Hey, have you guys seen this yet?
It’s filmed right in our backyard! Or our front yard.. or something..
It just showed up on HULU, so Dorian and I watched the pilot episode last night along with episode two.
It’s fun to see sights we’re so familiar with, but we haven’t seen the cute blonde chick who plays a San Francisco police detective, or Hurley from “Lost.”
I guess they’re out there somewhere though, because they traipse all over San Francisco in the series while looking for prisoners who escaped Alcatraz in 1963 and are running amok committing crimes.
The premise of the show is that the prisoners all disappeared abruptly one cold night back then, and are now reappearing in our time looking like they haven’t aged a day.
Turns out the prisoners themselves don’t know what happened either.
I like this one scene where Hurley/Doc gives the cute blonde detective chick a look that basically says, “Hey, I was on ‘LOST’ and I can’t believe THIS SHIT!”
No really, he did..
So, the show is definitely a mystery/sci-fi period thing that meshes a little bit of LOST with PAN-AM and DOCTOR WHO. It’s fun and more importantly, it takes place right outside our front door. As I type, the real Alcatraz is approximately three miles to my port side.. *points*.. but I don’t think the prisoners all just vanished one night and are now running around our neighborhood.
At least I hope not.
The word around here is that Alcatraz the prison closed up shop in 1963 and just reassigned the prisoners to other penal institutions. In the TV show that’s the cover story and also in the show, like in reality, Alcatraz is a tourist attraction today that’s run by the National Park Service.
But we enjoyed watching the show not only for the good story, but the fact that the characters kept going into buildings we go into and walking by the same panhandlers who we walk by, and jumping out of the way of the same maniacal cab drivers that we do!
If you haven’t seen it I’ve embedded the pilot episode from Hulu below, because I know that your idea of a good time is to come to my blog for the express purpose of watching TV shows. You’re welcome.
ALCATRAZ.. the pilot!
NOTE – If you plan to visit us here in San Francisco someday and have never been here before, this series is a good way for you to familiarize yourself with local sights and extremely implausible science fiction all in one shot.
ADDITIONAL NOTE, AND A SAD ONE AT THAT – From IMDB.. “Even though the show is set in San Francisco, and some of the pilot was filmed in the city and on Alcatraz itself, the producers of the show opted to film the rest in Vancouver, mainly because of the much more attractive production rebates than California and the city of San Francisco could offer, much to the chagrin of the San Francisco film industry. “
So like, never mind. Dammit. Friggen’ CANADIANS.
NOTE TO SELF – Always check IMDB first, before spending an hour on a post about some stupid TV show.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Dave and I had intended to both watch and record this; life happened and we did neither. We can’t get HULU so we have to wait a week until we can get it “on demand” from our service provider. Friggen Canadians aren’t all that empowered.
The show has lost a bit of appeal for me now that I know it’s filmed in Vancouver. Through the pilot we were saying, “Oh, look at that” and “Hey, we’ve been there!” Then we noticed in the 2nd episode that “San Francisco” wasn’t quite right, only to find that they filmed the pilot here and the second ep in Canada.
They had some shots of San Francisco in the second episode but the characters were looking at the skyline from unfamiliar buildings, so I guess they CGI’d the San Francisco skyline in.
We’ll still watch it strictly for the story, which is a fun sci-fi mystery, but the wind has definitely been taken out of our sails, as it were.
..also, I thought Hulu was available in Canadia now? No? Eh?
I’m just informing you that I’ve (finally) added this site to my feed reader. Why it wasn’t there already is beyond me. I think it was and just left of it’s own accord so I’ll have to have a word with it. They’ll be no leaving of feeds from my reader. Not while I have my hand on the mouse.
This, of course, has absolutely nothing to do with a quasi science fiction series called “Alcatraz” filmed in San Francisco (which it apparently isn’t) plus I don’t have TV hookup in my home (by choice but I do watch movies) and my broadband service has a monthly cap so I can’t be sitting around watching TV shows on Hulu.
But I have seen “The Rock”, does that count for anything?
Seeing “The Rock” counts for having seen “The Rock,” in that you’ve seen “The Rock” but you haven’t seen “Alcatraz,” because you don’t have a TV and you’re wearing a broadband cap.
Also, I just got back from a doctor’s appointment and I’m a little loopy.
Also, we’re glad you’re feeding our blog to your reader. We hope it’s hungry, because there’s a lot of stuff. Okay not really.
We’re loopy.
Silly, silly Canada!
Silly, silly Canada! er, Katherinda!
After reading your blog/review I went straight to hulu plus to watch for myself and after the pilot episode I am hooked! But now hulu seems to be playing with my mind because it’s no longer available D: My only guess is the Canadians must have taken hulu hostage.
Hulu likes doing that. Really good, popular shows enjoy a run of about five days in certain cases whereas you can check-out the first two seasons of “Bonanza” indefinitely. It’s a win-win!