Theme Song of the Week: Dark Shadows (1966 - 1971)

The Cult-TV Faces of: The Duel to the Death



Identified by Le0pard13: The Outer Limits: "Fun and Games"




Identified by Hugh: Star Trek: "Amok Time."




Identified by Dave Colahan: The Starlost: "The Goddess Calabra"




Identified by Dave Colohan: Planet of the Apes: "The Gladiators"




Identified by Dave Colohan: Space:1999: "The Rules of Luton."




Identified by Hugh and Dave Colohan: Blake's 7: "Duel"




Identified by Hugh: Buck Rogers: "Buck's Duel to the Death"




Identified by Dave Colohan: V: "The Champion"




Identified by Randal Graves: Angel: "The Ring"




Identified by Woodchuckgod: Farscape: "That Old Black Magic"




Identified by Hugh and Dave Colohan: Star Trek: Voyager: "Tsunkatse"




Identified by Hugh: Firefly: "Shindig"




Not Identified: Smallville: "Dominion"



Television and Cinema Verities: In the Words of the Creators # 3

"I was asked, 'Do you want to do a musical episode of Angel or Firefly?' And I said, 'Not in a million years.' Those shows don't lend themselves to it.  The thing about Buffy is that you do the musical episode without violating the reality of Buffy.  That's the most important thing to me.  What's hilarious about working in fantasy is that you can say 'The evil twin thing? That's not reality, that's bullshit! Who buys that? But the dwarf going out of someone's head is fine.'...You have this seemingly arbitrary, but in fact very strict sense of what can go on in this world.

And Buffy is so sophomoric, romantic, colorful, tense, sexual...I think half the episodes feel like they're about to burst into song anyway...So to say a demon has come who causes musicals make perfect sense in that world.  It doesn't make sense in the Angel world to me.  It definitely makes no sense in the Firefly world.  It's a different kind of choice."

- Joss Whedon discusses the Buffy the Vampire Slayer musical, "Once More With Feeling" with me in 2004's Singing a New Tune: The Re-Birth of the Modern Film Musical (Applause Books, 2005, page 282).

CULT TV BLOGGING: The Fantastic Journey: "Beyond the Mountain" (February 17, 1977)

The third episode of The Fantastic Journey, "Beyond the Mountain" introduces the final piece of the series' character equation: Roddy McDowall's temperamental scientist, Dr. Jonathan Willaway, a man whose plane disappeared over the Sea of Japan in 1963.  

The character of Willaway would promptly become an important one for The Fantastic Journey, offering the writers another viewpoint to explore, and another way of handling crises. 

Where Varian, Lianna, Scott and Fred tend to agree easily on how to grapple with any given situation, Willaway is a bit more independent...and feisty.  In short, he adds the element of the unpredictable, and that's important for the entertainment value of the series, as well as the emerging character development.

"Beyond the Mountain" also perfects another component of its equation here: social commentary.  Historically, this is a critical facet that all great science-fiction series are wise to develop: the capacity to comment on contemporary culture (safely) by projecting that commentary into an alien or fantasy realm.   We saw a bit of that brand of social commentary emerge in the class warfare dynamic of "Atlantium," but the commentary is at full flower in "Beyond the Mountain."

In "Beyond the Mountain," Varian, Fred, Scott and Lianna are joined by Lianna's loyal cat, Sil-El, and then promptly engulfed in an eerie red-colored storm -- a close relative to the green one that stranded the crew and passengers of the Yonder in the Bermuda Triangle.  Lianna is promptly separated from the others, and Varian laments that the time zones are not as "predictable" as he'd prefer.

Lianna ends up in a paradisaical, luxury villa, where Dr. Jonathan Willaway -- a very "strong willed man" -- is tended to by subservient humanoid androids. He calls the androids his "family" but rules over them like a very strict father.  His pleasant and welcoming demeanor hides a darker streak.

Meanwhile, Fred, Varian and Scott are cast down into a misty swamp of gnarled trees and fog. The swamp (which looks like Dagobah...), is impressively-presented here, having been constructed on a sound-stage and seeming very atmospheric, especially in contrast to Willaway's sun-lit world, where the grass is literally always greener.

