Review: The Sound of My Voice

Non Spoiler Review:

Written by the talented Brit Marling (Another Earth) and Zal Batmanglij (who also directed), Sound of My Voice stars Christopher Denham, Nicole Vicius and Marling. Denham and Vicius play Peter and Lorna, a couple from diverse backgrounds who want to make a documentary exposing a new cult leader who is gathering followers in Los Angeles. Together they manage to pass the initiations and meet Maggie, gaining access to her outrageous claims and participating in her bizarre cleansing and survival rituals. Is she telling the truth, or playing everyone for a fool? Starting out as skeptics, Peter and Lorna are forced to come to terms with the often convincing, charismatic Maggie, as much as with their own relationship.

Like Another Earth, The Sound of My Voice was gripping from start to finish—both in the unfolding mystery revealed in curious and enigmatic tidbits, as well as the believable characters. There's an underlying sense of danger, both from the implication that the cult could be violent, as well what may happen if Peter and Lorna are discovered. Marling again proves she can carry a film, delivering a convincing performance of a magnetic cult leader, who seems convincing even when making the most ridiculous requests and claims. The undercover couple also bring a believable struggle of skepticism versus belief that begins to wear on their relationship.

Though it's a low budget independent film, it doesn't come across that way onscreen. It's a very intimate, character-driven piece so doesn't require a lot of flash. It's a tense and unnerving movie in places, and the music contributes to a very edgy, ominous tone (though there's one musical addition that succeeds in delivering a jolt of humour where one wouldn't expect it).

However, like Another Earth, The Sound of my Voice is equally frustrating. Having grappled with the former film's abrupt ending, I fully expected something similarly enigmatic here and wasn't disappointed. It left me annoyed at first, but the more I thought about the film as a whole, the more I appreciated all the facets of the plot and the ways it was open to interpretation.

I would have loved more revelation and detail thrown in to give me some closure. What I got was enough to grip me throughout the movie and left me to ponder it the rest of the evening. It's likely one of those movies worth a rewatch to see what you missed the first time. While I enjoyed this, as well as Another Earth, I leave with a caution to Marling's next endeavour. It's fine to create an elaborate and interesting plot when one doesn't have to resolve it in any thorough way, so it's debatable when this moves from cleverness into bad writing. 

Review: Alcatraz "Johnny McKee"

Non Spoiler Review:

Johnny McKee is another point by point Alcatraz episode, so to recap: Alcatraz prisoner Johnny Mckee blah blah blah poisonous gas blah blah blah Diego, Hauser and Rebecca blah blah blah attempts to commit mass murder. No surprises here. Along the way, there are further clues (and some innuendos) about the conspiracy in the flashbacks, but I can't really say any of this rose above the usual Alcatraz pattern.

I'm bored with the series. Not that the backstory isn't interesting, but to watch an otherwise uninspired hour for a few minutes of clues is starting to feel like a chore. The writers need to ramp things up significantly and break this mold.

Spoilers Now!

Beauregard muses that modern technology is still lacking in some areas, given Lucy remains unresponsive to his treatments. But he can tell that she's dreaming and suggests Hauser read to her to draw her out and perhaps give her a reason to recover. Hauser poo poos that and walks out.

Johnny McKee is this week's criminal, currently tending bar at a nightclub, and spikes the drinks of some unruly patrons who abruptly drop dead. The scene gets put on YouTube and immediately spotted and identified by Diego. Johnny was a chemist who killed over 70 people in 1958. Cyanide was his drug of choice and he even murdered his high school class at their reunion, though most of his victims are usually men.

The gang get Johnny's address from the club owner. Johnny is currently being interviewed as a swimming pool maintenance man. Diego realizes the address number is actually a reference to his cell number, and he was Jack Sylvane's neighbour. Rebecca doesn't know where Sylvane is being held, so Hauser says he'll bring him to her to interview.

Rebecca interviews Sylvane in the presence of several guards and Hauser. He wonders if he doesn't answer her questions will Hauser give him to Beauregard again? Rebecca offers to give back a photo of his wife in exchange for cooperation, so Sylvane recounts how Johnny told him he once had a girl named Jenny. Johnny also used nightshade as a poison, a plant that's found all over the island. Rebecca turns the questions to her grandfather and learns he was in the infirmary a lot, and talked about the hole beneath the hole. Hauser ends the questions and takes Sylvane away.

Johnny poisons the water system as soon as he starts work and kills everyone in the pool. When word comes about those murders, Rebecca wonders if he'll tackle the city water supply next. The gang trace McKee's attempts to acquire nightshade, but arrive too late at his last base of operations but do find out he was cooking up a phosphorus chemical. They find the quote Future is Now on the blackboard, and a newspaper clipping referencing that term with the new subway. Johnny has already taken over a car and prepares to flood it with poison gas.

The gang gets to the stopped subway car and save the passengers while Johnny makes a break for it. Rebecca and Hauser hunt him down and capture him. Diego finds out his girl Jenny was injured when acid dye exploded in her face.

Back at neo-Alcatraz, Sylvane has asked to see Hauser and returns the photograph given he's done with the past that he can never reclaim. He wants to know what's going to happen to them, but Hauser only tells him he was a prisoner then and is one now. Sylvane admits he doesn't dream anymore. Hauser returns to the infirmary to sit with Lucy and read to her.

The flashback to 1960 deals with Johnny being cornered by a big wig prisoner, Cullen, to murder another felon. He has no choice in the matter, so Johnny sets about finding a suitable weapon and poison. Johnny is brought to see Lucy, who asks why the majority of his victims are men. He's uncooperative with her, but when he finally strikes, it's to kill Cullen, rather than the initial target, given he hates a bully.

In a second session, Lucy confronts Johnny about what really happened with Jenny—that he was discovered having sex with her by the football team who tormented him and threw fire crackers, and he lost his testicles as a result, leading him to seek revenge on bullies the rest of his life. Johnny admits to burning Jenny with acid. Now that he's told the truth she says she can help him.

The Verdict:

I'll skip over the entire Johnny McKee crime spree, given there was nothing at all new there. But it was interesting that Rebecca has never followed up with where the other prisoners are until now. Wouldn't there be questions about how Hauser explained them away? Why wouldn't Hauser just interrogate Sylvane himself rather than risk Rebecca and all her additional questions about her grandfather?

Finally, there seemed to be a few casual throwaway lines that could relate to the overall mystery. Why doesn't Sylvane dream? Is there any connection to how many days the prisoners have been back and where they returned? And the other secret chamber under Alcatraz is referenced again.

What is the point of all the prisoners' backstories and how they relate to Lucy's psychoanalysis. I'm at a loss to how this all gets tied together with the larger time travel arc, or is it just fluff to fill out the hour? There needs to be a significant divergence from the tired writers' to do list or I won't be sticking with this one for much longer.

Review: Alcatraz "Paxton Petty"

Non Spoiler Review:
The criminal this week is a mad Korean War vet carrying a grudge that leads him to blow up people with land mines. The flashbacks to 1960 focus more on Lucy's role at Alcatraz, while Hauser's feelings for her provide the drive to capture Paxton in the present.

Another okay one, but Alcatraz has settled into an annoying and predictable routine. Rebecca's character has gotten better, and even Hauser (through his younger version) showed some emotion this time. But the present day stuff needs to be equally as strong as the flashbacks, and that still isn't the case.

Spoilers Now!

In 1960, the warden and Lucy greet the arrival of Paxton Petty. As he's led away, a young officer named Hauser seems infatuated with her. She gets his name and offers him a peppermint. In the present, he looks in on her at the hospital where she has seen no improvement, and there's suggestion that she might not ever recover.

Bombs blow up in a park killing several people, and state the obvious Diego declares it's Paxton Petty. He was a combat engineer in Korea who set land mines back in the States and was sent to Alcatraz. Rebecca spies him in the crowd and takes off running. He throws a mine at her and she's forced to take cover. 

They wonder who is supplying him with bombs, and Diego muses someone in the present might be helping these people (as with Cobb's rifle). The shrapnel from the mine is old, but Paxton is adding something to the mix so Rebecca takes some photos to analyze. It turns out to be a military medal, though he was never awarded one in Korea (despite feeling he deserved one). Considering he would need to rob a military grave to get one, they track him to a graveyard where he used to work and stored his gear.

