# Alcatraz (2012)

> A federal agent, a police detective and a conspiracy novelist hunt down Alcatraz prisoners who reappear fifty years after vanishing.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/32505

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 13
- Episode runtime: 43 min
- Status: Canceled
- Genres: science fiction, mystery, drama
- Created by: Elizabeth Sarnoff, Steven Lilien, Bryan Wynbrandt
- Network: FOX
- Cast: Sarah Jones, Sam Neill, Jorge Garcia, Jonny Coyne, Parminder Nagra, Cameron K. Smith, Eric Johnson, Theo Rossi
- TMDB rating: 6.9/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1728102/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: brisk
- Intensity: moderate
- Complexity: layered
- Violence: mild
- Tone: tense, mysterious, moody, eerie

## What critics say

Audience reception is mixed, with a single season rated 7.6/10 by viewers who found the high-concept premise of 1963 escapees returning to 2012 appealing despite uneven execution.

## Synopsis

Alcatraz (2012) is a American network science fiction mystery series created by Elizabeth Sarnoff, Steven Lilien and Bryan Wynbrandt for FOX, produced with Bad Robot and Warner Bros. Television. Detective Rebecca Madsen (Sarah Jones) joins federal agent Emerson Hauser (Sam Neill) and Dr. Diego Soto (Jorge Garcia), a conspiracy theory novelist, to track down notorious inmates who reappear in modern San Francisco after vanishing from the infamous island prison decades earlier. Their engine is a race to understand why each returned prisoner appeared and who is orchestrating the disappearances, with each case unfolding as a self-contained investigation layered over a wider hidden mystery. The single thirteen-episode season balances procedural case-of-the-week storytelling with a growing conspiracy thread tied to the prison's past. The tone is tense and moody, with a noir-inflected sense of unease and a dose of dark, eerie intrigue. Set in a present-day Bay Area colored by the shadow of 1960s Alcatraz, the series will appeal to viewers who enjoy the time-displaced mysteries of Fringe and the government-conspiracy atmosphere of The X-Files.

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