Well, I watched the premiere of “Lost” on ABC tonight, and was surprised at how good it was. It may just be the only new series I’ll watch this year.
I had two complaints, neither directly about the show but rather on how ABC presented it.
First off it was, pure and simple, a horror show. ABC simply should not have scheduled this at 8pm. I mean, before the first commercial they depicted a man being sucked into a jet engine; and blood and gore was everywhere. Later there’s the depiction of some kind of unseen horrific monster wrenching a man out of a plane, mangling him. I don’t think this is family hour viewing. (Then again, I am a great proponent of not plunking kids in front of a television unsupervised, but perhaps discretion would have been the better part of valor in this instance.)
The other problem — a nitpick, really — was that this show was obviously framed for widescreen. As it was in HD, that’s understandable. But viewers watching in standard definition (most of the viewers, of course) saw only a portion of the picture, with people out of frame or cut off at the edge. ABC should in future show the program in letterbox on their analog stations.