Before long, Willaway decides he wants to marry Lianna and attempts to keep her from searching for her friends, even as his android "son," Cyrus (John David Carson) also begins to develop human emotions for the lovely woman.

Lianna rejects Willaway's advances, and he drugs her to keep her prisoner at the villa.  He then attempts to re-program Cyrus to eliminate the android's feelings for her.

Down in the swamp, Scott, Fred and Varian encounter a race of green-skinned humanoids, aliens called "Arujians" (think Indians). Their leader is deathly ill from a "bacterial disease" -- malaria -- and Varian and Fred heal him.

Once recovered, the leader explains that Willaway  -- "the man from beyond the mountain" -- came to their land some time ago, subverted their androids, and banished the green-skinned humanoids to the primitive swamp.

"He does not think of us as beings of any worth," the leader comments about Willaway, and from this remark one can see how the episode's central metaphor is crafted. "Beyond the Mountain" is a comment on, for lack of a better word, "the white man's burden," and here a white westerner has re-located a race of "lesser beings" off their land for his own benefit. Just substitute green skin for red skin, and you understand the historical analogy. 

It isn't just the historical relocation of Native Americans that "Beyond the Mountain" comments on, at least obliquely, but also the very concept of slavery.

Here, Willaway keeps a society of androids serving him and is unable to countenance the idea that they could be sentient creatures deserving of the same rights and freedoms he enjoys.

They are only "an amalgam of simulated flesh and bone," he declares at one point. Willaway even tells his son, "your marrow is transistorized; your heart is a battery; your veins and arteries are wire filament." This might be another way of saying that because their skin is different than his; they are "less" than human, a widely-held belief of slave owners in America a hundred-and-fifty years ago.

Adding to the depth of the commentary, Willaway generally treats his android slaves with what he believes is love and kindness, even though he is still firmly master and they still obedient servants.   You've certainly heard the argument that pre-Civil War South, slaves were treated "well" and cared for affectionately.  Perhaps that was indeed true in some instances; but the slaves were still slaves, susceptible to the whims and wishes of a master who believed them nothing more than property. A cage is a cage, even if the warden isn't overtly cruel.  Because some slaves were treated with kindness does not make the institution of slavery morally acceptable.

Here the darkest side of the historical slavery equation is made plain when Willaway, challenged by a female android (Marj Dusay), warns her that if she misbehaves, he will "take her apart." When the enslaved androids finally do rebel against him, Willaway is baffled by their revolt. "I gave you a beautiful place to live. I even made you my son..." he says, feeling betrayed, unaware that his "children" are ready to chart their own destinies. 

Again, it's not difficult to read this analogy as one akin to slavery in America. Many slaves did live on beautiful estates, and many masters did give their slaves their family name  But once more these are not qualities equal to freedom, self-determination, and liberty.

So, in the course of one episode, Willaway displaces one ethnic group (the green-skinned swamp dwellers), and enslaves another (the androids).

Or as he puts it at the denouement, society and he "do have problems."

I'll say. 

You'd think, given his actions, that Willaway would be played as an out-and-out villain, and left defeated and vanquished by episode's end.  But The Fantastic Journey, to its credit, offers a bit more dimensionality in its treatment of Willaway.

In the end, with the help of the series regulars, both subjugated races are freed.  But surprisingly, Varian shows mercy to Willaway and allows him to travel with the group.

Again, this was the final piece of the character dynamics: Varian, Fred, Lianna and Scott are all likable, heroic characters, whereas Willaway (as this episode reveals) is more flawed; and more willing to strike off with his own agenda. He isn't a constant foil (like, say Lost in Space's Dr. Smith), merely a fly in the ointment and wild card. The ending solution, Willaway joining the team, works well story-wise and is even believable because Varian is a man from a peaceful future; one where men don't hold grudges or act in petty fashion. He is the series' version of the peaceful and enlightened Spock, and a great character because he calls to the better angels of our nature. 

