Is
Alcatraz, the new Fox series airing this January, the next
Lost?
It's safe to say that, yes.
For one, it's about an island. It's about mysteries in said island. Those mysteries are, at least right now, looking to be time travel-related. Also, it's executive produced by J.J. Abrams, and written by another
Lost EP, Elizabeth Sarnoff. The pilot is scored by Michael Giacchino. And one of the stars is Hurley.
You can be forgiven in thinking that Alcatraz season 1 is pretty much the next Lost, but we can't say that for sure -- in part because J.J. Abrams has been pretty quiet about this show. Typical of his other shows, then.
But here's what we do know about Alcatraz season 1. The series revolves around Rebecca Madsen (Sarah Jones), a homicide detective with San Francisco police. A fingerprint from one of the murders she's looking into leads her to Jack Sylvane, a former Alcatraz inmate who's been dead decades ago. So why is it there exactly?
Rebecca's interest is piqued, in part because her grandfather and her surrogate uncle, Ray Archer (Robert Forster), were prison guards at Alcatraz. More so, a mysterious government agent, Emerson Hauser (Sam Neill), tries to stop her investigation.
She then teams up with Alcatraz expert and comic book lover Diego Soto (Jorge Garcia) -- I know, it really sounds a bit like Hurley -- where they discover that Sylvane is indeed alive. And he hasn't aged a bit. And he is out on the streets of San Francisco. So what is really up?
Alcatraz season 1 also features ER's Parminder Nagra as Lucy Banerjee, Hauser's technician; Jonny Coyne and Jason Butler Harner as the head wardens of Alcatraz during its heyday (yep, there are flashbacks to fifty years ago), and Heroes' Santiago Cabrera as Jimmy Dickens, Rebecca's cop fiance.
If Alcatraz isn't the next Lost, then maybe it is the next Fringe -- a show that's part-procedural, part-sci-fi, and full of personal storylines, especially as the series goes deeper and Rebecca's family history goes under the spotlight.
Alcatraz premieres January 16, 2012 from 9pm on Fox. Why not watch a trailer from the new series?
(Image courtesy of Fox)