Alcatraz

J. J. Abrams is back and in fine style so far with his new show "Alcatraz." Mostly I'm drawn to a show because of characters, I have to be able to have some feelings about them. Love them, hate them, wish they'd stop walking so much and go kill zombies, that sort of thing. Sometimes though a show's premise is enough at the beginning and I hope that they will sketch the rest in as the series progresses.

That describes the pilot for Alcatraz. The characters are at this point cyphers, though with some excellent actors and already I do see hints of that character thing I was talking about. At this point though, the show is most interest in setting up its central mystery. At one a whole bunch of criminals simply disappeared from Alcatraz decades ago. The government covered it all up of course. Now they are coming back doing crimes for both personal and mysterious reasons. The government now has a secret organization with a secret prison to take care of the returnees. For reasons that are a bit shallow the head of this takes on our plucky police detective and her massive Alcatraz expert.

I expect from here out a life of adventure and mystery for them all. I'll definitely watch for a few episodes to see if it rings true in time.