In the spirit of Star Trek's "Requiem for Methuselah," Space: 1999's "One Moment of Humanity," Star Trek: The Next Generation's "The Offspring," and the new Battlestar Galactica's "Downloaded" this Fantastic Journey episode also involves the idea of an android (or androids, plural) attaining humanity or understanding humanity. Willaway's son, Cyrus, in this episode dies (in love with Lianna), a "tear" falling from his cheek.  This image seems akin to the one of Zarl attaining "one moment of humanity" in the 1999 story, and the image of Lol dying after learning to feel love towards her father, Data,  in the absolutely heart-wrenching and brilliant "The Offspring," surely one of the most affecting Next Generation episodes produced.    Practically speaking, however, it's hard to imagine an android crying...unless tear ducts were installed.

Kidding aside, the idea of androids grappling with sentience and emotional awareness is handled well enough here; though the depiction of the androids (lanky men and women in gold lame jumpsuits with circuit panels on their backs...) dates the series somewhat dramatically.   Still, "Beyond the Mountain" is likely the best The Fantastic Journey episode of the first three aired, and probably a serious contender for best episode of the short-lived series.

Next episode: "Children of the Gods."

Fantastic Journey Promo

Saturday with Sinbad: Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977)

I first saw Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977) in theaters when I was seven or eight years old.  I absolutely loved it as a kid, and have thought of the film fondly for decades since...but without actually re-visiting it.

A recent re-screening of the film, however, for this Saturday series, reveals Eye of the Tiger to be the least successful of the Ray Harryhausen Sinbad trilogy.

In Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, Sinbad (now Patrick Wayne) must stop a diabolical sorceress -- "as malicious as a shark" --  named Zenobia (Margaret Whiting), who has turned the soon-to-be-coronated Caliph, Prince Kassim, into a baboon.  She has done so in hopes that her own son may assume the throne in Kassim's place. 

Engaged to Kassim's sister, Farah (Jane Seymour), Sinbad sets sail to find a cure for the transformed Kassim.  He meets up with a legendary Greek scientist, Melanthius (Patrick Troughton) and his lovely daughter, Dione (Taryn Power), and together they make for the foreboding ice cliffs of Hyperboria, where a cure may await. 

Meanwhile, Zenobia pursues Sinbad with her frightening automaton, the Minoton...

Directed by Sam Wanamaker, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger was released in American theaters just six weeks after Star Wars premiered in 1977, and so it's clear that a dramatic shift was occurring in terms of movie fantasies.  Unfortunately, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger looks old and tired compared to Star Wars, with several disastrous scenes featuring unnecessary rear projection. 

I'm not certain what occurred here, but in several scenes it looks as though the major cast members (Wayne, Seymour and Troughton) never went on location, and so all of the exterior scenes on Melanthius's island reek of visual phoniness.  It's so bad as to take you out of the movie's reality for several minutes.

Secondly, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger is the only Sinbad movie where the stop-motion animation itself proves a little tiresome.  The first fight in the film -- Sinbad against three insectoid/skeleton creatures from the underworld -- is dire. 

As Clash of the Titans also revealed, stop motion animation works less well in night-time settings (something about the mismatch in lighting between live and animated elements, I presume...). 

But what makes this battle with the insectoids worse than anything in Clash is the monsters' relative size compared to Wayne's.  They look just a tad shorter and smaller than Sinbad.  Not small enough to be homunculi or some other diminutive fantasy creature, mind you, but just short enough to make it appear as though the perspectives in the mating of the footage are wrong.

Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger would have also worked a lot better, in visual terms, if a real baboon had been used as Kassim, instead of a stop-motion figure.  The same thing with the Minoton.  There are instances here wherein a full-scale statue/person-in-suit (seen briefly, I think....) could have more effectively brought the creature to life for longer spells.  The poor visuals involving the baboon and the Minoton give one the impression that the Sinbad movies have fallen into a creative rut; one where the creators seem to think stop-motion animation is the only solution to a special effects problem.  No one was thinking outside that particular box. 

On top of these flaws, we've gone back to the 7th Voyage of Sinbad's non-ethnic, western portrayal of Sinbad, and Patrick Wayne seems to lack the intensity of John Phillip Law.  He's cheery and kind of bland.   This film is also the longest of the Sinbad features clocking it at nearly two hours, and the plot is so simplistic that much of the film feels like a drag.  Then, when we finally get to the happy conclusion (Kassim's delayed coronation), the film displays end credits over the footage so the audience can't make out what's happening.

