Today's Entertainment

COVER STORY 'Alcatraz' brings bad, bad men from the past into the present By Kate O'Hare © Zap2it When people muse upon the idea of meeting people from the past, it's often someone along the lines of Elvis, Martin Luther King, Babe Ruth, maybe Abra- ham Lincoln or even Joan of Arc or Socrates. In the new series "Alcatraz," premiering Monday, Jan. 16, on Fox, a whole bunch of folks pop through from the past into the present, but they aren't singers, sluggers, emancipators or phi- losophers. But if you need a pocket picked, a safe blown up, a throat slit or a bank robbed, they might be the guys for you. Under the creative leader- ship of executive producer J.J. Abrams, "Alcatraz" focuses on the former prison, set on an is- land in San Francisco Bay, that was home to some of the most notorious criminals in American history until it was shut down in 1963. According to history, the inmates were evacuated and moved elsewhere. But in the world of the show, that "else- where" apparently lay some- where beyond space and time. When SFPD Detective Re- becca Madsen (Sarah Jones) is assigned to a nasty homicide, a fingerprint leads her to Jack Syl- vane (Jeffrey Pierce), a former Alcatraz inmate who supposedly died decades before. Since both her grandfather and surrogate uncle, Ray Archer (Robert Forster), were guards at the prison, Madsen digs into the case, only to have an enigmatic government agent, Emerson Hauser (Sam Neill), try to get in her way. She turns to Alcatraz expert and comic-book enthusi- ast Dr. Diego "Doc" Soto (Jorge Garcia, "Lost") to piece together the crime. To her shock, she discov- ers that Sylvane is not only not dead, but he doesn't seem to have aged a day since Alcatraz shut down. And he's not the only former inmate hitting the streets of San Francisco with a new lease on life and an appetite for mayhem. Also starring are Jonny Coyne, Jason Butler Harner, Parminder Nagra and Santiago Cabrera. Late on a Friday night, fresh from the writers room, where they were busy working on the story - or "breaking the story," as they call it - for Episode 10, show-runners Jennifer Johnson and Dan Pyne find themselves in an interesting balancing act. "We continue," says Pyne, "as you do on any show, you find more of the things you love about it, and the balance of the thriller cop show with the mysti- cal short story of the past, and the way those two things provide counterpoint to each other. I think we're getting better and better at it." 1 x 5.5" ad Expressions North 2 – JANUARY 15 - 21, 2012 – BRAINERD, MN/DISPATCH A task force is formed to get to the bottom of the strange oc- currences, and Madsen and Soto form a sort of oddball Starsky and Hutch - although Johnson and Pyne describe it in rather more confectionary terms. "We talk about chocolate and peanut butter here a lot," Johnson says. "The two of them together are able to do what neither of them could do on their own. She's got incredible detec- tive skills, and he's got a vast knowledge of Alcatraz. Both of them are driven to be on the task force for different reasons. "By the end of the first epi- sode, she's chosen this partner. The two of them are kind of underdogs, because Hauser doesn't really want Rebecca there either, because she's too young and impetuous. "A lot of the story is about Rebecca and Doc, these two un- derdogs, working as partners to do the impossible, which is catch ghosts. Because these 63s - as we call the prisoners who died in 1963 - basically don't exist. "Unlike modern criminals, who have credit cards, they don't have any ties to 2012 San Fran- cisco." "Alcatraz" premieres Monday on Fox. Meanwhile, Doc - who's a highly educated academic - is having the adventure of his life. "Doc has a unique perspective on this," says Pyne, "because, as a comic-book guy, he's seen a comic-book world come to life. He's got such a weird perspective on it, because it's such an impos- sible scenario, and yet, here it is." But for those who have seen such complex J.J. Abrams shows as "Alias" and "Lost," which practi- cally required notes, a folding map and an abacus, Johnson and Pyne swear "Alcatraz" will be accessible to folks who just want to watch, and not study, their TV shows. "At the heart of this show is a procedural," says Johnson, "and that's the side of the story we break first in the writers room. It's where the viewer can come into every episode and know that at the heart of the story is a proce- dural about an inmate who's re- turned. Then the mythology will be built in largely for the loyal viewer. "If you haven't seen every episode, you may not even pick up on the details that we're plan- ning, but if you do, you will." "Hopefully, we'll tell such a compelling story," says Pyne, "that you could watch every other week and still completely under- stand what's going on." 1 x 4" ad Disability Specialist 2 x 4" ad Lakes States Bank

• Cover