In the flashback, Beauregard attempts to glean the location of Petty's unexploded bombs. Lucy tries her own methods to get the information by going through his past as a soldier—laying minds to kill women and children in Korea. She uses electroshock treatment and he begins to sing a song she later plays for Tommy Madsen. He wants to know why he spends so much time in the infirmary. If she wants to know what the song is, then he tells her to find out why he's in there all the time. As it turns out, it's a Korean lullaby used by the enemy to communicate the location of mines using keywords. The Americans did the same thing.

In the present, Hauser has gone through some of Lucy's old records, finding a note with particular words circled. He realizes they are locations throughout the city that might be the spot of the final bomb that has yet to be discovered. Meanwhile, the city has received a ransom note for a specific amount of money in exchange for the sites of the new bombs. Hauser advises Rebecca to cross reference her locations with words he's discovered in Lucy's notes. They narrow down an elementary school that is conveniently close to Diego's comic shop, but the bomb squad finds nothing. Hauser goes to another beach location where he finds Petty digging.

Hauser steps on and activates a mine, so Petty pulls his gun and advises him not to move. That night at the school, Diego and Rebecca spy Petty planting his explosives. She cuffs him and calls Hauser, only to find his phone on Petty.

Rebecca locks him up at Alcatraz and asks where Hauser is. But he wants to know how he got there. He just woke up in 2012 less than a week before, he explains. Rebecca leaves Diego with him while she finds Hauser's files and sees that Petty was his case in 1960. The circled words lead her to conclude she'll find him at the beach. Petty rants on about how important he was in Alcatraz that even the warden gave him to his lady head shrinker. Diego asks who that could be given there were no lady psychiatrists at Alcatraz. Rebecca drags them all off to find Hauser.

In 1960 the warden learns Lucy broke Petty's code with the keywords. She couldn't decipher the final bomb location but suggests the police will be able to. Beauregard compliments her, but she asks about Tommy Madsen and why he's a perfectly healthy man spending so much time in the infirmary giving blood. He advises her not to overstep herself.

Hauser is still standing where Petty left him. The bomb squad arrives to defuse it, and Rebecca learns Hauser's been searching for the final bomb all these years. They decide to just risk getting him off the mine and replacing him with one of the bomb squad guys. That works, but Petty has it rigged too tough and the guy gets blown up before he can disarm it.

Hauser goes to Petty and shoots him in the leg. He lies that the last mine went off years ago and no one died. Petty gives up the actual location and Hauser leaves.

In the final flashback Lucy stops by to see young Hauser, asking about the final bomb. He has no leads, so she offers her help, and he can start by asking her to dinner. In the present at her bedside he lets her know they found the last one. He unhooks her from her life support and takes her out, all the way to new Alcatraz where he gives her to Beauregard and tells him to fix her.

The Verdict:
There's not much to say besides what I mentioned in the intro. The episode did seem to drag, but that's the tendency right now, given all the focus comes at the end with the flashbacks. It was especially noticeable given the attempt to ramp up the tension finding the landmines. Though it's difficult to create tension when the criminals pose very little threat given the deductive powers of Diego, Rebecca and Hauser.

As far as Lucy goes, I'm wondering if her meeting with Hauser in 1960 was her first meeting, or if she was actually sent back in time to strike up a relationship with him, given she knew him in the future? Perhaps she was sent to learn the identities of the timenappers.

But seriously, Alcatraz has developed such a solid set of cliches for each episode that they can be ticked off a list with regularity. The clue of the week this time was the song and the keywords indicating the bomb locations (as well as the fortunate chance that Petty didn't change his modus operandi...but no one on Alcatraz does, apparently). There are no other locations in all of San Fransisco with those particular common words in their names? It's obvious the writers are more excited with the time travel conspiracy that they just want to throw together the criminal plot each week and get it over with, leaving it uninteresting and contrived.

Review: Alcatraz "Guy Hastings"

Non Spoiler Review:

Alcatraz offers up its first time displaced guard, and one just as troubled as the prisoners. Rebecca consults with Ray about her grandfather, but he's also involved in the plot, given he was trained by Guy Hastings in the 60s and there are some revelations about just how connected he is to everything. 

Guy Hastings was one of the more enjoyable episodes to date. Given that Hastings wasn't an inmate, the mystery surrounding his motivations and appearance was much more intriguing than the criminal of the week. Nor did we have to suffer through some boring crimes. There was more on Tommy Madsen, tying in with Hastings and the other secrets. Rebecca also seemed to grow a bit, too given her family is getting fleshed out. A very good one this time around.

Spoilers Now!

Guy Hastings rummages through an old building at Alcatraz, finding some old photos before he's discovered by a ranger, who he then beats up. Back in the 60s he was a guard at Alcatraz with a happy family life. He trained many of the new guards, one of whom is Rebecca's uncle, Ray. In the present, she's having coffee with him, asking of her grandfather and who he was before he was at Alcatraz. Ray has very little to offer her questions.

She's summoned away on the Hastings case, given he was picked up on surveillance. Diego recognizes him immediately, and Hauser figures someone must have put him up to attacking a ranger—whoever took the prisoners through time. The official story was he died in a chemical spill in 1963. Diego suggests they find his daughter to get some insight, and they borrow a box of his personal items from her.

When Hastings was training his new guards, Ray spies Tommy, but instead of a happy reunion, Tommy punches him with a food tray and tells him he shouldn't have come there. Beauregard patches him up and Tiller muses it's odd Tommy Madsen took after Ray, suspicious of a possible prison break in the making. Hastings wants to give him a shot rather than send him home, but later Ray lies to him about knowing Tommy. Hastings tests his loyalty, so forces him into a confrontation to pay back Tommy for the fight. He beats him up and makes his point.

In the present, Hastings confronts Ray, who is (of course) shocked. Rebecca gets a call that Ray's missing (just as Diego finds a photo of the two of them in Hasting's things). Hastings has taken Ray back to his place, finding another picture of him and Tommy together. He wants answers, and figures Tommy is back, as well. Rebecca and Hauser (of course) show up after they've gone. She finds Ray's watch (which Rebecca assumes is him trying to tell her something). Hauser finds the same Tommy/Ray photo and deduces Hastings is looking for him.

Back at Alcatraz, Diego's found the old training logs which detail Ray's fight with Tommy on his first day. Rebecca recognizes the house from the Tommy/Ray photo, the house where Tommy grew up. They eventually trace its address, and their investigation reveals Tommy and Ray are actually brothers, and Ray's her real uncle.

Ray takes Hasting to the cemetery to show him where Tommy's son is buried. Hastings questions why he left Alcatraz, and Ray explains to raise Tommy's son. Hastings realizes the girl in the pictures is Rebecca, his granddaughter, and she might know where Tommy is. Ray takes him to the house they grew up in. As they wait, Ray wants to know what happened. Hastings explains he hasn't been anywhere at all—he woke in the infirmary with other guards. They were told there was an accident,  that their families were dead, they were contaminated, and couldn't leave. Then it wasn't 1963 anymore. 

Rebecca and Diego head to the house in question, but learn Hauser is tracking them and demanding to know why they're there. Rebecca walks in but Hastings grabs her before Ray can warn her. Rebecca explains his daughter is still alive and he was lied to about everything. Hauser shows up to disarm him. Rebecca convinces Hastings his daughter has great memories of him. Hauser takes him to her house where they watch from a distance, but he won't let him talk to them. Sadly, he's a casualty in this and didn't deserve what happened. 

Ray has a flashback to the infirmary where he visited Tommy after he beat him up. He tells him he won't leave him alone to rot in that hell hole. But Hastings watches and confirms they know one another.

Rebecca realizes Ray wasn't freaking out about Hastings showing up because he already knew. Hauser offered Ray a job 16 years ago but turned him down to raise Rebecca. He wanted someone with ties to Tommy. Her grandfather is more important than she ever imagined and Hauser needs her more than she needs him. 

None other than the elusive Tommy visits Ray as he closes the bar. Ray warned him never to come back, because he puts Rebecca in harm's way by his very presence. So he'll kill him the next time he sees him.

The Verdict:

Alcatraz definitely needs more guards and less felons. Hastings' appearance provided a heck of a lot of questions and intrigue without us suffering through the usual string of crimes. And now that Tommy's figuring prominently, more answers might be on forthcoming.

