Jan 17, 2012

My problem with Alcatraz (the tv show)

Alcatraz review

There's a new show by the assholes that made Lost. It debuted last night on Fox. Basically what it's about is all the inmates in Alcatraz disappeared in 1963 and was covered up. They begin to reappear in present day San Francisco.

It starts out on present day Alcatraz with a little girl who veers off the guided tour to find a man waking up in a solitary confinement cell. The tour guide thinks he's a bum or something sleeping there. The guy ends up being one of the 1963 inmates. The show then flashes back and forth from the 60s telling the backstory of the inmates much like on Lost. So the inmate manages to easily get on the ferry back to SF without any problems where he hunts down and kills people from his past and mysteriously a guy he has no connection to.

Present day cop (token hot chick) teams up with. Hurley from Lost (Awkward comic book nerd and phd Alcatraz expert) get mixed up with super top secret govt agency apparently formed to catch the time traveling ex-cons. They have a "Bat Cave" under Alcatraz. Who knew!?



Problem I have is that you have this super high tech heavily budgeted group that clearly knew enough about it to have a underground team with high tech computer monitors and as we find out, a super secret high tech prison under a forest somewhere set up to hold the "63's" (which for some reason has old school prison cell bars instead of modern day heavy sealed doors). Despite all this they didn't have the wherewithal to investigate reports of a guy sleeping in an off-limits area of Alcatraz. Or realize that they reappear in present day, on the island itself. So what I think should happen is, once you use your high tech shit to deduce that the situation with the little girl and person 'sleeping' in a cell happened the same day the former Deputy Warden was murdered why not use your obvious pull to have Alcatraz shut down for emergency maintenance and just wait for them to appear. It makes no sense to me.

Im sure the connections with present and past get bigger and the top secret rabbit hole goes deeper as the show goes on but this, right now bothers me. I bet they never even reveal how Hugo got the nickname Hurley.

posted from Bloggeroid

1 comment:

Jenny said...

You have kind of landed on something- it would be easy to stop the folks that reappear on alcatraz from getting off the island (duh, it's the rock, just stop bringing boats there). Clearly whomever is behind the returning prisoners wants them to be able to get off the island (and carry out specific tasks), and must have power. Likely, he/she is part of the core group in the know. I'm guessing the folks below the island, are the puppet masters.

I liked the potential Lost had when it first started, but it fell apart. I think the writers had a good plot for a couple of years worth of exciting shows and suddenly ended up having to write like 7 years of material. The plot twists that might have made sense got "lost" by the end of the series. Instead of being concise and exciting, it just meandered and I stopped watching.

I am trying to give Alcatraz a chance, and a fresh slate. I don't want to punish it for the mistakes of Lost. However, once it gets dumb, I'll stop watching.