Fraught with hints of conspiracy both secular and spiritual (Who messed with the plane? God or the CIA? And whatever the answer, what was the motive?), Manifest bounces around like a pinball machine with bumpers marked "sinister," "heartbreak," and "redemption," and scores high whichever one it touches.

Its inquisitiveness and willingness to be bold and fairly uncynical given all the things it’s trying to be is more than welcome.

The bumpy flight scene is indeed terrifying (firsthand advice: don’t watch on a plane). But once on the ground, rote themes of redemption and faith dilute an otherwise intriguing supernatural occurrence. ... [Recurring themes] point toward a potentially addictive series if “Manifest” allows its gripping supernatural narrative to rise above its characters’ less interesting personal dramas.

Manifest moves fast, but it plays like a ticket to nowhere.

It's always difficult with such concepts -- and perhaps this one more than most -- to see whether the producers can sustain enough interest to keep the show airborne.

All I can speculate based on the pilot is that either none of the characters on that airplane are interesting or else the pilot made a huge mistake in terms of which characters to lead with. The Stones are, simply, dull. They're very pretty, mind you. And they're very earnest.

The premise is certainly alluring, which is why it’s so disheartening to discover Manifest’s lack of imagination or intuition for what it might feel like, in the show’s lead example, for an extended family to be suddenly reunited. ... A viewer who might have been interested in the human element is instead served a cold plate of mystery meat--not the new “Lost,” but a feeble throwback to forgettable failures such as “The Event.”

I loved the show. It had me glued to the screen. The supernatural aspect is great. I thought the actors were good.I will be looking forward to episode 2

They could spend some time developing the characters, instead of jumping right to...plane ...and oh its the future. you have a whole season and you did that in the first 5 minutes. Give us an hour of whose's who and then have the dramatic event, could have left the last line being, you took off in 2013 and its now 2018... gives us a reason to watch, the second show... to many shows now these days do not give us the opportunity to get to know the character... that's why This is Us, is so popular, it's going on season 3 and we are still learning things about them.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

The acting is terrible. I had zero emotion because the actors did not have any themselves. In my opinion the majority of each episode is so much filler that it seems to drag on and I found myself reading my phone or playing with the cat and not watching the episode. The drama seemed so forced and I also found myself rolling my eyes a lot saying "stop" to several things I saw. This show could be just beyond amazing. The casting was good just not their acting. I don't know how to explain it. Maybe they don't act well off of each other or something. It was just emotionally flat. I hope there is a season 2 but if the first two episodes are like the first, in respect to the acting and just boring dialog, then I'll check out and stop watching because the series is giving me nothing to grab on to

Cheesy acting and teleplay mar an intriguing (although unoriginal) shell. It's soap-opera worthy in its sappiness (which Lost never was) and the story-telling leaves us wanting less, not more.