It's good to see Ray wasn't a throwaway character and actually has some relevance. Plus he's not even a fake uncle anymore! What does he know? Rebecca's character benefited from all the focus on her family, too. Now if only Hauser will show more than two emotions—surly and ornery.

The story continues to be very plot driven—the usual box of clues that provide the right amount of revelations to allow characters to arrive at just the right moment. But it wasn't as noticeable this time around given the strength of the episode.

Review: Alcatraz "Cal Sweeney"

Non Spoiler Review:

Cal Sweeney is a charming bank robber who's really quite dangerous. It appears he's been operating for awhile in the present by the time he gets on the Alcatraz team's radar. His flashbacks raise plenty of questions of what transpired in 1960, particularly around a dinner party the warden hosts for Tiller.

Cal Sweeney was heavy on the mythology, and those tidbits were (as usual) the most compelling elements. I didn't find the present-day crimes that interesting again, nor the usual explanation of what motivates the particular felon of the week. Though, to be fair, Sweeney's robberies (and his capture) appeared to get a more complex handling this time around. So the strength of the show remains in what's revealed in the 1960s stuff. But this was definitely one of the strongest episodes to date and the mystery (conspiracy?) has definitely become the show's strength.

Spoilers Now!

Cal Sweeney is a charismatic bank robber who is is also viciously violent when necessary. In prison he ran contraband into Alcatraz and took a young prisoner, Harlan, under his wing. Tiller tosses his cell and takes a small metal box that belongs to him and uses it to extort a share of his operation. Frustrated, Harlan gets him a gig working a birthday dinner at the warden's house for Tiller. 

In the present, Rebecca finally asks how Diego has two PhDs and runs a comic book shop. He explains he got them for his parents, and was subsequently blacklisted by his peers for a controversial crime paper that referenced Gotham City as a model. His relationship with his parents is complicated. They're then called in to a case dealing with safety deposit box robberies. Diego immediately knows it's Cal Sweeney. In the 50s stealing from boxes (and not the vault) was less serious given it wasn't a federal crime. Sweeney's method relies on seducing bank tellers and using them to get inside the safety deposit box room.

Sweeney later shows up at William Barry's house, one of the owners of the stolen boxes, and he claims to be from the bank attempting to get a list of what was stolen from his box. That includes his will and deed to his house, as well as an expensive blue sapphire necklace which is of interest to Sweeney. He wants to know where he met his wife and the whole story around its purchase.

Diego and Rebecca get to the house (the last one on their list), running into Barry's wife arriving home at the same time. Unfortunately Barry is dead. They return to the Alcatraz records room and look through Sweeney's archives, which are all mysteriously burned. Then they track down some of his bouquets to his tellers to a flower shop, where he's identified by the owner as a frequent customer. They locate the teller where he's sent the latest flower arrangement, determining that bank will be his next target.

He's already there. The bank is locked down as he's emerging, so he opts to take everyone inside hostage as the police arrive. Diego figures that old bank buildings like that one will share common air vents with nearby buildings, so Rebecca goes in unarmed and confronts Sweeney, telling him she's there to break him out.

Rebecca manages to gain his trust that it serves her purposes to get him out, so manages to escape with him (unbelievably easily, as usual) during a crowd of hostages that emerge from the bank, with Sweeney concealed. She takes off with him in a police car as Diego gets Hauser to follow.

Sweeney isn't going to let her drop him off, but takes her hostage instead. She wants to know what he took from the bank, but he has no idea. He isn't supposed to open the box and gets annoyed that she keeps asking. She runs the car into another parked vehicle given they didn't have seat belt laws in the 50s and Sweeney's knocked out and captured.

Back to the flashback. At Tiller's birthday party, the warden's sister attends, who seems to be quite a hoot. Also, Dr. Beauregard is there, as well as Lucy. Her clinical psychology ideas don't go over well with the more practical men. She has theories on removing troublesome memories in order to correct behaviour.

The warden gives Tiller a pen, then Tiller gets coffee spilled on him so Sweeney can confront him in the bathroom about getting the box back. Tiller wants fifty percent of his operation, but he's also given the box away already. Sweeney gets rough so Tiller stabs him in the leg with the pen. He tells him to stay there until the party's over and someone will take him back to his cell to stay in the hole for thirty days.

Back at Alcatraz, Harlan reveals his true colours—he knows that Sweeney lost his family when he was 10, and the only thing that didn't burn was a tin box, which he returns to him, and taunts him about not having a single memento of his past (so Sweeney's been stealing mementos from safety deposit boxes so he can get the thrill of other people's memories. Sigh). It was all a set up so he could take over Sweeney's operation. Sweeney crushes the box before he's taken away to the hole.

Rebecca explains to Diego that Sweeney only opened one box at the bank and took a key, which Rebecca now has. Hauser immediately comes in and demands it. She agrees as long as he explains what it's for. He says okay, then takes it and tells them nothing.

Hauser goes into another area of the control room and announces he has another one, in addition to the one they got from Sylvain. Molecular analysis of the keys might reveal some insight into how the prisoners jumped. The scientists scan them and find they've been laser cut, which wasn't around in the 60s. Hauser wants the island examined for signs of any chambers that they might open.

In the final flashback, the warden brings Harlan down into the bowls of Alcatraz to show him a particular room sealed by a heavy door, telling him his future just got brighter.

The Verdict:
The mythology gets a big kick in the pants this time, and even the felon of the week has a more mysterious (though still unbelievable) tale. It's quite a stretch to think these criminals all act out some singular trauma of their past that gives each their thing. It's all very comic book villain.

For some reason Lucy stuck out like a sore thumb at the dinner party. She doesn't look like she's from the 60s at all, plus her entire demeanor was out of place. Does that mean she's a time traveller back to that era? Similarly, Dr. Beauregard seems plucked from the 60s in his appearance in the present. That all leads me to believe he's been brought forward, and Lucy's been travelling to the past.

There were a lot of clues and questions raised—particularly Lucy's research on removing memories, something that appears to figure prominently in all the timelost felons (the compulsion to retrieve the keys without knowing what they are or why). Could she be brainwashing them and setting them on their particular missions? But that would seem to contradict her close friendship with Hauser (unless her goal was to guide them to the keys in the future to get them for Hauser). Confusing. Tiller's back with his hands in things, and it looks like new character Harlan will be another player with whatever lurks in the mysterious room the warden shows him.

In addition to all this Hauser drops a clue about Diego's past—he drove when he was 11, but not after. There are also hints about his problematic relationship with his parents. What if his infatuation with Alcatraz actually isn't a coincidence at all?

Diego continues to outshine his costars. Even the warden and Tiller, Harlan and the warden's sister were more interesting than the flat Hauser and Rebecca. That's not too much of a problem yet given I'm getting into the mystery. If the writers could just make the crimes and the felons more believable, because it's laughable how easily Diego makes an intuitive leap, discerns the identity of the prisoner and his modus operandi, then the quick manner in which he gets rounded up and carted off to neo-Alcatraz. It's obvious the prisoners are plot devices rather than fully fleshed characters, and that's really the big flaw in the story right now.

Review: Alcatraz "Kit Nelson"

Non Spoiler Review:

Kit Nelson is a child killer with a weird modus operandi. Diego and Rebecca get on the case. The crime brings up some bad memories for Diego, who has his own secret past. More mysteries are raised at the neo-Alcatraz facility.

It's interesting how straightforward the first three plots have been. The show has taken no pains to create an elaborate case for Rebecca and Diego to break. The two of them do, however, seem to make vast intuitive leaps to solve it. So I'm on the fence right now as far as these episodic elements go.

The whole think wasn't bad, if not terribly gripping. Diego gets some further development to explain why he's so freaky around the crime scenes, but Rebecca and Hauser remain pretty flat. There's a trend developing that the last five minutes of the prisoner drop off bring the surprise of the week, and this time is no exception. 

Spoilers Now!

Diego is monitoring the police bands for clues to new Alcatraz appearances when he hears about a missing child, Dillon. That would be due to the childkiller, Kit Nelson, who is currently residing in the present. He had it rough in Alcatraz, even among the hardened felons, who beat him up a lot because of his particular choice of crimes. He also used to leave a chrysanthemum behind as a token.

Diego finds Hauser and Rebecca with a still comatose Lucy, and tells them he's pretty sure it's Kit Nelson who's back. He and Rebecca get on the case and talk to the frantic mother. The missing boy has a brother, and recognizes Kit's picture as someone who brought candy and was in their bedroom the previous night.

