No one who likes it has a problem with the appearance of what seems to be an ever dangling carrot? I have trust issues when it comes to that kind of stuff. It's why I checked out on Falling Skies after the Pilot. I didn't feel like it would eventually be a rewarding watch. I'm giving this show the benefit of the doubt, but the last episode (while I liked it) made me very nervous for the first time in its run.

Thought today's ep was the strongest of the series.

spot the location is part of the series now. hello Stanley Park

did they have to kill the black man??

Yes.

I wish they didn't kill him, I wanted him to defuse the bomb.

Good episode.

I am surprised people havent fled SF yet on this show

A little part of me hoped that Tara would be crying now that Eggs died again. I hate Tara.

Good episode. Saw the black guy's death coming a mile away tho.

Hurley is tilting me more & more. Some of his one liners are so god awful. "Look, he's there" when they arrive at the beach in the car. I mean, it's one line, we can't see his face or anything, yet it's badly played

Good episode. That's two in a row, imo.

yea it's gettin solid

This is the format of all Bad Robot shows and they tend to get it right, but sometimes its true that the anticipation of things can often overwhelm the actual plan of those things. Lost is the classic example, but it tended to veer away from the formula of giving small rewards along the way as the questions span out of control in a way the answers could never catch up.

FS never really had the same substory stringing episodes together in the same way as Alcatraz does and it was also less serial at the same time (which is an almost impossible self contradicting thing to say i understand), i think Fringe is the much better comparison for a bunch of reasons, or perhaps Person of Interest, both of which are demonstrating that Bad Robot is getting this formula down pretty damn well even within completely different concepts.

There will never be a point that you can stop watching Alcatraz and be convinced you now know everything there is, like no season finales that wrap things up nicely.

I think they're doing it really well with Person of Interest, but I think it's really failing here. I thought the MOTW was good, again, but they are dangling carrots out there that I just don't feel they are going to resolve. I mean how can they have the last two cliffhangers happen (not this episode), and not even remotely consider them again? We needed to know what was behind the door, and we needed Rebecca to freaking confront Hauser about what's really going on. I don't mind it being dropped in 2 minutes of exposition, at all, and I have to say I'm getting really annoyed with the show, because of this.

It doesn't really matter, anyway, as this show is currently on the high speed rail to cancellation. I guess I'm just going to start watching it for the MOTW type stuff, and just not give a crap about the big arc, because I just really don't think it matters. The most telegraphed line in TV history was in the last scene of this episode. Based on his character, I just knew there was no chance Hauser wasn't going to walk into the Doc's office, and say, "Fix her." My biggest confusion is how young Hauser has no accent, but old Hauser sounds like a crusty New Zealander or something.

I don't know how much of a role it's playing in the overall arc, but the Creator/Showrunner, Elizabeth Sarnoff, left the show in November. I'm guessing there were pretty big issues over the direction of the show. I'm figuring they would have had maybe the Pilot and 2 others max in the can, at the time of her departure. It's possible they could have had four in the can, but I doubt there were more, unless the show was completely done by the time it had aired.

90% of every episode is some random bs that can be left on the cutting floor. I'm really getting tired of this CSI-catch-another-bad-guy-every-week sh*t which adds nothing whatsoever to the whole story. I would be watching one of the 493.248 other crime shows if I wanted the producers to just kill my time.

The flashbacks are the one thing that keep me coming back for more every week .. although it would be nice if they would haven given us at least one answer so far instead of bringing up new questions every episode. But I guess that's what you get with a J.J. Abrams show.

