Why is the headline so big? Because "Lost" is the new pilot from "Alias" mastermind J.J. Abrams, and these reviews make it sound incredible!

ABC won’t announce its fall slate till Tuesday, but “The Catch” (Abram's other fall pilot, a “Midnight Run”-kinda bounty-hunter saga) and “Lost” are the two to which I’m currently most looking forward.

Two reviews of “Lost” arrived while my computer was in the shop, and they leave Hercules mighty giddy. I was expecting a survival drama, like maybe a modern "Robinson Crusoe, or “Alive” in the tropics, but these reviews make it sound all science-fictiony -- like a grown-up, character-driven “Land of the Lost”!!

First reviewer up is “Tredeger,” who calls it “surprisingly gripping” and set upon “the island Rambaldi built.”

Second reviewer, “The Fridge” seems to like it plenty and notes the pilot carries a twist ending certain to make us “beg for more.”

Has Abrams created something even better than “Alias”?? Somebody!! Send Herc the “Lost” pilot!!! Must watch "Lost"!!!

Here’s “Tredeger”! Spoilers ho:

Thurs, 8PM: I couldn't stand the idea of watching an hour long clip show (NBC) or an hour long teaser for the People's Choice Award Jeff Probst/Mark Burnett millionaire (CBS) so I found myself flipping channels. My VCR is programed with just the few channels in which I'm interested but it's on the fritz. I'm flipping with my crappy TV remote and scrolling through the entire cable lineup. And in a moment of pure serendipity I stumbled across one of those leased accessed channels that no one ever actually watches because they're 24hours of infomercials. Imagine my surprise to discover that someone had bought time to air some strange movie (so I thought) that I felt I should recognize (I came in midway through). But I couldn't place it, even as more and more familiar actor's started popping up. I fired up the ol' IMDB and under each actor just could not find an entry that matched what I was watching. It seemed like a movie and was quite cinematic in feel and pacing, but at certain dramatic points it would go to a second of black and come back as if from commercial. I was watching some pilot being aired advert free (presumably as a test for a select group in the know). Wow, what fun! And it was surprisingly gripping, by the time the end title "Lost" came up I was really into it (despite missing the beginning) and my excitement was cinched as j.j.abrams' Bad Robot scuttled across the screen.

Unfortunately, I missed the initial setup. I'm not certain if this was supposed to be a 1 or 2 hour pilot, but I'll describe what I did see. This seemed like a pretty cool project so I'm just not going to give away TOO much (I hope) and since it is the pilot, I can't really spoil the dramatic arc too badly.

NOTHING BUT SPOILERS AHEAD

By the time I started watching, a plane had already crashed on the island and some characters are climbing through the fuselage, which seems to be suspended in a tropical jungle tree. They make their way to the cockpit and find the terrific Greg Grunberg. Greg's a pilot with a concussion. Noises outside. Greg pokes his concussed head out a broken window and is promptly eaten by the noise. A minute later, the two guys and a girl who just climbed the fuselage are running in terror through the jungle. And I'm recognizing one of them as Dominic Monohan looking quite a bit taller than I'm used to. I didn't recognize the girl and it took a while to realize that the other dude was Po5's Mathew Fox wearing a buzz cut that makes him resemble Ed Burns a little. Monohan trips and gets stuck in roots, Fox rescues him and it becomes pretty clear that he is a clean cut stand up character (one of the show's good guys). Later on, it seems he has medical expertise as well.

A commercialess break leads to other survivors on the beach with the back half of the plane. Cute girl sunbathes as others scavenge the wreck for supplies. Is scolded by an annoyed guy (Ian Somerhalder). The girl strikes up a conversation with a pregnant girl and reveals that the guy is her brother.

Had to take care of my cats here and missed a couple minutes. But then the trio from the front half of the plane has been reunited with the group from the back half and we're on the beach.

Long --> short: the rest of the episode seems to focus on 1.) how different people are coping with the situation and how they are learning to interact with people they normally wouldn't encounter (character development), 2.) establishing survival & rescue strategies, and 3.) exploration and discovery of they strange island in conjunction with an attempt to contact rescuers.

The last few minutes of this pilot lay the ground work for some of the really interesting directions the show promises to take us if it is actually picked up in the fall: Some of the characters have secret pasts--fugitive pasts. And this would seem a little too cliched for words except that j.j. puts a nice twist (revealed in the pilot) as to the fugitive's identity which is wonderfully mistaken by the other characters (I won't give away more than this, sorry). And the island itself is clearly going to be a major character unto itself. For instance, this *tropical* island has bears. Big white *arctic* ones. And they definitely aren't the weird scary unseen boogie men here. Call it the island that Rimbaldi built.

Harold Parinneau is here. So is Daniel Dae Kim playing a completely non-english speaking role which just works great!

I really don't want to give away too much of the actual goings on in the show, because it seems good enough to deserve preservation of the surprise. But certain things are quite clear from the pilot about what this show could be:

it's definitely a j.j.abrams show and promises lots of cliff hanger endings. The last minute of the pilot itself hurtles through a flashback of the plane crash into one hell of a nice cliff hanger worthy of a farscape season finale despite the fact that it really only asks the inevitable and obvious question of "what the hell have we gotten ourselves into?" and in retrospect ends in just about the only possible way it could.

