Alcatraz

Interesting that so many people are comparing this unfavorably to "Lost". I actually hated "Lost"… well, past the third or fourth episode, anyway, when it started collapsing under its own weight and stopped making any kind of sense at all. "Alcatraz", I liked… I already knew it had been canceled and wouldn't have an ending when I started streaming episodes, like with "Carnivale", but it was good enough that I knew I really wanted to see as much of it as was ever going to exist. Generally the supernatural and/or JJ Abrams isn't my cup of tea, but I thought this show was extremely well done. The cast is top-notch and the premise really grips the viewer. I'm sorry they never got a chance to wrap it up.

I liked the show. yeah, it had its ups and downs but after all it was a very entertaining show. acting were pretty good specially Jorge Garcia and Mr. Sam Neil. of course since we haven't seen the ending we cant say how the producers gonna get us to the final encounter with the warden and are they successful to do the job or not but from what we've watched, id say that would be a great final head on. but shamefully we will never have the chance to watch it. sometimes i hate the capitalism for these kinda results! in a non-capitalist economy, this great show would make it to the end no matter the majority of viewers like it or not (and prefer to watch some silly show like teen-wolf instead) but in USA, if the idiots have got the upper hand, the stupid shows like vampire diaries n teen wolf ... will go on n on and a good show like Alcatraz simply got cancelled. what a shame!

This is a show that shows all the same sort of promise and excitement that Prison Break showed a few years back. Sadly, with the network axing it before we even get a sniff of a conclusion, there is little point in watching this.

Over zealous American Network bosses doing what they do worst - judging shows on the dollar bills in their pockets. No wonder the USA doesn't have the same cult shows that the UK produces so regularly. It helps to keep up the poor reputation of American Television though.

If you have nothing better to do, then watch this - but I warn you, you'll be disappointed when the series ends abruptly and leaving you wanting more.

Before the pilot episode aired, there was a lot of hype generated by the degree of marketing the producers of the show invested in, towards its success. Naturally I was excited too, the show possessed that spark of intrigue and mystery that I so desperately craved. However, upon watching the first few episodes, I was disappointed upon discovery, that the show was merely your stereotypical and unoriginal crime thriller. Despite the paranormal twist, the show incorporates similar elements from other crime dramas like 'NCIS' and 'Criminal Minds', where the protagonists piece together puzzle pieces to find themselves a killer and save the day. I can only hope that the storyline loses that boring and unoriginal linearity as it progresses, but the ugly truth is, I've already given up.

...not that that's a bad thing.

Besides the fact that Sam Neill really should give up on any hope of mounting a believable American accent, the premise of the show is intriguing enough -- before Alcatraz ended operation as a prison, all of the inmates and staff vanished, kind of like a Philadelphia experiment on an island gone even more than wrong.

The execution (ha! funny pun, not), at least in the pilot, perhaps didn't do as much justice to the plot as I would have liked, but at the end of the pilot I was left wanting more, despite Sam Neill's dodgy accent. The rest of the acting was competent, and the entire program seemed a bit reminiscent of previous time-travel sci-fi shows such as 7 Days. It has good pacing and you're unlikely to be bored by it.

It will be interesting to see where it goes from here.