Nelson has taken Dillon fishing, which is going fine until he wants him to go into the water and hold Nelson under for as long as he can. When Diego and Rebecca manage to track him down, they're gone, because now Kit and the boy are at the movies.

Diego and Rebecca check back with the mom about Dillon's hobbies and favorite places. Hauser abruptly cancels the amber alert given Nelson always returns to the scene of the crime and he doesn't want it surrounded by a police presence. Diego, who has been acting uncomfortable and weirder than he usually does, balks and seems to take it personally, so goes off to investigate some hunches himself, and finds Nelson at a diner with Dillon. He alerts Rebecca.

Nelson eventually leaves with Kit, so Diego confronts him as Rebecca arrives, leading to a stand off that Nelson wins and takes off with the kid. Diego makes some grand intuitive leaps after they find expensive cigarettes in Nelson's effects within the always bountiful Alcatraz room full of clues. Nelson worked for a company that made bomb shelters, which means he has perfect hiding places for his crimes.

In the flashback, the prison doctor tended to Kit's wounds, but he doesn't give him any sympathy either. While in the infirmary, Kit talks with Madsen (Rebecca's grandfather), who's there giving lots of blood. The warden has decided to segregate him from the prisoners. But he's also received a letter from his father, who wants to visit. Nelson doesn't want to talk to him, but the warden insists.

The visit doesn't go well. His father advises him his mother is dead, and brings him a dead chrysanthemum. She knew that Nelson had killed his brother when they were children, but wasn't prepared to lose both of her boys, so protected him and told everyone a lie about him dying of fever. His father now wants to hear him confess, but Nelson repeats that scarlet fever killed his brother.

The warden also wants him to confess to killing his brother, so he throws Nelson into a tiny dark cell. Nelson at last admits to murdering him and left the chrysanthemum given it was his mother and brother's favorite flower. The experience was so profound he kept trying to repeat it. The warden leaves him in the cell. 

Nelson and Dillon are in a bomb shelter, but Dillon manages to make a run for it. Rebecca, Diego AND Hauser all converge on the area at that moment, too, and Hauser kills him. Later, a frustrated Hauser outs Diego about being traumatized as a child (something that keeps the victim frozen at that age all their life), and because of that he's spent his entire life becoming an expert on Alcatraz. But Hauser needs an adult, not a child. After, Diego attempts to explain what happened to Rebecca but she lets him off the hook and tells him she doesn't need to hear it.

Diego pays Dillon a visit and gives him some comics. Diego admits to being taken just like him, but he was able to get away, too. And that ability to get away is kind of like a super-power.

Hauser brings Nelson's body back to neo-Alcatraz, to the original doctor (!) who we saw in the flashback to 1960. He puts on a record and gets to work.

The Verdict:
I'm ambivalent about this one. While Diego is growing more interesting, Hauser seems to be overly playing surly shadowing government operative. I hope Diego's mystery abduction pays off. If it's some lame thing I'll be pretty disappointed. For now he's the most interesting character, though.

The weekly criminal plotline really lacks tension for me. They're all rounded up pretty easily with Diego's amazing powers of deduction and the strings of coincidences that manage to bring everyone together at the appropriate moments. Maybe this won't be the regular weekly pattern once the main plotlines start to get moving, but the felons need to present a serious sense of threat because Hauser is able to dispatch them without a lot of effort.

I'm not getting the point of the personal storylines of the criminals in the flashbacks, aside from tying it in to what's going on with the experiments. Are the writers trying to say something in particular about what drives each of these criminals? So far, these particular brands of sociopath are nothing that we haven't seen on any other crime show before. Aside from depicting the warden as a bit of a sadist, I'm not really getting anything out of these vignettes.

There's also a big question of how these criminals are adapting to life 40 years later. They seem to be taking it all in stride (especially Cobb from last week). I, for one, would be f.r.e.a.k.i.n.g. if I woke up decades in the future, but everyone here is fully functional and able to move around in our modern society. Maybe that's all part of the mystery.

Once again, the final five minutes are what makes the episode. Did the doctor disappear with the other Alcatraz denizens or did he make a separate trip? He appears to be a man out of time, rather than someone who just doesn't age. And it looks like all the prisoners are necessary for whatever grand plan they're engaged in, whether dead or alive.

Review: Alcatraz "Pilot / Ernest Cobb"

Non Spoiler Review:

Alcatraz is the newest series from producer J.J. Abrams (Lost), featuring none other than Hurley himself, Jorge Garcia as Diego—trying not to be Hurley. Also starring is Sarah Jones and Sam Neill. The premise centers on the closing of Alcatraz on March 20, 1963, which we quickly learn did not happen as history records. The entire facility is mysteriously empty, while in the present a former prisoner abruptly appears in his old cell. The shadowy government agent Hauser (Neill) seems to know the prisoners will be returning, and his agenda crosses path with detective Rebecca (Jones) and Alcatraz expert Diego as they must deal with the arrivals of the lost criminals.

This was a pretty decent and entertaining introduction for a new genre show. It certainly bears the weight of Lost's legacy by presenting a group of characters we get glimpses of through flashbacks, as well as an overarching series of questions, so it's ripe for comparisons. However, this was not as amazing as Lost's movie style premiere, and the greater mysteries of who or what caused the Alcatraz disappearances is what really drives the plot over the characters for the moment. I didn't find them entirely compelling yet, but it is early to make a judgement on that. I'll stick around to see how things begin to gel, as already it appears that the stories of each prisoner returning will blend between episodes, rather than fall into the trap of murderer of the week.

Spoilers Now!

Pilot

In 1963, Alcatraz officially closed, with all the prisoners transferred off the island. But that's not what really happened. On March 20, two guards arrive to find the dock empty, and the entire facility abandoned. Three hundred and two men (guards and prisoners) have disappeared.

In the present, Alcatraz is a tourist destination, and a man, Jack Sylvane, wakes up in a cell. Given the facility is no longer a prison, he walks out, albeit confused. He finds  cash and a ticket, so is able to take the ferry back to the mainland. On the way he peruses a book on the inmates, remembering both his time at the prison as well as the nasty deputy warden, Tiller, who made life miserable for him.

Detective Rebecca Madsen is about to be assigned a new partner given she lost her previous one in persuit of a felon. She's called in to investigate a murder (the aforementioned warden Tiller, who had since become a federal agent). But government man Emerson Hauser shows up to shut her down and take over. 

She leaves, but does her own private investigation, learning the fingerprints belonged to a Jack Sylvane, and the murder victim was the former deputy warden. Dr. Diego Soto, an author and owner of a comic book store, also comes up in her search, given he wrote the Alcatraz book, so she goes to meet him.

Jack Sylvane was a WWII vet who robbed a post office. He later murdered a prisoner in the shower and was sent to Alcatraz. Given Jack died thirty years before, it's impossible that his fingerprints are showing up now. She then visits her sort of uncle Ray who knows a lot about Alcatraz and the dead deputy warden, given he used to be a guard. Sylvane's transfer and death are all signed off on and confirmed by official documents. 

Diego and Rebecca team up and go to the island to do some investigating, and pretty easily rummage through a records room until the lights go out and they're both knocked out. They wake up to Hauser and another woman, Lucy. They're still at Alcatraz, but in a fancy control center deep beneath. 

Hauser runs a special division dealing with criminals of particular interest to the government. He shows them camera surveillance of the murder, and a very young looking Jack Sylvane. Lucy explains he disappeared from Alcatraz in 1963. Gasps! The official documents are all bogus. 

Hauser brings them along in pursuit of Sylvane, who has retrieved a gun from a locker and knocked out the attendant. He goes to the house of Barclay Flynn to take a mysterious key, then shoots him and manages to get away before Hauser shows. Hauser seems to think Sylvane is being used by someone.

In a series of flashbacks, Sylvane endured the abuse of the deputy warden Tiller, and while in the infirmary, was told by a fellow prisoner that something big was about to happen. He also got dumped by his wife, who ended up marrying his brother. In the present, Jack shows up to see him and meets his nephew. His brother nearly has a heart attack when he sees him, and Jack learns his former love had died four years earlier. 

