Alcatraz 1x01/02 Review

Pilot/Ernest Cobb


This review will cover both the episodes even though they are two separate stories. There will be spoilers.

Alcatraz has been the much hyped new FOX show from J.J. Abrams staring LOST Alum Jorge Garcia, and a favorite of mine Sam Neil. The other lead is Sarah Jones, people may know her from Sons of Anarchy. Since I've never seen that show I have no idea if her role was big, or memorable. Jones plays SF Detective Rebecca Madsen, and she quickly gets pulled into the craziness of the premise.

Basically, in case you weren't paying attention, or want to know and don't care about being spoiled here's the main idea. Back in 1963 all prisoners and guards mysteriously vanished and were never seen nor heard of again...until NOW. They are appearing one by one, and causing havoc. There seems to be something behind not only their disappearance, but also their reappearance. Both Cobb, and Sylvane seemed to know exactly where to go, and what to do once they arrived and neither one seemed freaked out about being thrown almost 50 years into the future. It's almost as if they have been prepared for this. Obviously more is going on, and I'm very interested to see where it goes.



Jorge Garcia plays Dr. Diego Soto, a comic book enthusiast and Alcatraz expert. I love that Jorge is playing a genius in this series, and I want to point out how much I have missed him since LOST ended. Whether I continue to enjoy Alcatraz or not, I'm sure I'll keep watching just for him. Dr. Soto, or "Doc" for short, is the regular guy of the team. He's not great around dead bodies, and I love that they didn't make him socially awkward. It would be easy to make his character very eccentric, and awkward but they didn't. He's just a very smart guy. This allows him to become quick friends with Sarah, and prevents annoying "getting to know you" jokes that haunt shows a lot of the time. This way, they can open up and be more emotional from the start. It builds our trust in them, as well as they build for each other.

Sam Neil plays Emerson Hauser, a secretive government agent who clearly knows far more than he's letting on. I love Sam Neil mainly because of Jurassic Park, but he's just an all around awesome guy. He's responded to me personally on Twitter a few times, so that also helps me think he's the coolest dude ever. Hauser is very interesting to me. That secret prison he has for the inmates clearly has a purpose other than keeping these bad guys locked up. We learn at the end of the Pilot that Hauser worked at Alcatraz back in '63 and was there when the disappearance was discovered. I think this is why he seems to have a personal vendetta against all of them. Cobb shot Lucy and that probably made Hauser hate him more, but he had the same nasty attitude toward Sylvane as well.

Lucy is played by Parminder Nagra, and we get a huge reveal about her at the end of the second episode. She was there in 1963 and was brought ahead in time with the rest of them.  Or so it seems. If that's the case, a couple questions arise. 1)Why is she not listed on that wall? 2)Why doesn't Hasuer recognize her? Warden James said he brought her in special to deal with Cobb so maybe not many people knew about her, but there would still be a record of her visit, and her disappearance. Hauser has been obsessing about this for 50 years, and I imagine he follow any lead, no matter how small.

Since she knows a lot more than she's letting on, I wonder if she's partly behind all this. She's working from the inside of Hauser's team so that they can plan for any eventuality if he starts to figure it out. The biggest question of course is why? Why would someone do this? What possible purpose would it serve to flash over 300 prisoners and guards into the future?

Something I have no mentioned yet is the reveal that Sarah's partner was killed not by some random criminal, but by her own grandfather who himself had been a prisoner at Alcatraz in 1963. I wonder if this is a coincidence, or if it was planned as well. Unless he was told, there's no reason he would know who she is. her own parent must have still been very young.

The verdict of the first two episodes is definitely positive from me. I'm intrigued by the mystery, and pleased that they seem to be opening it up for a very massive set of secrets and reveals. I like the cast, and enjoy the interaction of the characters. I think it's a good mix. While the show is essentially a procedural, the background mystery is enough that I think it will hold my interest for a long time. I just hope it's big enough for an entire series. I mean how many different types of criminals can there be?

What did you guys think?  Theories? Complaints?   Put em in the comments.