THE NEXT LOST

Jorge Garcia was the first hire in JJ Abrams sci-fi series, LOST. One of the reasons may have been to find a secondary anchor character that would place viewers into their own screen surrogate in Hurley. Another reason was the initial plan to kill off a lead (Jack) quickly in order to heighten the danger element of the show.

Garcia has joined the cast of the next Abrams sci-fi series, ALCATRAZ. Still not wanting to get sucked into a seemingly weak premise in the adverts leading up to the premiere, I passed on viewing. But I did read the initial reviews which were mostly positive, but led to some critical flaws in the story construction and plot movement.

ALCATRAZ appears to be a combination of the X-Files, in a secret government conspiracy within shadow organizations, and Lost, in another Island as a main focal point for supernatural elements. In this case, prisoners had vanished from the high security prison before it closed and now, decades later, they begin to appear in modern day San Francisco with evil intent.

This new Lost has an X-Files nicotine free Smoking Man, a cute street wise female police officer who suddenly gets transferred (for no logical real world reason) into the secret organization tracking down the re-appearing menace of Lost Prisoners. Garcia's character is an academic who has studied Alcatraz in minute detail, including the missing prisoners, so he is drafted to be the police woman's non-trained law enforcement partner (yes, that is another real life stretch).

The reviewers said that unlike LOST, the pilot episode had a self contained resolution of the first prisoner's story, and then threw in some real plot twists at the end. Reviewers thought that the creators of this show were aware of the LOST story arcs that went into tangential dead ends were the main criticisms when LOST concluded and the writers made a conscious effort to tie up story leads quickly in a clear, understandable way.

I will probably still wait and see how the reviewers see how the show is progressing before wading into another Abrams show pool. Then, it may get a chance during the television re-run season.