Rebecca later arrives to find the son tied up, who explains Jack took his father to find his wife. At the cemetery Rebecca catches up to him and he's brought in. Hauser warns there will be a next victim, given Jack Sylvane was just the beginning. Rebecca realizes Hauser knew this was going to happen. He's been waiting a long time for it, he explains.

Hauser brings her and Diego into a room that shows photos of 246 prisoners and 46 guards. The official story of Alcatraz is a fabrication. And we see that one of the guards from the prologue was a young Hauser. 

All the criminals are coming back and no one will be able to find them because they no longer exist. Rebecca then sees a photo of her grandfather (who she'd thought was a guard, but turns out to be an inmate). And the criminal she pursued who killed her partner? That's him. Hauser apparently knew this and wanted her in all along, but she'll have to prove herself. She wants in. Rebecca wants Diego as her partner. He's eager to join. It's all top secret, of course. Their task is to find the men, as well as who took them.

Hauser takes Jack Sylvane to a facility in the wilderness that houses a new, high tech Alcatraz. Hauser is eager to throw him back into prison given Tiller was his friend. And he won't be lonesome for long.

Ernest Cobb

Prisoner Ernest Cobb, responsible for 16 shooting deaths, is now in the present enjoying his freedom, and his passion for shooting people randomly. He manages to kill three at an amusement park.

Tommy Madsen, Rebecca's grandfather, got life for murder, but Diego's book only has one paragraph about him. That's all he could find, he tells her. They're called in to investigate the shooting and rendezvous with Hauser. Diego pegs Cobb as the culprit, and he usually does three shootings in three days before going underground. Rebecca finds a shell casing from Cobb's vantage point to start their investigation on finding the weapon.

Lucy interrogates Jack about where he's been for fifty years and if he might be working with Cobb. But Jack doesn't know. He just woke up at Alcatraz. She wants to know about the key, but he claims he doesn't know about that either, and their body scans show he's telling the truth.

Rebecca attempts to track down the rifle Cobb used, and manages to find him on the security footage from a gun store. They identify a room key in his hand so trace the hotel, but it all turns out to be a ruse, given Cobb is in a room across the street waiting for them. Lucy pulls open the curtains and gets shot. She's in a coma. Rebecca is upset, given she relates it to her previous partner dying. Hauser is furious and lays on the heavy to get Jack to come clean about what he might know.

Diego and Rebecca continue their investigation and rummage through the Alcatraz records and find a letter from Cobb's long lost sister that he never received. She's been dead for years, though, so can't be his next target. 

Cobb carries out his second attack and kills three people. Rebecca figures he's going to use a building downtown to shoot from, and one he could only see from his cell back in 1963. They find him and manage to take him in (though Hauser shoots him in his trigger hand to be sure). 

Hauser takes Cobb to the new prison where both he and Jack recognize one another. In a flashback, Cobb's penchant for insubordination and getting thrown into solitary prompts the warden to bring in a doctor to treat him. It's Lucy, looking exactly the same.

The Verdict:
Alcatraz managed to avoid a pitfall of becoming a prisoner of the week show, given it looks like the storylines will intermingle as more return. For the moment, the secrets are more interesting than the players (yes, I'll compare it to Lost again, which had both awesome characters and intriguing mythology). Rebecca is rubbing me the wrong way, just in the way she appears to want to be the cool detective, and poor Garcia looks like he might be stuck as Hurley forever. There's nothing in his character that couldn't pass as him.

I don't find the flashbacks particularly effective at all, save for the final one with Lucy (which did end the episode on an exciting note). Certainly not all the returning prisoners can be kept as ongoing characters, but Jack Sylvane elicits oodles more empathy than Cobb. He could very well become a major character himself, given the mysteries surrounding the experiments during his internment.

The plot did seem to glaze over some elements—Hauser's constant exposition explaining everything to Rebecca and Diego, and the ease with which both Jack and Cobb get rounded up. Did all the prisoners return at different times? It seems odd that every one could appear back at Alcatraz and leave the island without arousing any suspicion from the tourists and authorities.

All that said, there was nothing in the premiere that wasn't the normal growing pains of a new series, and Alcatraz certainly beats out a lot of other series premieres for quality (um, Terra Nova, you listening?). 

Review: Terra Nova "Occupation/Resistance"

Non Spoiler Review:
What a season this could have been had it matched the calibre of this two-hour finale. While not perfect by any means, it was captivating enough as the future conspirators come through the portal and quickly take control of Terra Nova. That leads the Shannons to help form resistance and try to prevent Lucas and his allies from beginning their strip-mining of the past. There's a lot of hard decisions that affect the future of the series, and even some character bits and deaths. But not to worry, it was still pretty cheesy.

Given it was a two-hour stretch, it managed to keep my attention throughout, when its previous one-hour instalments were an endurance test. If the series is renewed, and that's a big if, I would hope this week marks the beginning of a change in the writing, and not simply a wow episode to end the season.

Spoilers Now!

Back in the shitty future, Lucas is meeting with a nefarious person as mining machines assemble along with troops. The plan is to force their way into the Eleventh Pilgrimage at Hope Plaza. While at the portal, Taylor, Malcolm, and Jim assemble their army to protect the entrance. They won't destroy the portal, as that would mean the pilgrimage could appear somewhere within a three kilometer radius. With the portal intact, the enemy forces will have to come in two by two. Josh wants to join his father in case Kara comes through, but Jim insists he remain at the colony. 

The portal begins to activate and Taylor gets a message from Hope Plaza asking if he's ready to receive the pilgrimage. People begin to step through and Taylor escorts the families away as they arrive. Jim sees Kara and he goes to get her, but a man behind her opens up a suicide vest and blows up the portal, causing mayhem. 

Jim wakes up in the infirmary and realizes he's deaf. He wanders outside to find Terra Nova in ruins, with tanks rolling through and soldiers wandering about. He sees Mira and Lucas looking out from the command center, as well as some odd looking flags hanging down. Liz runs over and gets him before the soldiers rough him up.

She says the kids are safe at home and fixes his hearing. He was out for three days. With the portal gone, the fracture reopened close to the colony and the army came through before resistance could be mounted. Two dozen were killed before Washington surrendered, and no one can find Taylor.

Jim gets home to see the kids, and finds out Kara was killed in the blast, which is a bummer for Josh given he's responsible for getting her on the pilgrimage and all that. All the weapons have been confiscated and the colony is under curfew. Liz thinks Taylor won't try to retake the colony if there are civilians inside. 

Jim goes to the bar to talk to Washington. Boylen's trying to keep his business running with the new management. She explains they are a private military—the Phoenix Group—hired by Lucas' bosses. Once they started shelling the colony there was nothing they could do but surrender. They brought a new portal back with them to make the fracture go both ways, though it got damaged in the fight. But they're fixing it, with Malcolm's help. 

Jim goes to see him his favorite scientist. They killed Malcolm's assistant so he would help fix the portal, but he's working as slow as he can and Lucas hasn't caught on yet. Mira arrives looking for Shannon and finds him, but Malcolm tells them the blast took his hearing and has left him in shock. They also create a ruse that he's on crutches. Lucas wants to know where his father is. Jim acts like he's lost some of his memory. 

Lucas creepily forgives Skye for betraying him to Taylor given they're kind of like brother and sister, but not really. Just don't try it again, he warns. Josh wants a fight, so Jim suggests he get Boylen to give him his job back so he can spy on the soldiers.

Liz extracts some bullets from some of the wounded and finds the serial numbers are hand-etched. They're map coordinates from Taylor for a rendezvous point. Jim has to figure out a way out so Casey creates a diversion and Jim sneaks onto a convoy heading outside.

The convoy goes to a valley rich in meteoric ore, but they can't start mining until they clear out the wildlife. New corporate badguy Weaver shoots a brachiosaurus. They'll detonate pyrosonic bombs to clear out the rest of the wildlife so they can strip half the continent. Jim manages to rendezvous with Reynolds and Taylor. In a very quick subplot they trace the charge with the hope of defusing it, find it in, like, twenty seconds, and attempt to deactivate it. But their tech hasn't seen anything like it. 

Unfortunately Weaver sees movement on their infrared cams and Lucas realizes it's Taylor. They plan to detonate as soon as Lucas is out of the blast zone, but no worries, as Taylor deactivates it before they blow it. Lucas throws a fit and fires a nasty missile down into the valley. Taylor and company flee in their rover. End first adventure on the run.

