The Event: "Pilot" - Sept. 20 on NBC - Grading & Discussion

[Greylock Crescent]

Why do showrunners thing that the way to make a better version of Lost is to make a more confusing version of Lost?

Because they forget that what made Lost so special to begin with was its heavy emphasis on character building, while dropping in subtle hints of its larger mysteries as background. It's all well and good to have a grand mystery and a deep mythology for a show, but without characters audiences care about ... audiences won't care much about the mysteries. That's why I (very quickly) gave up on Flashforward.

 

[Ganja Tea]

I agree with everyone here. The flashbacks were completely unnecessary. I hope to God they don't plan on doing that for the entire season. It felt like it was trying to hard to be like Lost and totally missed the point. We were compelled to watch Lost because we loved the characters and wanted to see how they dealt with the mystery. This instead is a mystery in search of some characters to drive it along. I can't even remember anyone's name now that it's over. I'll give it an episode or two because I'm kinda of curious about the end but not so curious that I'm going to sit through another disjointed episode flashing in and out every five minutes.

 

[Brent]

Well, first thing that comes to mind is that they are really trying to outdo Lost's flashbacks with all the time jumping. I mean obviously this show is gonna be compared to Lost.

Overall, interesting, I want to know what the event is. First impression I got was someone from the future. Also got a millenium vibe, the movie.

 

[propita]

Reading these posts, I'm glad I'm dvr-ing it.

Pilot episodes are usually splotchy.

 

[Agent Richard07]

This show's no Lost, but it's not bad. I like mysteries and plan to continue watching just to see what's going on. And yeah, I know they'll string us along forever.

So was that Oceanic 815?

I was thinking that they should have made the plane an Oceanic Airlines flight. Then I thought... Nah. Too much of a Lost connection.

 

[bigdaddy]

If they drop the flashbacks then I might watch, but if they flashback as big of a mess as tonight's then bye-bye.

 

[C_Miller]

Yeah, if they want to do Lost-esque flashbacks, have some focus and make the characters compelling. It was not the format that made Lost enjoyable, it was always the characters, something that was really lacking.

 

[pookha]

really didnt care for any of the people.

 

[Sheep]

For everyone complaining about not knowing the characters' names, didn't you see "Sean Walker" flashed on the screen what seemed like a dozen times?

I never expect much from pilot episodes but this one generally kept my interest. I'm assuming the holes in our knowledge about these characters are important parts of the story and will be filled in over the course of the season, but I'm hoping they don't ape Lost too much in that respect.

 

[sojourner]

OK, gonna go out on a limb here and come up with my theory. This is going to be a riff on Julian May's Intervention trilogy. Good people with powers (mostly telepathy) are trying to bring together mankind in a sort of group consciousness that will open mankind up to the galactic mind. Sort of like a telepathic version of the internet. You have the aliens of the galactic mind providing nudges to help (the plane going bye bye) but limited in what they are allowed to do. You have a cabal of evil people with powers who realize that they will be exposed if the group mind succeeds and of course you have the U.S. government flailing about trying to figure what is going on. The "event" will be the establishment of the group mind.

If I am right I hope Julian May sues the pants off them.

 

[the Dagman]

Okay, I tried it. And I cannot say I was very thrilled. All the time jumps, replaying what was already shown just at a slightly different angle, do the show runners really think that is going to engage their viewer on their opening episode? And I am a guy who loves puzzles and making theories to fit the known facts, but this? This was way too much. When you begin a story, whether it is written or on video, you have to hook in the audience on your opening or they won't stick around for the next chapter/episode. This has failed to do that simple thing. And touching on America's "fear" of what happened on 9/11 happening again only to see the plane vanish through a gate, sorry, that's just cheap and it ain't gonna do it. I don't think I will return for next week and I predict this will be one of NBC's first casualties of the fall season. And the ax will fall so quick that we will never have a clear idea of what this "event" was ever meant to be.

 

[Obiwanshinobi]

Wow that would be like if Heroes, 4400, Lost and 24 had an orgy

Jason Ritter kind of reminds me of a poor man's James Marsden. But he does look like his pappy too.

 

[startrekwatcher]

Average. I had avoided spoilers and trailers all summer. I have to say I was underwhelmed. It clearly wants to be another LOST wannabe but this pilot was nowhere near as intriguing or compelling as LOST's first episode or Heroes' pilot 4 years ago.

