Jorge Garcia and J.J. Abrams at the 2012 Television Critics Association
A few days ago, in a talk at the 2012 TCA (Television Critics Association), J.J. Abrams said that Alcatraz would not be like LOST. Alcatraz, he said, would have storylines that were resolved every week, and questions would be answered quickly.
The TV critics in the room had their doubts about that, according to a critic who was there.
Alcatraz starts on Monday, January 16, at 8 p.m. (7 central) on FOX.
Posted in Alcatraz, Hurley (Jorge Garcia), J.J. Abrams
Update 11/30/2011 — I just checked the prices, and even though Black Friday is over, most of the items I listed here are now selling for less than they were during Black Friday week. The Big Lebowski
The LOST DVDs, while they weren’t originally on Amazon’s Black Friday list, have also come down a little in price — Lost: The Complete Collection
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Amazon is having a big Black Friday week sale that is going on all week, starting today, Monday, November 21, 2011. I looked through the virtual bins, and found several items featuring LOST actors that could make great gifts (or to give to yourself).
Lance Reddick had an all-too-brief role in LOST as the mysterious and creepy Matthew Abaddon. Here he is visiting Hurley in the mental hospital (this scene is in LOST episode 4×01 The Beginning of the End). I love this scene — it’s one of my favorite LOST scenes — it’s the kind of thing that LOST did so well, did so much better than any other show. At the end of the scene, I had chills in the back of my neck. Video embedding has been disabled for the clip, but you can watch it on YouTube here — and it’s very much worth (re)watching: Are you fine, Mr. Reyes?
(more after the jump) Continue reading
At the “Fringe” panel at Comic-Con on Saturday, they played a (joke) video showing auditions for the role of Peter Bishop. Among the would-be actors in the tape are LOST alum Rebecca Mader, Damon Lindelof, Michael Emerson, and Jorge Garcia.
Jorge Garcia at Comic-Con 2011
British site Digital Spy asked Jorge a few questions. He talked about his Alcatraz character, Dr. Diego Soto; reiterated that Alcatraz is not the new LOST; and when asked to sum up Alcatraz in one sentence and tell us why we should tune in, he said, “The scariest prisoners are coming back.”
Alcatraz promo photo
The blog Television Blend saw the pilots and liked both of them:
There are two things that set Person of Interest above other shows like these: Jim Caviezel and Michael Emerson… Emerson’s character has some of the smarts of Ben Linus, without the creepy…. I want to see more of these two on screen, so I’ll definitely be looking out for this one …
I suspect Alcatraz is going to appeal to Fringe fans …. I’m going to be vague with the premise here because one of the biggest strengths of the pilot is the way the story’s layers are peeled back a little bit at a time as the episode moves forward….
While …. we’re meant to take [Garcia's] character seriously, there are some mild shades of Hurley thrown in there for some light comic relief…. A lot of questions are raised in the pilot, but the introduction offers enough intriguing clues to have me wanting more.
Read the full review.
Hollywood Report did interviews with Jorge Garcia and Elizabeth Sarnoff, who was a writer on LOST and is now the showrunner (TV industry jargon for the boss) of Alcatraz.
When asked how Alcatraz is different from LOST, Jorge replied:
I believe I’m going to be a lot less sweaty! There are no planes crashing and it’s not in the jungle! [Laughs.] I play a historian/comic book guy/Alcatraz expert. You don’t want people to hunt to try and find what the next Lost is anymore. Let Lost be Lost and now find what Alcatraz is. Don’t chase Lost; love it and put it to bed. You can bring out the DVDs whenever you want but don’t go to Alcatraz looking for Lost. There may be some elements that will remind you since it comes from the same family but it’s going to be it’s own thing.
Elizabeth Sarnoff also answered a couple of LOST-related questions:
THR: Are you prepared for the inevitable Lost questions?
Sarnoff: Absolutely. I worked on the show for a long time and there are a lot of people on our show that worked on it: Jack Bender, Jorge Garcia, J.J. Abrams. I welcome that: this is our past and this is our present.
THR: How does Alcatraz compare to Lost?
Sarnoff: I don’t think it’s like Lost because the show at heart is a procedural show. We have a story end to our show where we’re going to catch a bad guy every week as well as a really bad guy from Alcatraz, so it’s a very different show. Alcatraz is going to feel like it moves a hell of a lot faster because we have a lot of story to get through.
Here are some clips of both shows, along with reactions of fans at Comic-Con:
A few more clips from “Person of Interest” are here.
Person of Interest is supposed to start on Setember 22. Alcatraz starts sometime in early 2012 — I don’t think they announced a date yet.
Official sites for the shows: Alcatraz and Person of Interest.
For a complete list of all the LOST-related events at Comic-Con 2011, see @jopinionated‘s article on TVOvermind.
Matthew Perry and Jorge Garcia on the premiere of Mr. Sunshine
According to Entertainment Weekly, Jorge was invited to play a guest role on the pilot because Matthew Perry, the star, writer, and executive producer of “Mr. Sunshine,” is a huge LOST fan.
It was great to see Jorge. The show itself wasn’t so good though. It’s supposed to be a madcap comedy about the wacky life of Ben, the manager of a San Diego sports/circus/concert arena (Matthew Perry), and the colorful eccentrics surrounding him, but with the exception of a few funny moments, the jokes fell flat. The best part was actually the semi-serious subplot about Perry’s fear of commitment driving away his love interest, Andrea Anders, the liveliest actor among the regular cast.
You can catch a glimpse of Jorge in the video clip below:
Posted in After LOST, Hurley (Jorge Garcia)
LOST may be long over, but new products keep on coming.
Four new bobble heads from Bif Bang Pow! are available for pre-order — although at this point, it looks like they won’t actually be shipped until June, 2011.
The Sawyer bobble head has our nickname-loving hero wearing a shirt (alas!) and a jacket. For some reason, he is holding a gun — I’m not sure what scene this is referencing. He is also holding the letter that played such a poignant role in Season 1.
The Jack Shephard bobble head is posing with Vincent the dog — an odd choice, in my opinion, especially since Jack’s two iconic scenes with Vincent involve Jack lying flat on his back in the jungle, a position which wouldn’t work for a bobble head, as it would interfere with the bobbling. 
Besides, whenever I see Vincent, I think, “Where’s Waaaaaaaaaalt?”
Also, is it my imagination, or is Vincent unusually small here?
The bobble head is meant to evoke the Series Pilot — it has Jack wearing a suit, with a bit of the wreckage of Flight 815 on the ground behind him. He’s also got some sexy stubble. In fact, he looks sexier as a bobble head than he did in the series. (Yes, as a Sawyer fan I’m biased, but it’s true!)
The Desmond Hume bobble head shows the Season 2 Desmond, wearing a Dharma jumpsuit and standing by the Swan Station computer, where he is, presumably, about to type in the infamous numbers.
Last, but not least, is what I think is the best bobble head of the bunch — Dr. Leslie Arzt holding a stick of dynamite, about to blow himelf up — a scene which led to one of Hurley’s greatest lines ever.