Taylor sends Jim back to the colony with a comm on a rotating frequency, with plans to maintain an insurgency. Jim gets back in by acting delirious around the perimeter and is escorted back home by soldiers. Easy breezy.

Jim gets to work putting tracking devices on rovers, which allows Taylor to ambush convoys. This vexes Lucas to no end. Washington sluts it up with the soldiers and puts tracking devices on them too, which gets the patrols ambushed.

Josh serves Lucas at the bar, who taunts him for losing a friend (Kara) in the battle. Skye joins Lucas who wants to know what Taylor thought of her betrayal. Skye says he never said a word to her afterwards. He starts to come onto her which leads to Josh punching him out. The soldiers hold him so Lucas can beat him up.

Skye gets Jim, who goes mental in the bar and takes on everyone, and thus blowing his cover. He's eventually overpowered and searched, and his transponder is found. Josh is set free but Lucas wants Jim to tell them where Taylor is, so tortures him. Lucas blames Taylor for his mother's death, see, but Taylor blamed Lucas for having to choose between his wife and son.

Weaver visits the infirmary for a bug bite, so Liz injects him with a parasite to get Jim set free in exchange for the cure. Weaver comes to get Jim and sends Lucas off on the assault against Taylor. Liz gives him the cure, which is actually a sedative, given she lied, and the family heads out to the treeline to get a pick up from Taylor.

Washington tells Jim she'll distract the guards while they make the run for it. The Shannons get out but Lucas catches Washington and shoots her. Taylor watches through the binoculars.

The Shannons move into the less than luxurious accommodations at Taylor's camp. Jim gives him the last message from Washington, which is in reference to a past battle when they blew up a bridge so the enemy couldn't bring troops across. Taylor assumes that's a reference to blowing up the portal. That would mean taking out Hope Plaza, and Jim isn't sure that's a great idea—no more meds, colonists or technology. Then Jim decides he's okay with that. 

Remember Mira, who now has nothing important to do anymore? She wants to get back to 2149 to see her daughter. Weaver assures her that as soon as the terminus is repaired the Sixers are free to go. The terminus gets fixed, and Weaver is anxious to return home for awhile himself, given he just hates hates hates the past. Skye shows up and suggests she'll switch loyalties to Lucas as Taylor is an unforgiving meany. She and Lucas head off in a rover with the convoy to the portal.

Jim is preparing for a mission to go to Hope Plaza with the plot device pyrosonic bomb they conveniently stole. Liz gives him a mysterious syringe. 

Skye tells Lucas she can get in touch with Taylor and lure him into an ambush, but it's all a trap for Taylor's men to get him. They seize the rover which now contains Jim and the bomb, and Reynolds and his men take it to the terminus.  The cargo is pushed through the portal and Jim arrives in the future.

Unfortunately Lucas overpowers Skye and calls the portal to warn them, except there's inference and they can't understand a thing he's saying. Malcolm has shorted out the terminus at their end to delay transport and has to return to Terra Nova to get equipment.

In 2149 Jim listens to the powers-that-be discussing meteoric iron contained in the containers. They also discuss the mysterious thing found in the badlands—but their container got the old switcheroo and actually contains a carnosaur (what they needed the syringe for). It kills everyone but Weaver.

Skye wakes up and lets Taylor know Lucas got away. Taylor intercepts him and lays down a beating, telling him he's glad his mother's dead so she can't see him like this. Lucas just wants a hug and Taylor's forgiveness. But that allows him to stab Taylor. Then he's shot by Skye. She tends to Taylor's wounds but when she turns back Lucas is gone. Gasps. 

Jim gets out and sets the bomb after a gunfight, then makes a run for it, but is cut off by Weaver (and the carnosaur that abruptly eats him). Jim races the dinosaur to the portal as the explosion takes it out, arrives back in the past and is reunited with Liz. Taylor and Skye also return. They get a transmission from Boylen in the colony that all the Phoenix Group rolled out north to the badlands. Mira gets the news that Hope Plaza is gone and they're stuck there forever.

The resistance returns to a heroe's welcome in Terra Nova. Everyone hugs and the clean up begins. Taylor is curious about this whole badlands thing and Jim reports he overheard Weaver talking about something they brought back to Hope Plaza. So they find the container in question and open it up, revealing a fossilized reptilian alien wooden prow of a ship that Malcolm immediately determines is 18th Century (because he's an expert historian scientist). Taylor wonders what else is in the badlands.

The Verdict:

Sure it was melodramatic and full of coincidences and glossed over escapes and plotting, but that's what we've grown to expect. So I have little to complain about, aside from the fact that they should have devoted this much effort on the entire season as they did for this two hour finale.

When Jim woke up in the hospital and I realized they flash-forwarded three days passed the invasion, I wasn't impressed, but the rest of the episode made up for that lack of action by carrying everything forward into the insurgency.

The big drive all season has been leading to the isolation of the colony from the future, so whether this will be permanent or not is still in question. For some reason I thought there were thousands of more people there than Taylor mentioned this week, but I could be wrong. Boylen better protect his microchip repairer thingie, and Maddie better not bust another core for her plex.

Washington's death was a waste of her character's potential. And so has Mira fallen by the wayside as soon as Lucas made his appearance, unless there are plans to make her more pivotal now that her mission is over and she's stuck there with them. Lucas' getaway wasn't a surprise, nor his father/son angst with Taylor. The big mystery now is what's in the badlands, and if there's another portal to the future (and whose future?). Are there some 18th Century sailors wandering there, as well?

Maybe we'll find out, pending a renewal. This certainly wasn't the series I expected from the promos, so I'm not going to lose any sleep if it doesn't come back. But given it replaced V as my sole source of cheese, I'll come back for more to see where it goes, if it returns.

Review: Terra Nova "Within"

Non Spoiler Review:

The impending arrival of the Eleventh Pilgrimage pushes Taylor to try to expose the Sixer spy. Speaking of whom, Lucas engages Skye to help him finish his equations to make the portal work both ways. There are a few new revelations, and it's all a big push to get things ready for next week's finale.

Within was a decent episode, but the bar for Terra Nova has been significantly reduced, so that's not really a compliment. It suffers from having to drag the weight of this season behind it. Plus we're saddled with a bizarre subplot regarding Maddie and her computer that make Zoe's ordeal around her pet dinosaur look like an epic storyline. The writers continually fail to make us care about anyone, and those few with potential (like Mira, Washington, and even Taylor) have been diminished. What we get in spades is Lucas' moustache-twirling villainy. 

I'm guessing this show is not going to be renewed. It's just too damned expensive to be worth it, and frankly, it's stealing a lot of my time for what I'm getting out of it. I hope it ends on a bang, much like how it's very similar British cousin Outcasts did when it was cancelled. Given it's borrowed heavily from that show, I would have liked it to have at least stolen the more interesting characters and plotlines, as well.

Spoilers Now!

Remember the portal terminus? If not, Taylor provides Jim with a bit of a recap how it was constructed after the Fourth Pilgrimage with pieces sent from the future—it fixes the portal on their end so people (like in previous pilgrimages) don't end up in wildly different places when they step through. The Eleventh Pilgrimage arrives within days so Taylor wants that damn spy caught. Jim goes on to question others having access to the hospital, including Skye. She says she was with Josh when the spy tried to contact the Sixers. 

Maddie blew her prometheum core on her plex (which is not code for anything, but sounds like it could be). As Liz informs her, with foreboding plot gravitas, she may have to wait until the next pilgrimage because they just don't have prometheum cores lying around. Josh recommends she talk to the bartering guy, Casey, who's in the wheelchair (very important). 

Skye asks Josh to cover for her alibi, so he immediately starts quizzing her. She says she stole copper tubing from maintenance for a new still, so that's good enough for him to agree to keep her story. Jim later confirms with Josh that he was playing chess with Skye at her place. 

Later, she sneaks out to visit her mother, and is paid a visit by Lucas. She recognizes him and says he's supposed to be missing, but he just wants to be friends (not), given he's already friends with her mother. He needs her to help him as he's nearly figured out how to make the time portal work both ways. To factor the calculations by hand would take months, but if he gives her the data, she can use Terra Nova's computers to do it in a day. If she doesn't, he'll toss her mother over the side of their tree house. So Skye sneaks into the Eye and runs the program.

