FlashForward

If you like big-screen-level thrills and complicated plot structures, you'll opt-in to FlashForward. And you'll be rewarded. Here's hoping it stays strong and compelling as it heads to April 29.

The show combines sci-fi-ish conspiracy suspense with excellent prime-time-soap drama. And I like the fact that, post-blackout, people don't Google each other; they say, ''I Mosaic'd you.'' A good sense of humor humanizes this grand puzzl

It's smart, richly textured, complex and filled with suspense and intellectual challenge--in short, it has all the things network television is supposed to have abandoned in favor of cheap reality shows.

Whether ABC's new series, FlashForward, will catch on is anyone's guess. I can tell you, though, that it has a compelling concept and a solid cast.

With such a knockout concept at its core, Flash Forward may still be on our minds six months from now--that is, if we're not too busy piecing together global mysteries or cheating on our husbands to notice.

Like many of ABC's post-Lost attempts at serials, this one has a great premise with tremendous potential, but I wish more attention had been paid to fleshing out the characters and generally bringing a fresher voice to the dialogue.

The pilot for FlashForward, by contrast [to "Lost"], feels more like deja vu, with characters who could've been rounded up from a disaster miniseries, tied to a mystery that's only compelling if we care what happens to these people.