Worth Watching Eventually?

So far, so maybe. The Event is NBC's fairly obvious attempt to create "the next Lost" without becoming "the last FlashForward" in terms of serialized drama. The network ran teaser after teaser in hopes of hype, but the early reviews were not so hot.

Perhaps my expectations were lowered by the bad buzz, but based on the first two eps, The Event's still got a spot on the roster.

For now.

One thing The Event's got going for it is a willingness to dole out clues. We're two episodes in, have already witnesses the titular event and gotten a sense of the forces behind it. That said, the way the show's presenting those clues is a little dizzying – seems like every other scene is preceded with supers that date it as "five minutes earlier" or "twelve years before" or "eight and a half seconds after the last flashback, divided by seven." I get trying to weave an intricate storytelling web, but it's on the edge of trying way too hard.

The Event itself and the complex conspiracy behind it? I'll stay spoiler-free, but the best thing I can say about it now is that, if handled properly, could conceivably extend the life of the show past the mini-series it sorta feels like it should be. FlashForward always felt like a single-season gimmick, and the effects of The Event potentially lay the groundwork for an interesting landscape for a few years of shows.

One hurdle that basically, well, everybody's failed to clear in trying to clone Lost is creating compelling characters. At the end of the day, Lost succeeded not on the strength of its mythology but on the backs of Jack, Sawyer, Kate, Hurley, Locke, Charlie, etc... even Vincent built up a following. Jury's still out on The Event. The lead everyman, Jason Ritter, is actually quite likeable, but past that everyone else seems pretty stock. Not that Blair Underwood, D.B. Sweeney, Laura Innes, et al aren't talented, it's that so far their characters don't go much deeper than The President, The Bad Guy and The... well, I said I'd stay spoiler free ;)

So I'll stay tuned to The Event for a while. The ratings are goodish, so it doesn't seem like it's going Lone Star anytime soon and the overall plot has potential. Will definitely need to start caring about the characters over the conspiracy, but so far I'm in.