Spoilers below.

Up front, I have to say that I liked the show. I’ll list some general observations, some things I didn’t like and end with a concluding statement.

1. The music is everything I’ve come to love in Lost
2. The commercial break cliff-hangers were pretty good—big props to Abrams
3. The actors were spot on. Anna Torv took 5 minutes for me to grow into the character she’s playing and the emotional edge the agent is on. Joshua Jackson is going to be awesome as the show goes on and John Noble was excellent as a genius psycho Frankendad (I mean “ahh! I just peed myself. It was just a squirt….”)
4. Didn’t enjoy the 3-D graphic text. I mean, I get what they’re doing that there’s this huge narrative going on right outside the edge of vision of all the Players and only some have the privilege (onus?) to see it (in this case the Viewer). But at some points it was harder to read than just plain knockout text and really…who else is going to read into the display graphics for scene transitions?
5. The story did a good job of giving enough predictable elements with the unpredictable. I mean of course™ her man would be horrendously injured in an accident. But I doubt anyone saw he was a major player until the Bad Twin started to squeak.
6. The Fringe Science is going to be both fun and scary which I really enjoy. I also enjoy how they validated Doc Bishop’s narrative by showing how far the major corporation has taken his science.
7. Apparently JJ Abrams really hates mega-corporations. Does this guy know something we don’t? No, wait—we all remember Enron and fear Skynet Google..
8. The effects were amazing. I’m talking movie quality with the translucent skin and the liquid cybernetics in SkyNet Google Hanso OCP Global Massive Dynamics.
9. Other smart bit on the show that there’s enough untold/hidden backstories that they have stuff to tell us while simultaneously exposing The Uncommitted Masses with enough X-Files content to allow plenty of one shots if need be. I personally think they should stay away from one-shots so they don’t fall into a complete X-Files mold of “love it or leave it” but they can do some good stuff.
10. Oh yes, apparently Abrams is also afraid of anything on a plane.

All in all I loved the show, think it was an instant hit and they’ve hooked me into a show that I have a sneaking suspicion can run for 4 years no problem (if they do it right). B13 and MCF had some email exchanges the other night and I refused to open them (especially since B13 likes to send out emails without spoiler warnings—big up to MCF for the lookout) but I figured I’d include them here now that I saw the show. Mind you, this is the first time I’ve opened their emails.

B13: I thought it started like X-Files with the two agents in love. At one point I lost interest in the show. But it seems pretty cool. Let’s see where it goes next week.

Rey Responds: two FBI agents in love translates into the X-Files? How about the Fringe Science, the creepy zombie virus and a multi-governmental super-agency out to get the country and probably having something to do with FEMA? Okay, they didn’t mention FEMA…yet…

MCF: The 2 agents didn’t grab my interest right away, and I’ve seen so many of these things now when they were professing their love I just figured the dude was doomed(and I knew they had to work Joshua Jackson in at some point so that would be the opening).

But then the guy survived which I didn’t expect and the episode became about saving him, bringing in more interesting characters in the process. I wonder if Massive Dynamics has connections to Hanso, or Skynet.

It’s X-Files, Abrams style, but has potential. Be interesting to see what cases they have, and how the insane father helps; he’s probably the most interesting character after Lance Reddick.

Rey Responds: Loved the Massive Dynamics commercial in the end and I would love it if Abrams manages to weave a meta-narrative between the two shows without being overt. I mean something beyond Plane incidents, Bad Twins, issues with Fathers, evil super-corporations, tests in genetics/teleportation, random Weird events happening throughout the world and innocuous logos that mean something much more horrifying than first appearances imply.