Do you remember about six weeks ago we started watching TNT’s The Great Escape, thought it was going to be Very Much The Sort Of Thing We Liked, then turned out to be really disappointed?
Well I think it’s not unreasonable to reassess it slightly in light of five later episodes because it really feels like Alcatraz was a broadcast pilot, and between making that one and the others the producers had a bit of a think. I might be wrong, it might just be coincidence, I might just be used to its foibles and I’m suffering from a televisual form of Stockholm Syndrome, but it now feels like a show I’d be happy to recommend to people and Very Much The Sort of Thing We Like.
Quite a lot of the criticisms levelled at Alcatraz seem to have been addressed – the music has been toned down a bit and feels like there is rather more shade. The puzzles are a bit cleverer and more inventive. The items found feed into later tasks. Some of the tasks feel quite dangerous and exciting.
In particular the choice of locations and the thematic directoral choices have been in the main superb – particularly the Institution (episode three) and underground government tunnels in Los Angeles (the most recent episode, episode six). The best episodes I’ve found is where there is proper tension with the guards and their routes (they make a much bigger thing about the timed patrols now. Let’s not beat around the bush, the guards are a bit silly. But at least it now feels like a mechanism that can be accounted for and beaten), not only because getting caught means going back to the beginning, but because going back means having to do a dreaded task all over again, whether it be rappelling down a knotted bedsheet or having to go through a “sewage” tunnel.
This week’s episode exists seemingly because there was once a film called Escape From LA.
It may be the case that less would be more and it would be better if it wasn’t so obviously directorally influenced by The Amazing Race. But if you watched the first one and gave up, I suggest giving it another go.
In other news, I’ve not really been watching it but even so I very much enjoyed Reality Blurred’s interview with Kenny Rosen, producer of The Glass House.
The Institution episode had some fantastic games, really well themed to the location.
Yep, fave episode of the lot so far. Although episode nine is apparently going to involve escaping from a tower, which sounds intriguing and exciting.
I really enjoyed this week’s one, mainly because the route was that long that when people got caught late into it, they had to get taken back at least a mile, leaving them frustrated. The challenges were also very well done. And the dad on the blue team looked like a contestant on the last season of American Amazing Race!
A couple of the episodes have even properly addressed the weird “This isn’t a race, this is waiting for the production team to get you to the destination presented as a race” transport zone problem, rather than just as the second episode did cut it down to its minimum – once by having the contestants drive themselves, and once by having a guard check the vehicle for contestants as they were making their getaway (The Institution really was a brilliant episode, wasn’t it?) [I’m a bit behind, mind, they might have resolved this in other episodes too]. I’d say that, yeah, it’s genuinely improved since the first one.
A lot of the tasks still feel like they come down to “Find the thing in the location”, but even that’s much reduced since the first one.
So much for product placment supposedly not ruining the show it’s in. Whenever there’s a shot on Deal or No Deal with the mugs in the picture is massively juddery. It looks terrible. The moving shot before the second break was horrible.
Yeah, I was tweeting about that earlier. As you say, any shot they’ve digitally treated has screwed up the frame rate or something. Well done PG Tips, massive fail there…
Channel 4 are aware of the issue – at least I tweeted the Banker and he said they were working on it.