Maddie tries to barter with Casey for a prometheum core. Conveniently enough, his wheelchair is acting up so Maddie suggests she might get him a wheel. Why Casey can't manage to find a replacement wheel for his chair means that Terra Nova's bartering system is in a very sorry state, and, as the chief barterer, he's even worse. Maddie asks Reynolds for a wheel (?) to give to Casey (as apparently any sized wheel will do, but this plot is just so ridiculous I'm not going to think about it).

Sky returns with the data for Lucas. He won't tell her what happens when the portal opens both ways, though, and sends her away. 

Jim finally gets around to looking for ways that the spy may be getting out of the colony, and he and Washington find a spot they put under surveillance. Conveniently enough they see Skye sneaking out. So he confronts Josh and warns him not to lie to him again. Taylor takes the truth hard, but will confirm this with Curran, his man in the Sixer camp (who apparently had no trouble at all infiltrating them after Taylor told him to do it a few episodes ago).

Taylor gives Skye some false intel about a convoy and they monitor her as she sneaks out of Terra Nova. They set up an ambush for the Sixers but they don't show. Jim suggests Skye didn't tell her, and that she hasn't given them anything that would actually hurt the colony in the past. He guesses they're holding something over her. But Mira's mad at her because she didn't tell her about the convoy that her own spotters saw go through the canyon. She wants better intel or else her mother doesn't get her meds.

Maddie finds out someone's already given Casey a wheel for a prometheum core—Boylen. She offers to trade her accounting skills for a core given his bar paperwork is a fine mess. He's not keen on the sheriff's daughter organizing his books, so offers to just give her the core. She takes it. Problem solved.

Lucas has solved his equations. He's preparing to go through the portal and warns Skye not to go back to Terra Nova as it won't be safe for her, given his employers will be coming through to take control. Skye confesses everything to her mother. She urges her daughter to confess to Taylor, so she does so when she eventually meets up with him. He finds it hard to believe her story about talking to Lucas. She mentions 2138 as the date Lucas gave her to ask him about. Taylor believes her and Jim sends her home while he and Taylor head off to the portal.

There's problems at the portal as the guards posted notice that it suddenly activates as Lucas shows up, and they're disabled with a blast. Taylor and Jim appear by nightfall. Lucas says he won't fire his gun given one blast at the portal could cut them all off from the future (which would solve all their problems right then and there, so they don't do it, of course). He rants about finally winning, then jumps through and disappears.

Skye tells Josh everything that happened, but is summoned to the infirmary where Curran has brought her mother back, as well as some of the drug the Sixers were giving her so Liz can synthesize it. Taylor's happy to see her mother, but says nothing to Skye.

The Sixer camp has moved on once Curran defected. Jim is surprised that Taylor's done such an about-face and allowed Curran, a murderer, back. Taylor explains he earned himself a second chance. He's made a big mistake that his son has never let him forget. The year 2138 was the date Lucas' mother died because Taylor couldn't save her, so Lucas has hated him from that moment on. Now's the time to fight, and they need to be ready for the pilgrimage. So Taylor addresses the colony (again) and lets them know their home will come under attack.

The Verdict:
I had some vain hope that Maddie's prometheum core story actually was going to have some greater affect (maybe it still will). Was it a harbinger of problems with Terra Nova's tech in light of the imminent invasion? Or something else? No...she just broke her computer. And then it resolves just like that with a surprisingly impotent Boylen. What was that all about?

Finally we get the conclusion of the Sixer spy storyline. Curran's infiltration of the Sixers happened conveniently off screen between episodes with no effort whatsoever. But I question Taylor's rather maverick (bipolar) way of making decisions—bringing Curran back into the fold after he murdered someone, especially after making such a big deal of banishing him. What will the people think? Surely Skye can be easily forgiven after that.

And the throwaway line that Taylor needs to keep in contact with the future? Really? He's kooky enough to just shoot the portal and end the problem right there, but of course, that would be character driving the plot, and we can't have that. My hope for some levels of grey in the good guys/bad guys ain't gonna happen. It's clearly evident Taylor (despite his crazy) is the hero and Lucas, after this week's maniacal dialogue (really, this was too much) is the villain. So bring on the finale to at least see what comes through the portal.

We also get some explanation how the portal fixes the position of their end of the time rift. But Lucas says his bosses are bringing in the tanks. Is he kidding? What kind of heavy equipment does he expect will fit through there? That portal couldn't handle three Wal-Mart shoppers walking abreast. 

Review: Terra Nova "Now You See Me"

Non Spoiler Review:

Now You See Me was a meandering mess, coming off the reveals of last week. Taylor and Jim continue to search for the Sixers' contact on the inside with Terra Nova on lock down. Meanwhile, the commander embarks on his own mission to see what he can find of Lucas, only to encounter Mira. And he leaves Jim in charge (shivers).

So boring. I've decided any episode with a dinosaur attack mean there's really nothing much going on in the story. And we get those. Plus Zoe's little pet dinosaur that serves no purpose whatsoever except to eat up ten minutes of story time, because the writers obviously can't use that on character development.

In fact Now You See Me exhibited all the mistakes of bad science fiction writing—the team up between enemies, the techno fix to a problem that takes precisely the length of the episode, and throwaway CGI action. Given how little I care about any of these characters, I'm pretty much certain the show has slipped off the rails completely for me at this point.

Spoilers Now!

Taylor heads outside the gate and consoles Skye as it's the anniversary of her parents' deaths from fever several years before. The colony is on lock down given the ongoing search for the spy, and Taylor puts Jim (nooooo!!!) in charge until he gets back.

Taylor goes to see the rock carvings and starts recording them until Mira finds him. She's looking for Lucas, too. She ties him up and heads back to the Sixer camp with him, though he tries to escape on the way and she blows him off his feet with sonics (all a clever ruse to grab something sharp to cut his bonds, though).

Had things gone as planned, she explains, she would be back in 2149 with her daughter. She had an opportunity for a better life for them and took it, so Taylor should just stop judging her. Taylor abruptly gets free and turns the tables on her. 

Now tied up, Mira taunts him by saying Lucas told her to ask him about Somalia, which gives him pause (ooh, another big secret that won't amount to much). She does believe Lucas is crazy now, though, and it's him that controls Mira, not the other way around. They're interrupted by a dinosaur attack. 

The lookout towers detect signals being flashed to the colony. Eagle-eyed Reynolds spots similar response flashes from a construction site inside the walls. Jim and Reynolds head off in that direction, while it's Skye who's the spy, and manages to cut herself with a shard of the broken mirror (because she can't find an actual non-dangerous unbroken mirror to signal the Sixers). She runs off (except she dropped some blood in some paint solvent).

The dynamic duo arrive, and Jim finds the incriminating blood, but messes up as he attempts to extract it intact, so has to take it to Malcolm to analyze which is going to be difficult (and take the entire episode). Malcolm refuses, given the chemical neutralizes red blood cells. Jim behaves as his usual ass self and threatens to break everything in the lab, so Malcolm agrees to help. 

Remember the dinosaur baby we haven't seen in weeks? Well, Zoe is just getting around to naming it. Malcolm tells Liz he thinks the dinosaur should be released soon in order to interact with its own kind. Liz admits Zoe will be heartbroken but oh, well. So that leads to Zoe making an attempt to sneak out with the dinosaur. She's caught and shot Liz and Jim have a heart-to-heart talk with her and Zoe is her usual pouty self about it all.

The Sixers are waiting for Skye after her communication was cut off, so she decides to use Josh to get outside the gate given he's digging a water main on a work team. She gets put on the detail and easily slips away to rendezvous with her contact. She delivers her intel and is taken to see her mother, who remains alive with a steady supply of meds courtesy of the Sixers. They're the only ones with a cure. 

Malcolm extracts the blood sample and passes it to Liz who says it will take a day to run through the computer. Skye shows up that night to help at the hospital and sees her sample. She later destroys it, so Jim assumes someone must have access to the building (wow!). Liz prepares a list of everyone who could have come to the hospital. Computer does say that the spy is a female, which narrows down the search to about 40.

Taylor and Mira are attacked again and have to jump over a waterfall, losing their weapons. He offers her a knife to help fight the creatures tracking them, meaning they will have to (gasps!) work together. By nightfall they're attacked again and manage to defend themselves with arrows and spears, leading Taylor to comment they make a helluva team.

