The Event

One hopes that producers don't drag out the mystery for too long, because so far The Event delivers, especially its doozy of a climax.

The Event was a well-paced hour that played skillfully with time, and if the characters were a little thin, well, it's a pilot--it'll take time to give characters shading and dimension.

NBC's stab at a big, serialized "Lost"-like premise gets off to an enticing start, though as with any such exercise, the ability to provide forward momentum--and satisfying answers--tends to quickly separate the few genuine events from the canceled afterthoughts.

The Event seems prepared to make its characters as complex as its storyline, always an event worth attending.

NBC only made the premiere available for review, so I can't offer any guarantees that subsequent episodes will not disappoint, but as a pilot, "The Event" gets this series off to a rollicking start.

Neatly staged, with one surprise after another in a geometric progression of suspense, The Event's pilot episode leaves a lot of tantalizingly unanswered questions.

Lots of eye candy, mystery, intrigue, questions, and superlative production values. But who's ready to jump back in this pool again?

Is this a Guantanamo allegory or is it just more freaking aliens who look human but really have insect heads under their masks? I'd like to sum it all up for you here, but, like "Lost," this is a series that is going to take some time to figure out.

There's always a need for a pulse-pounding mystery with a little paranormal thrown in. If The Event proves it can let out the story while reeling viewers back each week, it could be something special.

The Event knows the game it's playing and its risks. You can tell from the wink-at-the-audience last line, delivered by the always-welcome Innes: "I haven't told you everything." Tell us more--and soon would probably be best.

The suspenseful, unpredictable pilot suggests one of the most intriguing serial dramas of the fall season. [But] We once wrote the same thing about "Flashforward."

I look forward to The Payoff. [27 Sep 2010, p.54]

It's too soon to tell if The Event, the latest entry in the networks' race to find the next "Lost," isn't merely the next "FlashForward," since, by the end of an intriguing-enough pilot, you won't know much more than you did coming in (including whether NBC's willing to hang in there long enough for us to get some answers). But the cast is good.

With its large ensemble cast and frequent flashbacks--visiting and revisiting events that occurred from 23 minutes to 13 months in the past--watching Event is like riding a contraption that is half time machine and half bumper car.

The pilot is such a mixed bag it's hard to predict. Often very entertaining as it piles on the mysteries and cliffhanger climaxes, it's also hopelessly and almost comically convoluted, presenting scenes with a "23 minutes earlier" or "13 months earlier" or "11 days earlier" tag with such frequency you end up barely knowing, let alone caring, when and where you are at any given time.

Will it mete out enough answers to keep viewers tuning in? And can it sustain the mystery all season? We're dubious, but we're already engaged enough that we'll give the show a chance.

Its pilot episode (which will be repeated Saturday from 8-9 p.m.) felt like a fusion of "E.T." and a "Frontline" documentary on Guantanamo.

The Event is bright and showy and too in thrall to its own hysteria to feel unsettling. It doesn't quiet down enough to disturb, and as a result its claims to relevance seem merely perfunctory

The Event is an intentional mess, daring you to go wherever it thinks it's going. Within the first five minutes, potential viewers will have to make their own personal choice: Am I up for this?

Watching these post-Lost sci-fi-mytho-mystery series, you also watch yourself watching, and the thrill of alertness passes for decent entertainment even when other pleasures are in short supply. When Sean returned from a day trip to find that his girlfriend had vanished as if redacted from the file of life, I was kind of glad to see her gone. With her murky disappearance out of the way, we were on our way to achieving clarity-or at least toward failing to achieve it.

The lack of a human entry point renders the whole thing passionless. It's more of a slick contraption than a truly thrilling hour.

After all those promos, people have the feeling they've seen the whole first episode, which they probably have.

In the pilot I saw no emotion, so much as situations recognizable as "scenarios you set up when you want to generate emotion": e.g., the interminable cruise vacation Sean and his fiancee take to get you invested in them before her disappearance. The debut delivers the "high-octane" much better.

If you can tolerate the overly histrionic pilot and are curious enough to find out what "the event" actually is, of which there is no mention in the pilot, then NBC has a Lost-esque show on its hands. Count me out.

What's ultimately frustrating about The Event is not the lack of answers (though the pilot does conclude with Sophie telling President Martinez, "I haven't told you everything") or the dreadfully lazy characterizations. It's the insistence that the plot somehow taps into something that's happening right now in the United States.

The Event is such a blur of shadowy operatives, dubious motives, cryptic dialogue and mystifying time shifts that by the end, many viewers may be not so much curious as simply confused.