Fall TV

Took me a few days to get to it, but I finally pulled "Flash Forward" off the DVR last night. I was pretty impressed. I haven't read the Robert Sawyer novel it's loosely based on, but was skeptical. I'm generally nuts for Sci Fi shows (or is it SyFy now?), but have been unimpressed with ABC's efforts in that direction.

I simply can't make heads or tails of the video morass that's "Lost." Nothing against dense plots, I mean I loved the way Babylon 5 set up plot points in Season 1 that weren't resolved till Season 3, but gimme a break. I understand this season, someone may go back in time to insure the airplane crash never happened. Does that mean we'll get back the hundreds of hours we've wasted trying to make sense of this show?

I had high hopes for Live on Mars, so, of course it barely lasted one season. I was a huge fan of the original BBC series. And I do have to give ABC credit for letting the producers give the show a real ending, and for cooking up an original spin on the "it was a all dream" plot device.

Way better than how Fox left the 8 viewers of "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" hanging, stranding young John Connor in a future where no one had ever heard of him. Of course, by my count, there couldn't have been that many people left in the future. Connor had sent them all back to torture his younger self.

"Daybreak" was another good show that never got traction. So, I guess I should be pleased that ABC continues to swing at Sci Fi shows, and has invested some pretty heavy promotional time in Flash Foward.

Which largely delivered. Since the Flash Forward happened to the entire world, we get to bypass the tired "I've seen the future but no one believes me" device. The Flashes we've glimpsed thus far represent the kind of variety in experience you'd expect from a random sample of viewpoint characters. Hopefully, each of them won't end up carrying around a vital (& obvious) piece of the puzzle. And, having one character whose entire Flash consisted of him taking a crap was too great for words.

I have high hopes, and will keep watching. I am also increasingly intrigued by the promos for "Stargate Universe," not normally being a fan of Planet of the Week shows, and am looking forward to the return of Sanctuary.

Although I do think the person who suggested the normally-excellent Amanda Tapping adopt that atrocious British accent should be forced to listen to an Ipod whose entire contents are recordings of Carrie Fisher's similarly-inflected lines from Star Wars: ANH.