God, I hate writing any of that, because Joel (my five year old son) enjoyed the heck out of Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, and it was for kids like him that the movie was made.  I understand that, and I'm thrilled he loved the film.

Therefore, I'm going to try to focus now on the things I liked most about the film.  First and foremost is the  Troglodyte creature of Hyperboria. 

This humanoid "monster" remains one of Harryhausen's greatest efforts, perhaps, and is absolutely brimming with humanity and personality.  The creature gives up its life to save Sinbad and his group in the climax, and it's a sacrifice you really feel.   It's amazing to countenace the idea that a "miniature" or sculpted model can make you feel strong emotions, but that's precisely what occurs with this sympathetic monster.

Secondly, the Minoton is an absolutely awesome villain and creation, and represents Joel's big imaginative "takeaway" from the movie.  More than anything in the world right now, my son wants a Minoton action figure.  The Minoton is actually a kind of golden bull robot, and cuts quite the imposing figure in the film.  But again, I must note that something goes amiss with the character's use: he's killed removing a brick from a pyramid (!) and never given the chance to challenge Sinbad in combat. 

Bummer. 

This is a villain that absolutely required a more fitting and dramatic end.  The film's climax should have involved a brawl between Sinbad and the Minoton.  Even Joel, at five years old, knew something wasn't right.  He kept asking if the Minoton was going to pop up at the end.  But he didn't.

The other monsters in the film are a little underwhelming, a giant bee, a smilodon and a giant walrus, among them.   They look fine, but somehow lack an overt sense of menace.  The scene involving the bee happens to be spectacularly bad.  Troughton's character creates a giant bee to test Zenobia's transformation serum, and then it promptly runs wild, and allows for Zenobia to escape.  Ugh.

After having watched all the Sinbad movies now, I must say that Golden Voyage stands out as the best, with Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger bringing up the rear.   This film's most eye-opening (and unexpected effect), at least for a forty-something dad, is a nude scene by the gorgeous (and apparently never aging...) Jane Seymour.   

Somehow, as a seven year old, I didn't pick up on that.

I must have been too busy ogling the Minoton.

Next week on Saturday with Sinbad, a real classic from Harryhausen: Jason and the Argonauts (1963).

Movie Trailer: Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977)

The Films of 1982: Firefox

Tense, cerebral, and confident in a kind of glacial, calculating fashion, director Clint Eastwood's Cold War techno-thriller Firefox was one of the unique offerings of the great summer of 1982. 

A literate and respectable adaptation of Craig Thomas' 1978 novel of the same name, Firefox took on the  Soviet Union -- the "Evil Empire" of President Reagan's famous conjuration -- and also imagined some chilling, futuristic developments in the dangerous international game of technological and ideological brinkmanship.

Although today Firefox seems a bit drawn out at two-hours-and-fifteen-minutes, and even a little emotionally flat in some respects, Eastwood's confident decision to eschew traditional movie sentimentality and mock heroics actually augments the film's artistic success, and notably strengthens its case for American-style freedom and democracy.

Although Firefox concerns an American pilot going undercover in Moscow to steal a high-tech warplane, in terms of substance much of the narrative involves Eastwood's pilot, Gant, interacting with  Soviet rebels; rebels who -- without flinching, and noticeably without narcissism -- give up their lives for a cause greater than personal success, wealth or gain. 

Again and again, these courageous dissidents do what is necessary, what is hard, and what is truly heroic (but not selfish...) to bring freedom not just to their country, but peace to the world at large.  The depiction of the Soviet Union in Firefox may or may not be entirely accurate -- Gant and his comrades are asked for their papers so often you'd swear you're in a World War II propaganda film -- but Eastwood's (and, incidentally, President Reagan's...) case is forged masterfully. Deny a people their freedom, their individual liberty long enough, and, eventually, you'll be consigned to the ash heap of history. Your "control" won't be a match for their dedication.