It kind of reminds me of this TED talk that J.J. Abrams once gave:
http://www.ted.com/talks/j_j_abrams_mystery_box.html

I sometimes wonder if the writers even have some ideas to who is behind this, what is behind the doors, how did they all vanish etc. .. or if they are all just writing along like "mhmm...what kind of mystery rooms, storylines or unexplainable phenomenons can we come up with this week .. don't worry about the answers & solutions. we will deal with them somewhere down the road - or not"

I think you guys are overreacting. Way too soon to preemptively complain about them not resolving the various mysteries. I'm actually feeling assured that they'll explain it, seeing as they're dedicating little moments of time in each episode to the greater arch and thus it's harder to just ignore later on - it's in people's minds, whereas with Lost it was all a cluster**** and so several details could easily be forgotten by the audience. Personally, I'd like to see more mysteries and wtf moments and then being amazed at how it all connects.

I am not a big follower of the Abrams shows, and I didn't watch Lost. From my experience, the way they're doing the show is exactly how it shouldn't be done. Part of what I think the various Lost viewers were hoping for was the "fixing" of "mistakes" that were made in relation to that show. I want to have confidence, but I just really feel like they're not going to resolve anything, and that we're just expected to forget. If it goes another week without the reveal of what's behind the door, will anyone even care anymore when it's revealed at the end of the season?

In my opinion, when you serialize a show, you have to give answers (part of the reason why serialized shows fail so often). If the audience feels led along, they just won't invest. Last week's episode was the first where I really thought we might be being effed with. My tolerance is much higher for that stuff, than most, but the show has been hemorrhaging viewers for a couple of weeks now. I think there are only 6 left, and I just don't have any confidence that the season will end with any kind of satisfying answers.

That said, I still relatively like the show.

ratings are plummeting, good chance it doesn't get another season if they continue to slide.

I'm fascinated by how good the flashbacks and the overall mystery are and how bad the MOTW is. I don't know if it's because there is less time but a typical NCIS episode is better than the Sarah & Doc portion.

That's because two CGI sock puppets have more screen presence than them. This show is probably going to be a career killer for Jorge Garcia as any potential type of leading man.

Too bad. It's starting to get really interesting. Possible that lots of viewers gave up too early.

I disagree, as it appears the viewers started having the big tune out when the "what's in that cell?" question wasn't answered the week after being shown. Then they did a similar thing at the end of the next episode that also wasn't paid off the following week. Viewers today actually want answers, and stringing them along, in my opinion, is hurting the show. Based on its premiere numbers, this should have been a slam dunk renewal, and it's blowing it...big time. I think it's a better than average show, but I'm getting pretty frustrated with it leaving the audience hanging every week. Person of Interest is basically the best example of hanging storylines actually working, right now, in my opinion.

I believe you missed the original point here. Nice rant, though.

What was the original point? He said they gave up too early, because the show might be getting good. I was making the opposite point that the show started out good, and that for the viewers who are tuning out, that the show had gotten worse for them, because of the whole dangling carrot thing. We're saying similar things, but I think they are opposite effects.

I don't think the audience tune out is coming from them thinking the show wasn't good, I think it was because they felt like they didn't want to get effed with like so many shows are doing these days.

Actually, that's not what I said, so I can understand why your reply was off the mark.

Well, you said interesting, which I guess I interpreted as you meaning it was "getting good" (are you saying the show is getting interesting, but is not getting good?). I still don't understand how I can be misinterpreting the part I was responding to, which was "Possible that lots of viewers gave up too early." What do you mean by that statement, if I am misunderstanding it? The way I am interpreting the statement is that viewers didn't like it from the start, and gave up on it potentially too early. I'm saying that viewers liked it originally, but gave up on it because of the dangling carrot syndrome. To me, the statement is about what has caused the audience drop. Did the audience once like it, but stopped liking it, or did the audience never like it and stopped watching it? That's the question that I want answered, and I think I can make a case (possibly incorrectly) that the viewers stopped watching because of a series of dangling carrots left in front of them multiple weeks in a row.

Wow..another 45 minutes of my life wasted. Now we don't even get new mysteries anymore - it's just some random crime show. It feels like Cold Case but worse lol.

Ratings are going downhill (http://tvseriesfinale.com/tv-show/al...ratings-21864/) and I might also only watch for 1-2 more episodes. I'm losing faith that this show will turn around.