As they walk the next day Mira tells him Lucas is close to making the portal work so it's almost over. They'll find out how it all ends soon enough. That seems to be good enough for Taylor and he lets her go back to the Sixers.

Despite his search for the spy Jim finds time to be with Zoe when she releases the dinosaur. Luckily, one of its kind is right there behind a tree, and comes out of the jungle and eats it adopts it.

Taylor returns to Terra Nova and is debriefed by Jim, who says they still have a list of 40 people to check through to find the spy. Taylor offers up his usual "Get on it, Jim!" He neglects to mention he just freed the Sixer leader. Skye shows up to say hi and she and Taylor go for a walk through memorial field, but she seems to have something on her mind.

The Verdict:
This week reached new levels of tedium. I would like to know what the point of the baby dinosaur was to Zoe's *cough cough* character arc, given it appeared twice. It served absolutely no purpose to anything on the show.

Jim remains an unlikable bastard and putting him in charge of the colony didn't help his ego at all. If anyone is set up to become a ruthless dictator, it's him. In fact, that would actually be an interesting storyline for him.

And *gasp* Skye is the spy! She has gifts of super-speed, as well, considering she virtually teleported to the Sixer camp and back without being missed on the work crew, then got inside the hospital (which, with 2149 technology, can't manage any security cameras). And for all his police work, Jim doesn't even post a guard to protect his precious evidence.

Taylor's dalliance with Mira made no sense, either. They seem resolved to just let Lucas get to the end of his mission and deal with the fallout from there. And yet he lets her go? At least there's no shortage of humour in this series with Jim and Taylor in charge. No doubt the populace will be welcoming their future overlords on the Eleventh Pilgrimage.

Review: Terra Nova "Vs"

 

Non Spoiler Review:

Well, a rather interesting episode this week, which is certainly a change of pace for the usually tedious Terra Nova. Vs presents an infodump of secrets after a human skeleton is discovered that raises a bunch of questions about Taylor and the truth behind the early days of the colony. I'd like to say this was a riveting hour and that the characters actually rose to the occasion, but that's not the case. 

Plot, not character, continues to drive the show, and nothing spectacular happened with the good residents of Terra Nova themselves, aside from new light being shone on Taylor. In other news, Zoe gets the lead in the harvest play (yawns). But the play is a plot device itself. At least we got some answers, so I won't be outrageously critical. If this is a sign of things to come, there might still be hope for the series.

Spoilers Now!

Mira's secret spy is a dragonfly! Well, maybe not. That would just be C.R.A.Z.Y.! Boylen is being interrogated by Taylor but he's not giving up much information, so he's left to stew in prison. Meanwhile the Shannons are preparing for the harvest festival, which is kind of like Halloween, but also somehow celebrates Taylor's arrival in Terra Nova. Josh tries to convince his father that Boylen isn't all bad and now the bar is closed and no one's heard from him and no one has anywhere to drink. But Jim only cares about grounding him for nearly destroying all their hopes and dreams in the past.

Taylor brings Jim in to see Boylen, but when the commander is called away on an emergency at the power grid, a delirious Boylen tells Jim to look for the pilgrim tree where it's buried. Later, Malcolm does what he does best by revealing background information and tells him it's the tree Taylor lived in when he arrived. Jim pays the tree a visit and finds a one-armed skeleton buried there.

He brings it back to Elizabeth to analyze, who suggests it's been there 4-6 years, and may have been shot. He plans on keeping it from Taylor until she can learn more about who he was. He goes back to chat with Boylen, but they're interrupted by Taylor's return.

The other plot involves Zoe being cast as Taylor in the harvest play. While practicing, the kids are grossed out by the appearance of the dragonfly, but luckily it suffers a pride-obliterating swat out of the air by a soldier. That's when they find a microchip on it, and Malcolm determines that's how Mira is spying on Terra Nova. The chip is damaged, so there's no way of knowing what was on it. And the bug's wings are damaged so they can't send it back to follow it to it's source. Taylor rails against science yet again.

Reynolds is leading a convoy that's attacked by the Sixers (I somehow missed what this was for). He's allowed to return to tell Taylor in the next scene because the Sixers are very poor at taking hostages. The convoy was assembled after Boylen was arrested, so he couldn't have told Mira. Maddie's glad to have Reynolds back and safe, and plants a big kiss on him.

Liz has determined that the dead man came through the portal somehow between the second and third pilgrimages given his temporal signature can be used to date his time in the past. Boylen is released so he tells Jim all he did was help bury the body, but has no idea who it was—a few years back he was on patrol duty and saw a light in the jungle. When he checked it out he saw Taylor with the body. Back then he and Taylor were friends. Taylor needed his help to get rid of the body and talked about how it was Lucas' fault. It was Lucas who had brought the man from the future, and that was the last night Lucas was seen. Boylen strong-armed Taylor to give him his bar in return for keeping the secret.

Malcolm discovers Liz's work on the corpse and gets all pissy given he's the head of sciences, so Jim lies and says he got an anonymous note to check out the pilgrim's tree and he found the body. Taylor thinks it's a Sixer who had falsified their DNA records to come through time. Taylor subtly warns Liz that she should have advised him of this.

Malcolm figures out the dragonfly homes in on sonics so identifies the frequency the Sixers are using. They should still be broadcasting and he surgically repaired its wings, too. They release it at the festival and it flies straight to the Shannons.

Meanwhile, the boring play introduces the character of General Philbrook who sent Taylor on the mission to the past. He had one arm, like the skeleton. Considering this is the first time Jim (and us) have ever heard of him, Jim concludes that Philbrook came back in time to relieve Taylor of his command. That's when Taylor arrives to arrest him and declares he's the Sixer spy.

Taylor suggests he'll let Jim go if he drops his investigation, but Jim is too much of a knucklehead to do that. Taylor then admits if he hadn't killed Philbrook, he would have killed Taylor. The people who sent Philbrook were the same ones who sent the Sixers, because he was on to their plan—to mine Terra Nova for its resources. If Lucas has anything to say about it, the fracture will go both ways.

When Lucas came on the Second Pilgrimage, Taylor didn't know he was secretly on their side, working on calculations to make the portal work from the past to the future. When he found out, Taylor destroyed all his work and Lucas left the colony. Taylor followed him into the jungle where General Philbrook abruptly appeared to relieve him of his command. The general tried to shoot him when he refused to give it up, so Taylor had to kill him. Lucas pulled a gun on his father and Taylor disarmed him but refused to kill him. He left him in exile (his most favorite thing). But Lucas continued working on his calculations and left them on rocks for Taylor to find in order to taunt him. Taylor's kept everything to himself so the population won't know the lie Terra Nova is based on.

Jim vows to fight alongside him.

Later, everyone enjoys the harvest dance. Taylor had planted an emitter in Shannon's house to broadcast at the same frequency in order to draw the dragonfly. He won't tell Malcolm the reason why, though. Taylor then addresses the crowd with a whole bunch of hippie talk about the promise of Terra Nova, while Lucas watches the fireworks from the jungle.

The Verdict:

We learn the truth about Terra Nova—that it's basically a resource to be exploited by the evil-doers from the future. That's probably not the most exciting revelation I was hoping for, and it all felt rather mundane and unspectacular, given Lucas' weird inscriptions on the rocks and such (no lizard aliens, sadly). Oh well. It leaves the colony at the mercy of the next pilgrimage to come through—meaning pretty much anything could be waiting to enter that portal.

But is Taylor telling the truth? Jim's not the brightest bulb and appears to accept what he's saying without question, despite the fact Taylor framed him and threw him in the brig on a whim. He's also been witness to some of Taylor's other egregious behavior with dishing out punishment. So it wouldn't be surprising if Jim has put his faith in the wrong person. My only doubt about that theory is that Terra Nova has shown no indication that it's anywhere near that complex of a series, with no evidence of moral grey areas so far.

General Philbrook's "Oh, hey!" appearance as he casually steps through the time portal was a bit odd and funnier than they likely intended. He seemed to take it all in stride considering he stepped back 85 million years and was relying purely on Lucas' success to ensure he survived coming out the other end. It looked like he just walked in from next door. 

In many ways the show continues to remind me of BBC's Outcasts, which faced a very similar season ender (evil-doers wanting to exploit the colony arriving en masse with the power to take over). I hope Terra Nova isn't copying that show, because it was frankly much better.