'Alcatraz': Jorge Garcia and producers dish on the show's mythology and characters

Ten million people were in the mood for some captivating drama last night, as Fox unleashed the premiere of Alcatraz. Want some more insight into the J.J. Abrams-produced series, which follows a detective (Sarah Jones), an Alcatraz expert (Jorge Garcia), and a cryptic government official (Sam Neill) as they investigate why the inmates of the famous prison are suddenly reappearing unaged in current-day San Francisco? Read on to see what Garcia and exec producers/showrunners Jennifer Johnson and Daniel Pyne told EW about Alcatraz. On the mysterious prisoners DANIEL PYNE: They’re committing the crimes that put them in Alcatraz, which was the prison where people who couldn’t be in other prisons went. They’re resuming their criminal activities, so anything from kidnapping, bank robbery, murder, serial killers, sharp shooters, car robbery. I mean, serious, federal, just badass crimes. JENNIFER JOHNSON: These guys are the worst of the worst, and our team is up against all odds trying to catch them, because they essentially don’t exist. Unlike other criminals, they don’t have ex-girlfriends to go talk to, or credit cards to track. All of the connections they had are now gone. We’re chasing ghosts, and that’s what makes this ride so fun. … Any story that you can think of from the past 10 years that made you feel like you couldn’t leave your house or that you needed to lock your doors, those are the guys we’re going to be catching. On the mythology-laced show’s accessibility to mainstream audiences JJ: This show will be easier to tune in to every week than a Fringe or a Lost. Really at the heart of Alcatraz is pursuing the inmates. Every week we’ll be catching or not catching one of those inmates. The mythology will be there if you’re looking for it, but it won’t be critical to enjoying each episode. On unspooling the story in both the present and past DP: What we’re seeing in the past informs what happens in the present, but it may not be something that our characters in the present ever discover. So you have this wonderful opportunity to tell a short story in the past that helps the audience to have a deeper understanding of what’s going on in the present in a way that the characters can’t. It’s a delicious blend of crime story and emotion and fantasy, because the mythology obviously plays through the past. I really like that dynamic — that ability to tell parallel stories that don’t necessarily intercept except for the audience.