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 Post subject: Alcatraz
PostPosted: Wed Jan 18, 2012 6:45 am 
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Who else is in? I honestly enjoyed both episodes.

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 Post subject: Re: Alcatraz
PostPosted: Wed Jan 18, 2012 8:25 am 
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Raell wrote:
Who else is in? I honestly enjoyed both episodes.
Heard it went all Losty at the end of the second episode; won't be watching.

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PostPosted: Wed Jan 18, 2012 8:26 am 
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I DVR'ed it but haven't sat down to watch it yet.

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 Post subject: Re: Alcatraz
PostPosted: Wed Jan 18, 2012 6:11 pm 
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Khross wrote:
Raell wrote:
Who else is in? I honestly enjoyed both episodes.
Heard it went all Losty at the end of the second episode; won't be watching.



If you can accept the whole basis of the show, the end of the second episode was nothing earth shattering.

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PostPosted: Wed Jan 18, 2012 7:54 pm 
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I'm with Raell. If you can accept the first 30 minutes of the show, the end is just more of what is to be expected.

I enjoyed it a great deal and look forward to seeing the season play out.


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PostPosted: Wed Jan 18, 2012 10:25 pm 
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Phe and I watched the first episode(s). Wasn't amazing, but better than Lost (not a fan). Felt like a less-interesting Fringe (even down to the Cool Blond Chick Detective, the Slightly Geeky Partner Who's Also a Potential Love Interest, the Old Man Who Knows Everything, and the Ethnic Female Support Staffer Who Is Far Cuter Than The Lead).

I'm willing to give it another few episodes, see how it pans out.


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PostPosted: Wed Jan 18, 2012 11:01 pm 
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Sorry FarSky, no way the 'slightly geeky partner' is a potential love interest here.

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PostPosted: Wed Jan 18, 2012 11:20 pm 
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The Peter/New Hurley analogue is, admittedly, the most stretched (no pun intended), but it's still there. :)


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 Post subject: Re: Alcatraz
PostPosted: Wed Jan 18, 2012 11:44 pm 
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Finally had some time to watch both episodes tonight. Liked the premise, will see how it turns out.

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PostPosted: Thu Jan 19, 2012 12:28 pm 
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Hmmm. Sam Neal is awesome. So is John Noble, but for different reasons. It's hard to say which "old man who knows everything" will be better.

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PostPosted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 8:29 pm 
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Excellent pacing on the show so far, seems very well written as well.

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 Post subject: Re: Alcatraz
PostPosted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 9:05 pm 
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You know what really killed the X-Files? In the later seasons it got too bogged down in creating this false sense of intrigue by dangling hints in front of the audience of what appeared to be some kind of intricate, but coherent conspiracy plot happening just "behind the curtain". They resorted to a carrot-and-stick game with the audience's misplaced hope that eventually the curtain would be pulled back and the deep secret revealed. Only, there was never anything behind the curtain to begin with. It was a ploy. And for a while, it worked. But eventually people just got fed up when they realized that were only being jerked around, and that the writers fully intended to keep jerking them around in perpetuity.

And then Lost happened. I don't know how Lost happened, but it did. Maybe people changed between the X-Files and Lost. Or maybe it's just that the X-Files stumbled into this technique in mid-stream, and its audience just wasn't as willing to go along with it, whereas Lost was pretty blatantly obviously a plot sham from the get go. Either way, ever since it went off the air, the networks have been furiously dogpiling on the "ooooh, it's a mystery! myyyyyysteryyyyy!" genre ever since, trying to find the "next Lost". Witness "Persons Unknown" (lol, cancelled), "Terra Nova", etc., etc., etc.

I'm going to keep watching Alcatraz for now, since I found it enjoyable enough and I do really like Sam Neil for some reason. That said, my suspicion is that it's yet another one of these shows. Hopefully they'll prove me wrong, but if I don't start seeing some indication that the writers have actually story-boarded this thing out, I'm probably going to bail on it before it makes it to the end of season 1. The show seems good, but not X-Files or BSG good, and that's pretty much my threshold for putting up with this kind of crap.

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 Post subject: Alcatraz
PostPosted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 9:38 pm 
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Thank you Stathol.

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 Post subject: Re: Alcatraz
PostPosted: Thu Jan 26, 2012 8:08 am 
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Stathol wrote:
You know what really killed the X-Files? In the later seasons it got too bogged down in creating this false sense of intrigue by dangling hints in front of the audience of what appeared to be some kind of intricate, but coherent conspiracy plot happening just "behind the curtain". They resorted to a carrot-and-stick game with the audience's misplaced hope that eventually the curtain would be pulled back and the deep secret revealed. Only, there was never anything behind the curtain to begin with. It was a ploy. And for a while, it worked. But eventually people just got fed up when they realized that were only being jerked around, and that the writers fully intended to keep jerking them around in perpetuity.


Personally I think the problem with the X-Files was actually that they had really resolved the conspiracy stuff in the season after the movie but wanted to keep milking the cash cow so they started stretching. In my opinion this becomes extremely evident if you sit down and watch seasons 1-5, then the movie, then season 6. After watching those continue to 7, 8 and 9 and you can see where it started becoming increasingly thin. This is why I am such a huge fan of shows that define up front the length of their story arc (Battlestar Galactica said up front they were aiming for 5 seasons).

