All That Traz

I watched the first two hours of Alcatraz, the new series on Fox.  The premise is when Alcatraz closed in 1963, the official story was a cover-up.  What actually happened was the criminals there simply disappeared. Since then, there's been a task force run by former Alcatraz guard Emerson Hauser (Sam Neill) researching the situation and awaiting their return.

In the present, indefatigable detective Rebecca Madsen (Sarah Jones) gets assigned to the murder of an old deputy warden at Alcatraz--turns out he was taken down by one of the old prisoners who has reappeared and is as young as he was in 1963.  Madsen has another connection in that her grandfather was a guard at the prison (though she later finds out he was actually one of the more mysterious inmates). In doing research, she gets Alcatraz expert and comic book writer Diego Soto (Jorge Garcia) to help out.  Eventually, she stumbles across the secret group Hauser is running and by the end she and Garcia join (though clearly Hauser and lovely co-worker Lucy Banerjee know a lot more than they're telling).

Madsen captures the guy and Hauser locks him up in a special new prison where all the old criminals are to be housed. And in the next hour, a new prisoner from '63 appears, causes mayhem, and is captured.  But the big question remains--who is behind all this weirdness, and what do they want? (Probably Madsen's grandpa has something to do with it.)

The show has a lot of Lost people behind it, and you can tell from the structure.  Not only is it a mix of action and the supernatural, but it has the flashback structure--with each new criminal, we get to see what they were like back in the Alcatraz days.

It's an odd premise and I'm not sure how far they can go with it.  Each week they can capture another old/young imate, but just how different is this from any other cop show?--it's mostly criminal of the week, with some headway presumably made on the main mystery.  It's also not clear just what Hauser's place is--he's mysterious and sometimes doesn't even seem to be the good guy. (Another Lost trope.)

Outside of Neill, none of the characters register strongly yet, except for Garcia.  It's always nice to see Jorge, and here he stands in for the audience.  He's the regular guy who keeps asking everyone why aren't you more amazed by this mindblowing situation.  Unfortunately, while the situation might be bizarre, it's not yet gripping.  I may check it out again, but I'm not sure how much more the show has to offer.