FlashForward

NewsdayVerne Gay

It's evocative, smartly structured, well acted and insists that the strange ride you are about to take will be worth every minute.

San Francisco ChronicleTim Goodman

If you like big-screen-level thrills and complicated plot structures, you'll opt-in to FlashForward. And you'll be rewarded. Here's hoping it stays strong and compelling as it heads to April 29.

Slant MagazineKris King

If FlashForward can keep the momentum it set in its premiere episode, the show's apocalyptic tone and fate-bending intrigue should prove deeply fascinating.

Chicago Sun-TimesPaige Wiser

ABC knows that "Lost" is coming up on its last season, and it wants to ease the transition for you with this sci-fi grand-mystery series. On the basis of one episode, it's hard to say whether it will live up to its promise. But there is promise.

Entertainment WeeklyKen Tucker

The show combines sci-fi-ish conspiracy suspense with excellent prime-time-soap drama. And I like the fact that, post-blackout, people don't Google each other; they say, ''I Mosaic'd you.'' A good sense of humor humanizes this grand puzzl

The New York TimesGinia Bellafante

Like so many contemporary television thrillers, FlashForward works just as powerfully as a domestic drama as it does as a mechanism of apocalyptic intrigue.

Baltimore SunDavid Zurawik

It's smart, richly textured, complex and filled with suspense and intellectual challenge--in short, it has all the things network television is supposed to have abandoned in favor of cheap reality shows.

VarietyBrian Lowry

It's an intriguing, mind-bending concept that's mostly well executed, with a built-in payoff cleverly timed to coincide with the May rating sweeps.

Hollywood ReporterBarry Garron

Well-cast and full of expensive-looking special effects, FlashForward should hook a respectable number of viewers with its combination of surprise and suspense.

New York Daily NewsDavid Hinckley

ABC's new FlashForward requires concentration and endurance. It's well worth the investment of both.

Philadelphia InquirerJonathan Storm

That's a diverse enough crowd to interest almost anybody. Combine it with the fascinating plot and the action and emotional turmoil it promises, and you don't need to flash forward to see a show finally giving Survivor a Thursday-night ratings run for the money.

Pittsburgh Post-GazetteRob Owen

Whether a fantastic series follows tonight's strong pilot, well, it would take a flash forward to know for sure. But the show does offers a strong premiere that brims with future possibility.

Chicago TribuneMaureen Ryan

Assuming FlashForward can tone down a tendency toward pomposity and create a mythology and characters worth following, it may well be a worthy addition to the roster of sci-fi tinged TV programs.

New York PostMichael Starr

Whether ABC's new series, FlashForward, will catch on is anyone's guess. I can tell you, though, that it has a compelling concept and a solid cast.

USA TodayRobert Bianco

FlashForward may not keep you hooked for years or even months, but chances are good tonight's episode will bring you back next week. For now, that's as far forward as we need to flash.

TV GuideMatt Roush

Even critics and fans who are intrigued (as I am) by the often riveting pilot--which ends on a whopper of a cliffhanger twist--can’t help projecting a bit into our own future, one that’s informed by a past that’s littered with ambitious pilot episodes that ultimately didn’t measure up.

Miami HeraldGlenn Garvin

It's only when the action (and the torrential cross-cutting) slows that you start getting to know some of the capable cast....And it's only when the characters begin revealing what they saw while unconscious that FlashForward turns interesting as it examines the interconnectivity of the human experience.

SalonHeather Havrilesky

With such a knockout concept at its core, Flash Forward may still be on our minds six months from now--that is, if we're not too busy piecing together global mysteries or cheating on our husbands to notice.

Boston GlobeJoanna Weiss

FlashForward is a good idea, and while that’s no guarantee of a good series, the first hour gives us reason to hope.

Los Angeles TimesRobert Lloyd

It's a decent but not brilliant beginning.

PopMatters

If the procedural plotting in FlashForward was ordinary, all the conversations about destiny and free will--and what any of it means for the poor sap who didn’t see anything during the blackout--made the first episode feel vibrant, engaged with heady concepts and questions.

TimeJames Poniewozik

Like many of ABC's post-Lost attempts at serials, this one has a great premise with tremendous potential, but I wish more attention had been paid to fleshing out the characters and generally bringing a fresher voice to the dialogue.

Newark Star-LedgerAlan Sepinwall

If Guggenheim can deepen the personalities and show how the flash forward really impacted them, then they might have a show here. Because right now, there's an interesting idea, some good production values and a cool cliffhanger, and not much else.

Philadelphia Daily NewsEllen Gray

The pilot for FlashForward, by contrast [to "Lost"], feels more like deja vu, with characters who could've been rounded up from a disaster miniseries, tied to a mystery that's only compelling if we care what happens to these people.

Washington PostTom Shales

The new series seems to share a perhaps fatal flaw of that now-canceled show, which is that the premise becomes so byzantine and the complications so arcane that eventually people just give up on trying to make sense of the darn thing.

SlateTroy Patterson

Fantasy plots require fantastic details, but the show, rolling steadily downhill from a compelling premise, is utterly casual about the particulars of its speculative time-tripping and post-catastrophe atmospherics.