Flash Forward was really good (and owes a lot to LOST)

#fb Just finished the Flash Forward pilot. I am pretty much hooked; it has all of the elements to get me hooked on a show. The similarities/homages to LOST were numerous; these aren’t too specific, but if you don’t want to spoil anything, you might want to look away:

  • A random animal, out of place for the environment (polar bears v. kangaroos).
  • Some dude running around only to totally get pwned by the aftermath of the event (LOST had the guy who got sucked into the jet engine, FF had the dude on fire who ran into the bit oil rig).
  • The totally flawed ‘hero’ character who is already getting on my nerves (Jack v Mark).
  • Excruciatingly irritating characters who don’t do the ONE logical thing and ASK EACH OTHER WHAT IS FUCK IS GOING ON (right, so a crazy event happens and no one stops to collaborate and collect the information at hand? right.).
  • The cinematography was eerily similar to the beginning of LOST (tons of epic pans of the catastrophe, lots and lots of character close ups).
  • It frickin’ has Penny and Charlie. I mean, come on. Talk about using those actors to set the LOST tone.
  • The epic conspiracy (island, dharma, others, smokey, someone controlling the castaways v. seeing the future, some people not seeing it, the dude who was walking around in the stadium, the dudes coming for Mark in his FF).
  • The classic episode cliffhanger (every damn LOST episode v the dude at the stadium)

Overall, I thought the pacing of the pilot was decent, though it was definitely dragging toward the end, when we knew they weren’t going to show us anything new. The best part of the show was the fact that the pacing was exactly like LOST; so much so that I KNEW at the end they were going to leave us with that cliffhanger.

Oh well, I am hooked. Give me a good old scifi mystery and spin it with an epic conspiracy and I am pretty much in (see X-Files, Millennium, BSG, LOST). Now, I have to hope ABC doesn’t muck it up like NBC did with Heroes, and I can have a replacement show when LOST finally ends this season.