Flash! Aahhhh....

I watched the premiere of Flashforward tonight. It's a new drama from ABC with a distinct Lost look-and-feel, and even some Lost alums (Dominic Monaghan — formerly Meriadoc Brandybuck — and Desmond's sweetie Penny). It's based on a novel by Hugo- and Nebula-award-winner Robert J. Sawyer, and in the premiere everybody on Earth blacks out, all at once, for two minutes and seventeen seconds. In the aftermath, as people are scrambling to put out fires and drag people from crashed cars, it becomes clear that everybody saw the same thing while they were blacked out: two minutes and seventeen seconds of their lives on April 29, 2010, about six months in the future.

There's plenty of meat on that premise, both personal and mythological, and the cast includes additional watchables like Joseph Fiennes, Seth MacFarlane (as an FBI guy, no really), and the guy who played Steve in Coupling. I got impatient with the TV-for-stupid-people repetition during the premiere, and I wince whenever I see Brannon Braga's name in the credits, but apart from that I'm pretty pleased.

ABC, Thursdays @ 8:00 PM, repeating (for the moment) on Fridays, also watchable online.