I hated it. So did my wife. I don't know, perhaps there was something in the second hour of the pilot that redeemed it, but we couldn't watch past the first hour (basically the first episode).

Where do I begin? The stilted, simple, cliché-ridden dialog? The promise of very little variety in the serial storytelling (I'm left to assume that each week we just follow a different convict)? The poor characterizations?

How about some specific aspects of the show that drove me up the wall and were clear failures on behalf of the people creating this show:

- At some point it's revealed that one of the two guards that discovered everyone was missing was the Sam Neil's character. What they failed to realize is that the audience can do math. Not only does Sam Niel look good for his age of 65, that would have made him 15/16 when this happened in '63. I don't think they were hiring 15 year old guards at friggin' Alcatraz.

- I realize that we don't know much at all about what's going on behind the scenes, but all we're told in the majority of the first episode is that someone brought these convicts/guards through TIME, and the big job they had one of these guys pull off was the theft and murder of some dude for a key in a pouch. Isn't that something they could hire a common burglar to do? You know, when the guy's asleep or out of his home? Maybe the guy needed to be killed, but again that's not something for which you need to go to the trouble of pulling someone through time.

- This last one nearly made me turn the show off as soon as it happened. Near the beginning of the show the lead character tells us that her grandfather was a guard at Alcatraz, and she's all proud of her family law enforcement history. Later in the episode she sees the list of all the people who went missing and we get the stunning revelation: her grandfather wasn't a guard, he was a prisoner!! WHAT?!? Earlier we're being told that this woman was supposedly assisting in her father's cases when she was 12 or something, she's a hot-shot detective, and proud of her family line, and SHE DIDN'T KNOW HER GRANDPA WAS A CONVICT AT THE MOST FAMOUS PRISON IN AMERICAN HISTORY? I lost it. This woman grew up in SF. She probably would have chosen to do a report on her grandpa at some point in grade school. She would have at least done some research later on her own! Then they had to go and throw the icing on the cake and show that she just realized the man who killed her partner...was her granddad! You mean she'd never seen a photo of her grandfather? Again, the man she was so proud of? WTF?


So yeah, we stuck it out through the rest of the episode and stopped before the "second half." If any of you liked it and stick with it, let me know if it gets any better. Also let me know if Parminder Nagra isn't wasted in future episodes.

Not quite the ending for Shane that's in the comic, but pretty well done, IMO. There was a bit more build up in the show, so nice to give Shane and Rick a face off while still giving Carl a final shot.

It was exciting at the beginning, but all of the "I'm Rick, I did what I had to do but now you all must hate me, and if you don't I'm going to talk crazy and mean so you will for sure" stuff felt contrived. Also, his wife needs to get a grip and stand by her man. After her whole speech to Rick earlier about "Shane thinks we're his" backing of way from Rick now is pretty low.

They closed off a street 5 minutes from where I work to shoot some of this season, so I've been waiting for them to return to Atalnta- pretty sure that was just the opening 30 second clip of this episode that they did. Crazy how long they kept it blocked off for such a small scene!

I can believe Rick's wife reacting that way. She's been pretty unstable for a while — perhaps from the beginning. In my opinion, she was intentionally leading Shane on in several scenes in the last half-season. (One that comes to mind is the scene at the windmill, but there have been others.)

But yeah, Rick snapping like that at the end didn't feel right at all. I honestly have the feeling that it was handled wrong by the actor and the director. It came across as overbearing. Assume the same lines were delivered by someone who felt that trying to be accommodating to the group's various factions had not only gotten a lot of them killed, but forced him to kill his best friend. Not someone who suddenly became overbearing, finding fault with everyone else, but someone grieving and finding fault with his own actions.