TV Review: ALCATRAZ - Webb Porter 1.11

Well, what is there to say about Alcatraz this week? Not all that much in my opinion, it was one of those run of the mill episodes that we all seemed to be bogged down in mid-season. Alcatraz has certainly had some money thrown at it, and considering the people involved behind the scenes I can only say that I was expecting a lot more than I have got this far. Alcatraz started well I thought it was a pretty decent "Pilot" episode, it dipped from there and didn't really get any better until "Johnny McKee" rocked back up in modern day San Fransisco, it carried on from there and then this week it went back to the same old procedural bore that I have come to expect. No new answers and nothing new in way of ideas as to where we could be going. We can at least say one thing, Rebecca and Doc now know everything about the blood situation and thanks to the video they found they also know that Lucy was a 63, I still feel like Hauser will be hiding something.

As far as this weeks returnee goes, I really wasn't that impressed, drowning girls and then using their long hair to string his bow, or what ever that thing for playing violin is called. Pretty much the only thing that impressed me about "Webb Porter" was the fact that out of eleven episodes, this far he is the only prisoner that it's taken Doc longer than twenty five minutes to figure out. Usually after the first body turns up Doc comes up with a name, not this week, in fact it was Rebecca who discovered the Violin clue and then found his name. On saying that it really didn't go anywhere to make Rebecca more interesting did it?

I know we can't expect to have the answers to our questions every week, and the show has been quite revealing in it's last few offerings, but for something that promised to possibly be the new Lost, I just don't see it. You could guarantee that after every episode of Lost I couldn't wait until the following week to see what was going to happen next. I just don't get that with Alcatraz, it's very much a case of ah-well, let's see where we go next week. Next weeks show will be the two hour season finale and I would like to think that it will be a very revealing two hours, certainly if they want to get another season out of it. There are still plenty of answers to be had for another season and I would probably watch it if it gets the go ahead, but I think some major improvements may be needed.

Like every week in Alcatraz I find the flashbacks to 1960 - 1963 better than the modern day story line, so far that is when we are getting most of our answers and the story lines are a lot better. In "Webb Porter" I don't recall anything remotely interesting about the modern day story, other than Hauser visiting that Masseuse at the beginning, what were those pills for? Who is she? They seemed to know each other pretty well, but if my guessing is right we will probably have to wait until the second season before we find out.

Why is Emerson Hauser so grumpy all the time? For me it's not an emotion that Sam Neil really does all that well on screen, I've never seen an angry man look so un-menacing, cheer up man, unless maybe this is all your fault. Dr Beauregard had very little to do again this week other than save Lucy's life, he did have one interesting thing to say though, did you catch it? When he made reference to the fact that he hasn't been outside for a while, for me that means he is not allowed to leave the new Alcatraz, why? Lucy opening her eyes at the end of the episode, ok I suppose, but it would probably have been a bit more dramatic if she wasn't so pretty. And lets face it we all knew that was going to happen the minute she was injected with Webb Porter's blood.

I really did find this episode a little boring, I went through the motions watching it but couldn't say that it was particularly memorable, in fact I can't really say that for any episode of Alcatraz. All I can say is that I hope the season finale starts persuading me that Alcatraz really can live up to it's potential and all the hype.