New Series Alcatraz, what a disappointment. READ MY RANT

J.J. Abram's new series 'Alcatraz' (City TV in Canada, Fox in the US) promised to be fabulous.

What an amazing setting and mish-mash of stories to draw inspiration from! Having just visited 'the rock' recently myself, I was thrilled to hear that someone was going to do a series based on the famous prison.

I knew the synopsis to be, that the criminals all disappeared when the prison 'closed' in 1963. I knew that they were shooting in Vancouver, and had RECREATED the cell block in a sound stage.... and I knew that I was hungry to hear more about the random inmates that were housed on the rock.

I am so disappointed.

What the hell is wrong with these writers? The dialogue spouted by the main actors is so flat and cliche. Comparable (in my opinion) to the cheesy lines produced in "CSI:Miami". It feels as though these folks have never EVER watched a cop show before, nor seen cops, nor watched a movie about a federal investigation.

The list of things I find so irritating that I can't even get past the middle of episode 3:

1- The fact that this detective Rebecca Madsen (played by Sarah Jones) is supposedly some genius at solving crimes that she used to help her father solve crimes. Supposedly goes through cop training, moves up the ladder = young detective; and yet when trying to breech a suspects door (knock knock, stand to the side with gun drawn, "OPEN UP IT's THE POLICE") she doesn't get her two 'ride-alongs' to move... um... shouldn't they get outta the way too???
AND when pursuing a suspect on the rooftop, she looks like she is holding a gun for the first time in her life.  Please, if you need a hot woman with pale eyes to play the detective, at least put her through some gun training. OH, and some frakking emoting lessons.

2-Comic book guy (Jorge Garcia) as her new partner??? WTF. This guys supposedly is a Doctor who writes/illustrates comic books, and has previously written a book on the inmates of Alcatraz. Apparently we are led to believe that he is some sort of expert on the place....ok, fine. This is pretty believable. However... what happened to the voices of the FEDERAL F'N AGENTS that have *reluctantly* said "Ok, he can be your partner Detective".
These people have supposedly made this their life's work tracking these disappeared criminal's... yet they know abosolutely NOTHING about them????? Funny how in over 40 years not one of them even thought to read Comic-book guy's book... so he's the expert among them.... This detail is so obvious and disappointing.

When Detective hot-stuff asks a question about the criminals they are chasing, the agents just look coy and then look to Comic book guy to help them out.... WTF.

I could go on. Oh... looks like I'm going to.....

There is no buildup of character so that we give a shit when Lucy Bannerjee (Parminder Nagra) gets shot. It just falls flat in front of us, and we shrug and wonder if she should have been wearing a red shirt for such an early shuffle into a coma. Oh, they TRY to win our affections for her character but fail epically when Sam Neill's character tries to convey his emotions by fondling some of Lucy's personal effects scattered around the 'bat cave'. Blah, everything seemed so 'placed' and stupid. We never saw her wear glasses, we had no time to see her wear a blanket. We know absolutely nothing about her. So who cares, let her die.

I dunno. Look I'm not TV critic, but I know good TV. It's the stuff that usually gets cancelled, or shifted around to shitty time slots. This is bad TV. To me anyways.

LONG LIVE 'COMMUNITY'! - thats good frakkin' TV.

Wanna read some professional critic's reviews of Alcatraz? Here is a spattering of 'em:

Tim Goodman of the Hollywood Reporter

Ken Tucker

Maureen Ryan of the Huffington Post