Sure it has all the hallmarks of those shows--jumping around in the narrative, multiple perspectives of the same event etc but here it was put to poor use and woefully executed. And while the idea of non-linear storytelling was a novelty in LOST here it is getting tiresome. For once I'd love for someone to craft a linear serialized arc.

The characters are boring barring Sophie and Sean. The rest I'm not the least bit interested in and the actors aren't helping especially in the cases of Blair Underwood, the guy playing Simon, and the actress playing Jason Ritter's love interest. This reminds me of the vibe I had from "V" where Morena Baccarin as the Queen was the only one with presence and the rest of the cast couldn't hold my interest.

The show also was very predictable and could the episode have crammed in so many formulaic sequences such as the plane takeover and the agent rushing onto the airfield or the big conspiracy where Sean's existence has been erased. I also could have done without the cruise scenes--I felt like I was watching someone's boring vacation videos.

The only interesting moments where I perked up were the disappearance of the plane or the flasback involving Sophie near the beginning of the episode.

I'm going to give it a few more episodes to see if it improves but based on my past experience that if a mythology show stumbles out of the gate you can expect more of the same whereas if it starts out strong like LOST or Heroes you can at least expect a solid first season if nothing else. I fear this will end up joining the ever growing list of failed one season LOST wannabes.

 

[Peter the Younger]

I'll definitely give it a shot. Jason Ritter may be playing the young everyman, but that works for me. I'm hoping the flashbacks will be reduced now that they have established the multiple plot threads. If they slow down a bit and focus on just a subset of characters in any given episode, it could good.

 

[Aragorn]

Was someone intrigued by their style of storytelling but ultimately it underwhelmed me and proved to be unnecessary. And if they're still filling in big huge holes -- like how Jason Ritter's character got from the cruise to the plane sequence and knowing what he does -- they might lose a large chunk of their audience who will have forgotten a lot of it by the next week.

And the wormhole sucking the airplane into Dominion territory for the time being seems like a gimmick at the end to get you hooked. For their sake I hope it's been well thought out.

 

[DarKush]

I wasn't bowled over. I think they did too many flashbacks and jumping around. I wish they had stuck with one character at time and then had all the stories led to the assault on the President's compound.

It got a little confusing for me. The most interesting storyline was the President and the detainees. I thought Blair Underwood did a fine job as President. Plus his advisors were all familiar and welcome faces. His First Lady was hot too. I liked Sophia and the detainee thing is interesting. I'm not so much into Sean and the Buchanan family. I thought Ritter did a good job in the acting department but I didn't find his story the best way to start off events leading to "The Event". I'll give this a second shot.

I never watched Lost, but I was a big 24 fan. I don't think this show comes close. The first season of 24 was perhaps its most 'realistic', albeit probably hyperrealistic, and Event didn't feel realistic to me at all. The grand conspiracy seemed ever more improbable than the first season of 24. Plus, Ritter is no Kiefer Sutherland, who owns dogged, desperate determination. Superficially you have a black President (well, Palmer was a Senator in 24's first season) and a national security crisis, but that's about it.

 

[Greylock Crescent]

For everyone complaining about not knowing the characters' names, didn't you see "Sean Walker" flashed on the screen what seemed like a dozen times?

What does it say about a TV show that its character have to wear the equivalent of "Hello my name is:" tags throughout its pilot? Obviously nowhere near enough was done to establish character when you have reinforce names in such an inelegant and lazy manner.

And honestly? I saw the same cards, but the names never sank in because there were no personalities to connect to the names. All I remember from name cards are "Sean" and "President." That's it. I think the pilot/father might have been "Mike" or "Michael" but I only remember that because Shaggy kept screaming it into the phone.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I was kind of looking forward to this, but after the comments in this thread I'll probably give it a pass. I should have known better than to expect something other than crap from NBC. Even the people who like it are liking it with caveats! Shit.

 

[lennier1]

Tried to watch it, but that whole "flashbacks just for the sake of just doing them" business is why I stopped giving a crap about Lost about three episodes into the first season.

 

[Brent]

One thing I was confused on, was the planed disappearing the "Event" or is something else the Event that hasn't happened yet?