Violence, Running, Blood, and...law cases?

Sorry for the delay but I'd gotten behind of the initial onslaught of winter TV.  I have now watched the two hour pilots of both The Firm and Alcatraz. 

Let's start with Alcatraz:
It's really hard for me to look at a JJ Abrams show objectively anymore.  LOST will forever be in my mind.  Speaking of, I've got 5 seasons of that show that I don't know that I'll ever go back and watch if you'd like to buy them for cheap.  Back to the matter at hand, this show has some intriguing mysteries set up right from the start...but then again, so did LOST and we all know how that turned out..."it's about the characters, blah blah blah"....................

Okay, for real this time, I'm done with...that show that starts with L. 

Alcatraz starts out right away with their premise of the prisoners and staff disappearing instead of being transferred out like the government told us.  Cut to present day, a lovely looking unknown actress is chasing a guy with her partner across the rooftops.  This chase does not end well for her partner.  Oooo, she's damaged now.  We then get to see what we assume is the first guy to show back up arrive in his cell on the present day Alcatraz and proceed to leave with cash and mysterious items.  The way the whole first hour played out was solid.  We got a good background of these characters and some simple characteristics about them and we got some interesting plot elements.  Hurley is playing Hurley with a little more sophistication but not much.  Sam Neill is Doctor Grant if he became grumpier and all mysterious.  The plot movement of the first hour would seem like we might get some answers to mysteries within the first few episodes.  The plot twist about a character at the end of the second hour was a genuine surprise, but I have to say something about it. Spoilers Begin! So I really liked the reveal that the assistant had somehow not aged either and was actually in Alcatraz in the 1960s.  Is she in on the plot, or is she some kind of outside force trying to stop them?  These are things that we might find out sooner rather than later IF, they hadn't revealed that AFTER she got shot and put into a coma.  I thought her getting shot was a really cool surprise...until I realized she was a key to figuring out the mystery and then it retroactively became a dumb plot device to keep the answers from us longer, End of Spoilers!  Overall it was a decent show with a shocking amount of violence in its second hour but I don't know how long it will keep my interest.  I, along with a lot of genre TV lovers I'm assuming, don't have the same kind of patience we used to when it comes to overarching mysteries.  We need to feel some kind of movement and I just don't know that this show is going to give us that.  In my opinion, Fringe has the perfect speed of plot development.  I never feel strung along but I always feel like progress is being made in the main plot arc. 

I'll give Alcatraz a few more episodes and see where it leads.  6.5/10

Now onto The Firm.  This unfortunately is another show I'm not entirely sure what to think of.  The first thing it reminds me of is Damages because it starts out with an attention grabbing scene and then we flash back to six weeks earlier.  Now, the good thing about this is it gives us a general time frame for when we'll be catching up to that exciting moment.  I'll be curious to see if they give us more pieces as we go along like Damages or if we'll be left to forget about that opening.  The end of the two hour premiere suggests the former. 

In terms of casting, I think they really hit it out of the park.  Josh Lucas has a certain gravitas to him as a main character.  His brother is Leoben from Battlestar Galactica so that's going to give you instant points and then the head of "The Firm" he joins is Six from Battlestar so they clearly know good actors.  Plus, Juliette Lewis, come on now.  I thought the case of the weeks was fairly interesting but I'll be curious if we get to see the actual trial now.  The ending board room scene with his new firm discussing their evil plans was a little "Mwahaha!" for me but it ended with a nice little twist akin to finding out about the fiance in Damages.  Watching this pilot actually made me want to go back an watch Season 1 of Damages more.  8/10

Despite Alcatraz being the clear favorite for me going into these pilots I really think The Firm was a better made pilot with a more interesting hook.  It feels less like genre TV which means we're more likely to get answers and while I know it's not what NBC wants, it's more practical to have a more complete 13 episode arc than Alcatraz which probably already has a 3 or 4 year plan.

In short:
Alcatraz: 6.5/10
The Firm: 8/10

I've got two more episodes of The Firm to watch so we'll see where it goes but I don't see Alcatraz lasting much longer (on my DVR) than another 2-3 episodes unless something amazing happens.