Monday, April 30, 2012

D for TV - Alcatraz

Welcome to the First Weekly Edition of D for TV!

created by Elizabeth Sarnoff, Steven Lilien, Bryan Wynbrandt

The Premise...
As you may know, the infamous San Francisco Bay prison island known as Alcatraz shut down in the early sixties and all prisoners and personel were transfered... or at least that's what everyone was told in an attempt to cover up the mysterious disappearance of everyone on 'The Rock'.  Decades later, in present day California, the vanished staff and inmates called the "63's" must be located and detained... and well... more on that later.

What's It Like?
Kinda Like CSI meets LOST

For some of you, that could be like saying "No, trust me, it tastes good!  It's like a peas and island stranded, time-traveling, supernatural carrots!"  But in my opinion it is a good thing.  Unfortunately, one of the most intriguing things about LOST, was also one of the things people hated most: they felt the show only progressed to more and more mind-bending questions.  On the other hand, one of the reasons why shows like CSI or other crime dramas succeed is because the story lines are episodic and self-contained: you start off with a mystery in the beginning and most of the time, by the end of the episode you've wrapped up all of the loose ends.  Well, Alcatraz takes the best of both worlds and melds them together to form a basic cops-chase-bad-guy show with a cool sci-fi backdrop and continuing mystery.

PROS:
The Cast, the Acting and the Script.  With a crazy sci-fi script, every single line could easily turn into an unintentionally hilarious quote, but the cast does a great job of keeping what's funny funny and what's not not.

CONS:
Lots of 'em.  I mean, come on, the show is about prisoners from Alcatraz!  Ba-dum-ching!  Yeah, I know, sorry bout that one.

They've taken their time and are certainly building up to something big, a little bit of which they revealed in the season one finale followed by an interesting and surprising turn for our main character, but the shows success might lie in the audience's patience and willingness to continue down the rabbit hole.  For me, that's no problem, I'm hooked.  But, alas, no matter how many letters I write to FOX they are still refusing to produce shows just for me... not yet anyways... or ever probably.... definitely.

REVIEW - 4 out of 5 - Hope to see a Season 2!

NEXT WEEK on D for TV:
COMMUNITYComedy - Follows the lives and adventures of a community college study group made up of seven wildly different students.

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