Alcatraz - "Pilot"/"Ernest Cobb"/"Kitt Nelson"

Season 1, Episode 1-3 

You're probably wondering why, given my general frustrations with Terra Nova, I would commit to covering another FOX sci-fi series that happens to air on Monday nights, and for all intensive purposes seems just a purposely mainstreamed and procedural-in-nature. The truth is that I find the FOX approach to sci-fi and serialization fairly interesting, given that it makes for some of the blandest television on air, and that it does so much better than than the more creative and ambitious shows that tend to die much quicker deaths. Sadly, Alcatraz exists in that vein, but I think it's still worth talking about, nonetheless.

At the recent TCA event, one question that got asked, both of Alcatraz and many other genre and genre-lite show of it's ilk, was the question of how serialized the story was going to be (a standard critical question in this day and age) and the frequently deployed boilerplate answer used in response was something along the lines of “It's a serialized show, but with standalone plots.” This sort of answer is frustrating because it's the hedging-your-bets-bullshit that nobody buys, yes, but also because it's more indicative of the trend that sci-fiction shows are taking these days, and the genre element become more of a dressing for a straightforward procedural, complete with totally uninspired cases.

And while dressing can sometimes work (Pushing Daisies), it seems in the network's best interest these days to water down the genre to the point where only the premise holds any sort of sci-fiction flavor, and the events of the episode proper could be transplanted into any non-genre show with very little tweaking. As I've said many times before, there's nothing wrong with the procedural formula inherently, but the needs of the American production schedule and cynicism on the part of the networks towards their audiences tends to lead to very uninspired stories, and it's a shame to see a genre shows to have all their potential wasted on something so trivial. And unfortunately Alcatraz does exactly that.

The premise of the show, as it were, is fairly simple: In 1963, 302 men, a combination of prisoners and guards, mysteriously disappeared from the island, and there was an ensuing government cover-up. Only now, the men are suddenly appearing again 48 years later, without having aged a day. A premises go, it's not a bad one, and it leads to some intriguing questions. Why did all these men disappear and reappear? Who's behind it? How much does Howser, the man investigating these events, really know? And why is he collecting all these prisoners in a underground bunker that I'm just going to call New Alcatraz?

The problem, of course, is that so very little of what we've seen so far has dealt at all with those important and intriguing questions. Instead we've, gotten three different prisoners:

• Jack Slyvane – A murderer in the 1960s, goes on a killing spree in the present day to avenge what he believes to be his wrongful imprisonment. Essentially serves as a blank slate for the show to role out the “mystery” of Alcatraz. 
• Ernest Cobb – A sniper with OCD like tendencies, who really only wants to be left alone. Likes to kill in three, as a way to recreate his original trio of kills.
• Kit Nelson – A serial killer of young boys, is recreating his own murder of his brother when he was 11 over and over, down the last detail. 

Pretty boring, right? Each of these men is mostly just a series of quirks, not a real character, and while the nature of the procedural means that the prisoners are never going to be more than sketches, the way that the show goes about it is entirely frustrating. The show uses the flashback to the years before the disappearance as a way to show how this characters act and think, and this should be a way for the show to implement some nuance into the proceedings – even if a more cynical mind might think that it was just a way for the writers to avoid having to write more complex cases-of-the-week. However, these flashbacks are actually narratively pointless, and are far more interesting for the breif glimpses we get into the Great Mystery of Alcatraz.

A lot of times, procedural will make up for their lackluster cases by creating dynamic and interesting main characters – think Castle, House, and Psych. Alcatraz, unsurprisingly, isn't one of those shows. Rebecca is your standard tough female cop type, and apart from any chance when Sarah Jones gets to run, she barely makes any impression; she's just to vague to be interesting. Jorge Garcia's Dr. Soto is much better, but that's mostly because he's essentially playing a slight variation of Hugo. So while is usual laid back demeanor is welcome here, it feels a bit reductive and lazy, and I'm not sure this is the show to take avantage of either the character or the actor. For example, the latest episode hinted that there's something tramatic in Soto's past, but I couldn't care less.

Howset and his assistant Lucy are more interesting, but that mostly comes from the fact that they are also part of mystery, and not out of any sort of inherent maganitism. In fact, the needs of the narrative keep them so vague so as to not give away the mystery that they in fact have very little about them that stands out, apart from Sam Neill's usual hamminess. (And I have no idea why Lucy is apparently ageless, but the show revealing that at the end of the second episode seems like a ridiculously bold move.)

Alcatraz has been hyped as a J.J. Abrams show, but unlike his other shows in the past, where he shows up and helps writes the first few episodes/arcs and then just leaves the rest up to the showrunners, and things either decline (Alias) or improve (Fringe), Abrams had no hand in creating this show. Yet it still unequivocally has the marks of the Abram's formula, at least in terms of a standalone episode that include bits of overarching mythology. Abrams made this formula work with Alias, but everybody's going to be looking to the Fringe story, and wondering whne Alcatraz will just jettison the standalone cases and get to the meat of the story. And I'm right there with them. 

But considering that Alcatraz is suitable hit - it's managing to get about 10 million viewers, which bests Terra Nova's numbers, and it's apparently popular enough to cause trouble for the guides at the actual Alcatraz - that may not be a change that we see for a long time, if at all. There's a reason that middling shows like this are hits, and it's because that a majority of the television audience doesn't like to be challenged by anything as complicated as what this show could be. But I'll keep watching, and grasping on to whatever bright spots the show manages to throw my way.

Other Thoughts:

I wonder how long the show expects us to buy that Soto has enough freedom that he can create a comic book based on his investigations with Rebecca.

There's also a running thread about Rebecca's grandfather being a prisoner at Alcatraz – as well as the man responsible for her partner's death – and that he “Uncle” Ray was a guard at the prison. I realize that the show is going for the “personal connection” angle here, but why? Isn't it enough that Rebecca's a dedicated cop and that this is an intriguing mystery?