Fall TV 2010 or "I MISS LOST!"

As Sinead O'Connor once noted, "fight the real enemy." Sorry, that was what she said when she made Pope confetti. I meant to say, "nothing compares 2 u." And by "u," I mean "Lost." I miss the mystery. I miss the camaraderie of the fans. I miss the music. I miss...other things.
So like many of you out there, I find myself trying to figure out what TV show could possibly at least somewhat fill the space in my heart. I'll be reviewing "Undercovers," the new JJ Abrams show, a few scattered new comedies, and last night's big premiere: "The Event." I can't promise I'll stick with it, but here we go.

"The Reaction"

First off, let's just get this out of the way:
THIS IS YOUR HISPANIC PRESIDENT? The guy who promotes a show on which he plays a Hispanic president in JET MAGAZINE?! He's a proud black man! And there's only, I don't know, an insane number of capable actors of Latin descent who would be just perfect for the role of president in your little NBC show, you half-wits! Are you shitting me? I mean, good Lord executives, NOT ALL NONWHITES ARE FROM THE SAME PLACE! How hard is that to figure out? I like Blair Underwood, and I like that minority actors are getting high profile roles, but I would have either changed his character's name and background to make him a black man, which he is, or changed actors to an actual Hispanic. Yeesh.

Okay, now that we've covered that, let's move on to what I liked and what I didn't before settling on some general thoughts...sniffle...just like we did with "Lost."

Likes

• I am genuinely interested in what "the event" itself is. That's pretty important when you name your show after the event. It'd be like if they called "Lost" "Plane Crash."
• The young blonde girl...I like her. I don't know why, but I do. Not like Evangeline up there, but she has some measure of charisma I can't put my finger on.
• I also like the gal from "ER" as the "leader" of the "prisoners." God I hope they're not aliens.
• I totally enjoyed the creepy bald dude who plays the snaky adviser guy. I wonder if he's just the nicest person in real life, because he always plays a douche.

Sadly, that's really it so far. Here we go.

Dislikes

• You are not "Lost," and adding "wooshes" to the flashbacks and music that sounds like someone imitating "Lost" does not help your case. IF (and this is a big if) your plot involves time travel somehow, as I suspect it does, then I will allow your totally disjointed, helter-skelter presentation of chronology, but right now it feels like a bad impression of "Lost's" format.
• I know nothing about any characters. Nothing. I know that crazy skinny beard guy hijacking the plane loves skinny blond girl, but I swear I do not remember either of their names and know absolutely nothing about them. Why their conversations didn't reveal more about them then plot and connection to one another is just terrible use of time. I don't care that skinny blond girl is kidnapped anymore than skinny beard guy appears to be trying to stop the hijacking. Or that grumpy dad apparently shot somebody. Characters more than ANYTHING are why we watch and come back. You can't give us a good mystery, if that's what this is, if we loathe or are disinterested in your characters. This above all else does not bode well for the show in my opinion.
• The cosmic fart wasn't impressive enough to be "the event." I hope it wasn't, but I fear it was. A blue bubble that looked hand drawn scooping up a plane? Not exactly impressive. Now, I am intrigued by where the plane went, curious as to if it was aliens or what who did it (please no aliens), and somewhat interested in the aftermath. So that's good. But the actual effect of the blue fart bubble? Not cool.

Reactions

• I think that either (A) it's time travel related, which explains the "experiments" going on at the Alaskan base, in which case the 96 people are gathered from different points in time or (B) they're somehow superpowered. I really hope it's the former and not the latter. I also really hope it's not aliens, did I mention that?
• I think this feels more like "V" then "Lost." It does look better than "Flashforward," but not by much...and that show had better actors even if the writing was bad.
• I think that it needs to quickly reveal some big things to prove that it isn't going to follow that "Lost" formula, that those big things need to be smart, and that they need to make me care somehow about what's going on because right now nameless people running from a blue fart bubble doesn't compel me.

Initial grade = C+

I will stick it out a few more, but so far I am unimpressed. What say you?