The pilot has to lay the groundwork for the sitch and intro a ton of characters, yet it succeeds in doing so with true grace and aplomb. Despite the burden of exposition inherent in a pilot, it all played pretty naturally and at first I thought I was watching a self contained film. Also, the pace was of a self contained film (like I'd dropped into the middle of Alive meets Predator). And it had a good sense of foreboding and urgency with tension coming from a number of different dynamics--the creepy jungle, the rescue/survival dynamic, the hidden secrets of the characters.

Production values:
Huge filmic production values. There are two basic looks to a stranded show-- you're on the beach, you're in the jungle. This only works if you're on a real secluded beach and a real tropical jungle. At least in the pilot, you are. God, I hope they don't take the show into a 50' studio after this.

Characters:
Diverse, interesting, well played (the newcomers aquit themselves well and the veterans seem to have new looks). If j.j. really mixes these characters up the way he does in the pilot, there's a lot of room for great human drama (after all, alias plays for drama cloaked in adventure). There is a great scene on the beach in which an old man (the great character actor who gets blown up in the beginning of the x-files movie) teaches a young kid to play backgammon in the wake of their disaster. The question will be whether or not the writers can do proper justice to all of the characters over time both in terms of breadth and depth. (hint: e.r. does this well) Also, lets hope they focus as much on the old guys and married couples as they do on the beautiful young people. I didn't recognize the brunette who was in the front of the plane with Fox and Monohan, but she does a bang up job and her character could break out as the one with the most intersting story.

Promises:
The show could have even more going for it than Alias--a cleaner focus and more room for humor. The characters seem too intelligent to be stupid--so please don't have them doing dumb things just to maintain the premise--this ain't Gilligan's. That being said, this island looks like it won't give up its secrets easily and it will take at least a season to tease out its mysteries. Just, please, please, don't be a run of the mill secret government experiment...

Prospects:
Too good for ABC? This perennial underperformer has cancelled more great shows than the other networks have ever had (Sports Night, Once and Again/MSCL/30something, Nothing Sacred, Gideon's Crossing, Line of Fire, Karen Sisco, Maximum Bob, the list goes on and on and on...). This show looks expensive and it might be too much "fun and fantasy" to garner golden globes (emmys maybe). So if it doesn't catch its audience early, I expect it won't get by on jewel in the crown status. I can't remember the last show on ABC to survive on a cult following and this is quickly becoming the network of extreme surgical matchmaking :-( Nor can I think of a good lead in for this show, so I find myself wondering from whence will come the ratings. The best time slot would be Sunday 8PM eastern, as a lead in for Alias, but damn, Sunday nights sure do get pre-empted a lot and that never does justice to serial shows (like Alias and Practice/Practice II).

Verdict:
This could be the best show to die an early death next season. But if it does get on the schedule, it could well last long enough to make a breakout star of the brunette. If j.j. gets to take this in the right direction, I'd definitely like to get Lost in the fall.

If you use this, call me
Tredeger

Sounds great, yes? Here’s “The Fridge” with a second opinion, and details on how the pilot opens:

First, let me say that I went into this with huuuuge expectations. After all, I can't forget my jaw falling to the floor after the intitial Alias pilot. So, my expectations for "Lost" were just as high, and were satisfied in scale, but not fully in depth.

This show is BIG. You can just feel it. Rumored to cost upwards of 3 million bucks, the show opens up with a close-up of our hero's eyeball and pulls away to show he's one the jungle floor, in a shirt and tie, apparently "Lost." Get it? In the background, you begin to hear the roar of a jet engine. He runs through the jungle and suddenly breaks through the trees, only to witness a disturbing and incredible scene of plane destruction and chaos that lasts nearly 10 minutes.

Our doctor hero (as we find out) begins heroing away, fixing mangled legs, helping a pregnant woman, and generally doing the things that need to be done after a plane crash. I'll fast forward through the character introductions and will get there later, but about 20 min into the 83 minute pilot, something very odd happens.

The people are frantically trying to survive on the beach, when they hear huge crashing sounds in the jungle, and see trees moving. Honestly, very Jurassic Park-like, but not really in a bad way. They're apparently not alone on the island.

I won't spoil the whole plot, out of respect for JJ and because I really want people to like this show...can't have too much JJ product, right?! However, the story gets a little odd during the next hour of the show. Weird things start happening, people start revealing their true colors, and the mysterious creature(s) in the jungle become more mysterious. But by the end of the pilot there's a great twist that makes you forgive the lack of depth and beg for more.

Quickly on the characters: Our main hero from Party of Five is good. Brave, sensitive, and smart. Our main gal is apparently another JJ JenGarner-type discovery and is beautiful and very believable. The supporting charactersall bring something fun and interesting to the party. There's the stuck-up model chick, the large dumb guy, the weird scary guy (Kendal from Alias!), the dad with a poor relationship w/ his son (guy from Oz, Matrix Reloaded/Rev), the possible convict mean guy, the non-english speaking asian couple, and many many more. I have a feeling they'll all play an interesting role in the rest of the series (please!), but for now they just provide variety during the survival scenes.

That's about all I've got on "Lost," but suffice to say it has a lot of potential. The plane crash scene rivals Cast Away's for eeriness and realism and the cast is great. I really hope it doesn't get too weird, but if JJ has his way, it'll provide some great entertainment.

Call me "The Fridge"

ABC announces its autumn schedule Tuesday!

I am – Hercules!!

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