Unlike the James Bond films, which sometimes positioned SPECTRE or some other criminal organization as the real force of terror in the world while the U.S. and U.S.S.R were merely competitors, Firefox rather decidedly chooses sides in the Cold War struggle, recognizing that one nation embraces personal freedom while the other squelches it.  Although this may sound too black-and-white for some viewers, Eastwood has focused so intently and so masterfully on details of technology and espionage, -- and so masterfully cut-out all dramatic histrionics -- that the film often plays as quasi-documentary. 

In the film's final sequence, replete with masterful effects from John Dykstra, Firefox literally and metaphorically takes flight...and proves utterly rousing.

"If the Soviets can mass produce it, it will change the structure of our world..."

A former pilot and head of a U.S. military "aggressor" squad, Mitchell Gant (Eastwood) is recruited by American intelligence officials to go undercover in Moscow and steal a newly designed, experimental warplane, Firefox. 

The matter is one of national security because the Soviet craft can travel faster than Mach 5, and is virtually invisible to radar.  Perhaps more dramatically, the plane is controlled by "brain emissions" and "thought impulses" through helmet sensors, meaning that pilot response time in battle is greatly reduced.  "The greatest warplane ever built," Firefox could change the worldwide balance of power.

Though Gant is an outstanding pilot, he has precious little experience in the world of espionage, and worse, he's still haunted by a traumatic experience in the Vietnam War, during which he saw a young Vietnamese girl firebombed by American planes.  In moments along and in quiet, Gant often experiences seizures, reliving the troubling memories.

Gant travels to Moscow, masquerading as a business-man, but his cover is soon blown,  Helpful dissidents soon come to his aid, arranging again and again his safe passage, often at the expense of their lives.  When Gant finally reaches Firefox's hanger, the scientists who developed the plane also sacrifice themselves to give him cover, for escape and Gant takes off in the technological Goliath.

Unfortunately for Gant, there is a second Firefox ready to launch, and it soon takes to the skies in pursuit...,

"This is very important:  You must think in Russian."

What I admire most about Firefox is its streamlined, no-nonsense nature.  There's no ameliorating romance here, no juvenile comedic relief, and no pandering to the audience in terms of making the action easy or simple. 

This is a complicated film, like an old Mission: Impossible episode in some respects, and the film encourages engagement and attention in a way that few thrillers today manage.  We understand now that Eastwood is a great director, but that fact is also plain here.  He stages a number of elaborate sequences (including one in a Moscow subway station) with tremendous aplomb and visual clarity.  This is a far cry from last week's 1982 feature, Megaforce, which couldn't be bothered to lay out for viewers the spatial, geographical details of battle.

Even better than the film's visual distinction, it's clear that Firefox also has something important on its mind.  The film's overriding leitmotif is stated in the line of dialogue I excerpted above in the section break.  "You must think in Russian." 

On a literal level, of course, this admonition applies to Gant's mastery of Firefox's control systems.  It is a plane controlled by thought, but it was made in Russia, so Gant must phrase his mental commands in Russian.  That alone would be challenge for any pilot.

But on a metaphorical level, Eastwood's character is forced, while in the Iron Curtain, to think like a Russian in terms of what it means to live in a totalitarian regime.  He doesn't understand this distinction at first.  He can't think in Russian, because he's from an entirely different culture, a "free man."   At least twice in the film, Gant seeks to understand why the dissidents are so willing to buck the system, to fight City Hall when the end game is only death.  "What is it with you Jews, anyway?" he asks, rather insensitively.  "Don't you get tired of fighting City Hall?"

Later, when Gant asks a dissident what will happen to him, the rebel replies "It doesn't matter," and Gant takes the remark like a slap across the face.  Of course his life matters.  Every life matters.  But for the dissident, what remains of import here is doing something positive for the country, for his people....in the cause of freedom. 

Some audiences may see this whole subplot as propagandistic or nationalistic, but remember the context: this film was produced at the height of the Cold War, after the Soviet Union had advanced into Afghanistan.  The film reflects that worrisome time, and more so, reflects the American perspective of that conflict.   There's no moral equivocation or relativism in Firefox, only a journey in which a hero is exposed, on his journey, to what it means to live without freedom.  He learns to "think like a Russian," to see life in a place where liberty is absent.  The film picks sides, and it's hard to disagree with Firefox's conclusion.  Freedom is universally the superior paradigm.

