They had me last fall at “new J.J. Abrams project” and I have been looking forward to this show ever since. We were fortunate enough to be able to watch the entire pilot during the Fox Television panel for Alcatraz at Comic-Con, which was followed by a brief Q&A session.

Here’s a long-ish trailer to help you get a feel for it:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_jAlFqvASU[/youtube]

And here’s a summary of the plot – as much as is known, at least – by some cast members:

OH FOR CRYING OUT LOUD IT IS NOT THE NEXT LOST. No amount of J.J Abrams, Liz Sarnoff (she was writer and eventually executive producer on Lost, as well as the showrunner on Alcatraz), and/or Jorge Garcia will make this the next Lost. Say it with me: There. Will. Never. Be. Another. Lost.

Some of the cadence of the writing, and definitely the music (they are employing the incomparable Michael Giacchino, who also scored Lost), the lighting, direction, and editing are reminiscent of of Lost, but substantively it is otherwise a whole other beast.

We have been promised mystery but we have also been promised answers, and the showrunner calls it a procedural with an underlying mystery. That sounds closer to what we saw in the ballroom, although it’s not quite to Fringe or X-Files standards yet. I am looking forward to both the procedural and the mythology (underlying longterm mystery) aspects, if they continue with the level of writing and directing that we saw in the pilot.

Go into it thinking of it this way, and you will likely not be disappointed.

Alcatraz starring Sam Neill, Jorge Garcia, and Parminder Nagra will premiere on Fox at mid-season.