Ahh, Fox. Will you EVER give a high-concept show a chance again?
While this is a review for the first and, sadly, the only season of J.J. Abrams' ALCATRAZ, this will also be, in part, a rant against Fox Broadcasting and how quickly they forgot their roots.
Let's begin with the review though. First, a quick rundown of the plot: Back in March of 1963, Alcatraz officially closed. All the prisoners were transferred to other prisons. This is the official story, but it's not the way it happened. In actuality, 256 inmates of Alcatraz as well as 46 guards mysteriously vanished and no one knows where... until now, that is. Mysterious and shadowy Federal Agent Emerson Hauser (the terrifically underrated Sam Neill) appears in San Francisco just around the time that our main protagonist SFPD Detective Rebecca Madsen (the talented and lovely Sarah Jones, who doesn't have a lot of credits to her name) loses her partner to a fleeing suspect. Madsen comes into direct contact and conflict with what Agent Hauser is trying to do when two men are murdered...
Real Ghosts of Flesh and Blood...
The Fox midseason replacement TV series "Alcatraz" is built around the fascinating premise that the 1963 closure of the notorious federal prison was a cover story for the sudden and unexplained disappearance of the inmates and their guards. San Francisco police detective Rebecca Madsen (Sarah Jones) becomes involved in the mystery when her partner is killed by a man who is supposed to be dead, one of the missing "63's". Rebecca is recruited into a secretive federal task force run by FBI agent Emerson Hauser (Sam Neill), formerly an Alcatraz guard and now in search of the former inmates as they resurface in modern-day San Francisco to resume their criminal careers, mysteriously unaged and still fully lethal.
The story is told on parallel tracks, as Hauser, Rebecca, and Rebecca's unlikely partner Dr. Diego "Doc" Soto (Jorge Garcia) pursue the criminals in the present, while their backstories are told in flashback. The hulking Doc, a comic book store owner and expert on...
Why not more?
"Alcatraz" COULD have worked and worked well...I think its only major flaw was that some of the episodes, particularly midseason, felt more like a crime procedural ("hey, another inmate appeared, let's go get 'im") than a surreal mystery. If only EACH ep had given us a bit of the plot points! It seemed like several went by with little more than a tease into the three keys, the '63s, and the sleazy Warden's master plan...and then in the season finale we had major points all dumped at once!
Still and all...this could have been MAGNIFICENT in a second season. I detest Fox for pulling it.
My question is, WHY can this story not continue in graphic novel form?? Hey you producers and writers, if you're reading this, FINISH THE STORY! I want more Senator BadA-- (aka Hauser -- as Sarah Jones so perfectly called him), more Doc, more Becca, more Warden! I wanna know how it ENDS! Bring in Joss Whedon, bring in any of the supremely talented writers and artists working in...
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