Many audiences of today's vintage may find Gant's tragic flaw -- his PTSD seizures -- woefully cliched.  We've seen this particular idea repeated so many times in 2011 that it is trite, and even a little silly.  And yet, in context of the picture, I'd again suggest that it works just fine.  The game here is to make a realistic thriller about a flawed man fighting for his country.  The PTSD takes the edge of invincibility off the familiar Eastwood persona, and makes him more dimensional.  Again, you must contrast Firefox's approach with the likes of something like Moonraker (1979), an espionage/spy film that leaves reality behind (not there's anything wrong, intrinsically with that approach). 

Here, reality comes first and foremost, and people are portrayed as innate courageous...but also innately flawed.  There's a great moment late in the film when Gant brutally takes down a Soviet pilot.  He ambushes him, but then stops, mid-beating, and reveals his humanity.  "Hell," he says, "you didn't do anything."   Mercy is a human trait, and one that many screen heroes of today, in their darkness and angst, eschew.

Of course, that good deed is punished when the beaten pilot -- angry over his treatment -- pilots the second Firefox in pursuit of Gant.  But still, the point of Gant's humanity is made very well.

The last forty-five minutes or so of Firefox involve Gant in the cockpit, in the sky, attempting to fake out, evade, and survive dedicated Soviet pursuit.  It's quite a strong third act, and it features some absolutely exhilarating first-person flight footage.  The special effects by Dykstra (involving miniatures) are not as dated as I thought they were before I re-screened the film, and in fact, very impressive.  The design of Firefox, for instance, is fantastic.  I'd love a model kit.   

I also wondered for the first time while watching this film for this review, if Airwolf was not actually a Blue Thunder knock-off (and a good one), but a Firefox knock-off.  Both productions involve the theft of a high-tech aircraft, both feature protagonists who are traumatized by the Vietnam conflict, and both crafts feature an element (air or fire) and mammal (wolf or fox) in their name.

Where the final, climactic segment of Firefox falls down, at least a little bit, is in the perhaps-unconscious but nevertheless obvious aping of Star Wars in one dramatic moment.

At one point in the aerial combat, Gant takes his Firefox down into an ice trench (like the Death Star technological trench), while his opponent pursues.  During the chase, we get a voice-over from Ben Kenobi, er Freddie Jones reminding him to think in Russian.  The voice-over is obvious and unnecessary, and the similarity to the Star Wars' climax merely takes away from all the respect Firefox achieves with its high-integrity, low-drama approach to storytelling.

Late in the film, the oily, villainous First Secretary of the U.S.S.R. taunts Gant with the questions "are you enjoying your ride, Mr. Gant? Like our new toy?"  In terms of the movie, the answer would have to be affirmative.  Firefox is a solid, well-crafted, intelligent ,techno-thriller, even today, and it earns your respect scene-by-scene.  More than that, it boasts a smart, contemplative core, asking its (predominantly American...) audience to think like a "Russian," and imagine what it means to live in a world without freedom, one where you can't fight City Hall.

Next Week on The Films of 1982: The Class of 1984.

Firefox (1982) Trailer

TV REVIEW: Alcatraz: "Pilot" (2012)

To describe Alcatraz in a convenient shorthand, the new sci-fi mystery series from creators Elizabeth Sarnoff, Steven Lilien, Bryan Wynbrandt and executive producer J.J. Abrams is a lot like Brimstone (1998) meets Lost (2004 - 2010).

Don't remember Brimstone?  If not, a true shame, because it is worth remembering.

Brimstone was a terrific but short-lived Fox horror series (that aired on Fridays with  Millennium) and concerned a laconic cop (Peter Horton) working with Satan himself (John Glover) to send back to Hell some 200+ demon prisoners who had escaped from the underworld. 

Each week, there was a a different prisoner to catch, each with his or her own story  and unique modus operandi. 

What made Brimstone authentically great, however, wasn't necessarily the somewhat repetitive premise, but rather the scintillating chemistry between the stars, and the fact that the series dwelt much on the personal life of Det. Ezekiel Stone (Horton), who had also been a prisoner in Hell himself, and returned to Earth to find that his wife (Stacy Haiduk) had moved on. 

