes is whether or not he belongs in this world, where the violence and action isn't animated and two-dimensional.

The Siberian tiger in the room is the time-travel aspect. The characters briefly talk about the craziness and absurdity of the situation. Parminder Nagra's Lucy tells Diego that it doesn't matter why it's happening, just that it is happening at all is what matters. The first hour doesn't concern itself with the sci-fi elements. The hour's easily digestible and accessible to the general public. The end of the episode is when Emerson reveals the reason why men thought dead thirty years ago have re-surfaced to murder. The second hour finds Rebecca asking questions, though she works the case regardless of what little answers she gets. Namely, she wants to know why people time-travel. One of the criminals, Jack Sylvan, refers to 'they' when explaining his actions against a rich person; however, he forgets everything else that's important to understanding the pronoun usage. I didn't expect immediate answers about time-travel. I expected even less questions asked by the characters, so I'll consider what we received a positive.

The series will sustain itself with cases-of-the-week on a weekly basis. There are over 300 men to locate and capture. Jack Sylvan and Ernest Cobb are the first missing Alcatraz men we meet. Both stories are completely different. I suppose the writers told radically different stories to show their narrative range. Neither story interested me enough. Sylvan was an unlucky schmoe, sent to prison for robbing a grocery store that happened to double as a post-office, who was mistreated by the deputy warden. Sylvan took revenge, and then forgot every relevant piece of information the characters and audience need. Cobb deserved his prison sentence. He went on rampages with a sniper rifle because he had abandonment issues. Once free in the present day, he re-lived the crime over and over again, with different victims. The series relies heavily on its procedural crime element. The two cases were as interesting as the cases on a CBS crime procedural, which is disappointing.

I'm hesitant about Alcatraz in the long-term because of the creative shake-up in November. JJ Abrams put a positive spin on matters. Of course, he's a producer and his production company wants to make some money. Elizabeth Sarnoff left the series. Jennifer Johnson and David Pyne replaced her as the showrunners. People depart shows all the time. Abrams admitted that the cast and crew re-shot parts of completed episodes, though, which makes one question the producers' confidence in their show. Don't get me wrong: there's a sustainable series here--just not a very interesting, original, or innovative one.

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