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 Post subject: Re: Alcatraz
PostPosted: Thu Jan 26, 2012 11:16 am 
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Stathol wrote:
You know what really killed the X-Files? In the later seasons it got too bogged down in creating this false sense of intrigue by dangling hints in front of the audience of what appeared to be some kind of intricate, but coherent conspiracy plot happening just "behind the curtain". They resorted to a carrot-and-stick game with the audience's misplaced hope that eventually the curtain would be pulled back and the deep secret revealed. Only, there was never anything behind the curtain to begin with. It was a ploy. And for a while, it worked. But eventually people just got fed up when they realized that were only being jerked around, and that the writers fully intended to keep jerking them around in perpetuity.

And then Lost happened. I don't know how Lost happened, but it did. Maybe people changed between the X-Files and Lost. Or maybe it's just that the X-Files stumbled into this technique in mid-stream, and its audience just wasn't as willing to go along with it, whereas Lost was pretty blatantly obviously a plot sham from the get go. Either way, ever since it went off the air, the networks have been furiously dogpiling on the "ooooh, it's a mystery! myyyyyysteryyyyy!" genre ever since, trying to find the "next Lost". Witness "Persons Unknown" (lol, cancelled), "Terra Nova", etc., etc., etc.

I'm going to keep watching Alcatraz for now, since I found it enjoyable enough and I do really like Sam Neil for some reason. That said, my suspicion is that it's yet another one of these shows. Hopefully they'll prove me wrong, but if I don't start seeing some indication that the writers have actually story-boarded this thing out, I'm probably going to bail on it before it makes it to the end of season 1. The show seems good, but not X-Files or BSG good, and that's pretty much my threshold for putting up with this kind of crap.



Okay, I didn't watch Lost. I tried, but I got bored fast. But everything you say here applies completely to X-Files (oh how frustrated I got at the lack of resolution to anything, EVER), BSG (reimagined) where they painted themselves into a corner with a mystery they had no good answer thought up for.

I will give Alcatraz the benefit of the doubt because Fringe (an Abrams offering which I love) obviously had some forethought put into the mysteries it was unravelling, and actually DOES resolve them as it uncovers new ones. Terra Nova dispelled the notion fairly quickly in this short first season that it was just another "Ooooh, look, a mystery!" It was obviously planned out as well, the writers had a good idea where they were going, and simply revealed it to the user gradually (but not TOO gradually. 12 episodes and all the mysteries are resolved, rather elegantly and believably.)

Where's Alcatraz going to go in that area? Is it another X-Files/BSG or does Abrams have a path for its plot already worked out? I don't know. What bugs me is one never really knows until it's too late and you've wasted a pile of time on the show.

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PostPosted: Fri Jan 27, 2012 5:11 am 
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If they have an end date for this show already...it would help. Seems like they are going for a 'freak of the week' show. They are gonna have to give some of these guys the room to run. Last more than one or two episodes. There are 63 guys they need to collect, they can make that last 100 episodes.

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PostPosted: Fri Jan 27, 2012 7:54 am 
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Raell wrote:
If they have an end date for this show already...it would help. Seems like they are going for a 'freak of the week' show. They are gonna have to give some of these guys the room to run. Last more than one or two episodes. There are 63 guys they need to collect, they can make that last 100 episodes.

No, there are 300 some odd people, they call them the 63 because they disappeared in 1963 :)

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 Post subject: Re: Alcatraz
PostPosted: Fri Jan 27, 2012 8:46 am 
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Talya wrote:
I will give Alcatraz the benefit of the doubt because Fringe (an Abrams offering which I love) obviously had some forethought put into the mysteries it was unravelling, and actually DOES resolve them as it uncovers new ones.
Fringe has gone all sorts of bad.

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 Post subject: Alcatraz
PostPosted: Fri Jan 27, 2012 10:24 am 
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Raell wrote:
If they have an end date for this show already...it would help. Seems like they are going for a 'freak of the week' show. They are gonna have to give some of these guys the room to run. Last more than one or two episodes. There are 63 guys they need to collect, they can make that last 100 episodes.

some invariably will and someone will have to take on the mantle of reoccurring extra secret mystery guy.

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PostPosted: Fri Jan 27, 2012 3:34 pm 
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Yeah, Fringe is taking a serious dip. I watched through the end of Season 3 quite consistently, and I've only watched a handful of episodes from Season 4.

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 Post subject: Alcatraz
PostPosted: Tue Jan 31, 2012 1:20 pm 
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Personally, I think they have a good show without delving too deeply into the whole why of it all.

Normally I'm skeptical of the whole "Drama on two fronts" deal that has suddenly become the fad this year, but they seem to be doing it well.

So my unsolicited open advice would be to focus more on catching the bad guys from the sixties and less on how they they got here.

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 31, 2012 10:00 pm 
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Aye, not everything needs to be known.

But they will dribble out hints, details that make it so you have to know.

Then they won't tell you.

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PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2012 3:59 pm 
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It's ok, they haven't really put enough time into developing some of the modern day characters enough yet, particularly the detective and hurley 2.0, and they are main characters. The characters in the flash backs are much more developed. That said, its got potential, maybe they can create some arcs with baddies that last more than one episode, who says they all come back one at a time. For that matter, who says some of them can't come back reformed, and not causing any trouble.


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 Post subject: Alcatraz
PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2012 7:08 pm 
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Again I would argue that the main characters are the 63s and Hurley 2.0 and blond female detective blatantly stolen from another show of the same genre are just reoccurring supporting cast.

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PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2012 8:26 pm 
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The Alcatraz tour now has signs on it saying that the control room isn't real, don't wander off looking for it because you won't find it and you may get hurt in the roped off areas.

They have had to retrieve people looking for it just about every tour since the show started. They are asked if the tour includes the control room regularly.

People are idiots.

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