I wish the series had been more popular, or that Fox had shown a little faith in it and given it more time on the air.  One of these days, if I can get my hands on all the episodes, I should cult blog the series as I'm currently doing with The Fantastic Journey.  An official DVD set would sure be nice.

But back to Alcatraz.  The series premise is eerily similar.  In March of 1963, Alcatraz was closed and "officially speaking" all the prisoners were transferred to newer facilities.  But "that's not what happened.  Not at all."  Instead, in some kind of Philadelphia Experiment way, all the prisoners disappeared...never to be seen again.

Until now...

For some reason, these deadly criminals are re-appearing in 2012, and wreaking havoc in nearby San Francisco.  The prisoners not only seem to be following their own modus operandi, but appear to be working for some unknown group or conspiracy, in furtherance of some diabolical agenda.  They haven't aged a day since 1963, and appear to be performing tasks for some unknown overlords.

Working to apprehend the 300+ criminals is police detective Rebecca Madsen (Sarah Jones) and her partner, author and geek Diego Soto (Jorge Garcia).  They work for the mildly sinister Emerson Hauser (Sam Neill), who was a guard at Alcatraz the night the prisoners vanished from sight and knows much more than he is currently revealing.

So thus far, each week...another prisoner to catch, each with his distinctive methods.  "Ernest Cobb" was the Wichita Sniper, for instance, with a pattern of killing three innocent victims every three days, as per the second episode.  He gets caught in the second episode.

The Lost comparison comes into play because Alcatraz, at least in its pilot and first regular episode (the aforementioned "Ernest Cobb") heavily involves character flashbacks.  We see the prisoners' time on Alcatraz before disappearing, for instance, which serves as clue to the larger mystery.  The overall setting -- an island filled with temporal mysteries -- also clearly harks back to the earlier Abrams series, as does (the inspired_ casting of Garcia.

Although Alcatraz is mired in familiar elements from Brimstone,  Lost and about a dozen police procedurals currently on the air, I must admit I found it  modestly intriguing, and it held my interest for two hours  I was particularly gratified in the casting of Sarah Jones as Madsen and Garcia as De Soto.  They are an unconventional but intriguing pair, cast for their solid acting abilities, not merely their looks.  In fact, I found Sarah Jones quite fetching.  She's not traditionally beautiful (though she is lovely), yet she projects a distinctive personality and quality of reality that I appreciated.  Her casting reminded me a little bit of Gillian Anderson on The X-Files.  She's a woman who -- the more you look at her and spend time with her -- the more you see her inner and outer beauty. 

What's the point?  Well, even with all its derivative qualities, I sense that Alcatraz may be worth sticking with simply for the character interplay.  The performances of the actors and personalities of the characters may overcome some of the admittedly routine material.  That's my hope, anyway.  Sometimes watching a TV show isn't about a premise, or about a particular narrative, but about spending time with people who intrigue you.

In general, I must admit, I also found the pilot of Alcatraz smarter than anything I  ever saw on the re-made V, Terra Nova or Flash Forward.  Again, I realize that this compliment is like being voted the nicest inmate in prison (on Alcatraz?), but I suppose it's something.  Watching Alcatraz, I didn't feel that my intelligence was overtly being insulted (as was surely the case with both V and Terra Nova).

My wife, who watched both the Alcatraz pilot and "Ernest Cobb" with me was not so excited by the possibilities of the program.  When I asked her what bothered her, she stressed J.J. Abrams' involvement and noted her fear that Alcatraz was going to lead us around by the nose but never truly come together; that the central mystery was never going to be resolved satisfactorily.

Good point.  I hope the show doesn't just lead us on.  I hope it goes somewhere amazing; somewhere that is internally consistent, makes sense, and really wows the audience.  Let's have not only a grand mystery...but a grand, mind-blowing investigation and resolution too. 

Is that too much to ask?

Sc-Fi Wisdom of the Week

"Mr. Gant, you are an American. You are a free man. I am not. There is a difference. If I resent the men in London who are ordering my death, then it is a small thing when compared with my resentment of the KGB."

- Firefox (1982), to be reviewed here tomorrow.