Ironically, this pilot was more a collection of different events, told out of sequence via extensive flashbacks. Basically an hour of teasing and provocative incidents, guaranteed to keep you watching for the superficial thrill of unfolding intrigue, but with little emotional weight to anything. As the start of a sci-fi mystery series hoping to replace Lost in audience affections, it succeeds in its aim to pique interest and ensure you watch episode 2, which will hopefully place more emphasis on the characters. "What Is The Event?" asks the promotion material. I doubt we'll find out for many weeks, months, maybe even years. This immediately creates a problem for the writers, who are faced with an impossible decision: reveal the mystery at the heart of The Event early (perhaps prematurely), then try to find a way to keep audiences interested in its ramifications; or risk hemorrhaging audiences by teasing them for seasons at a time. The defunct FlashForward tried the former approach (half out of desperation mid-season), then scurried around trying to keep you interested in an indistinct bigger picture; and the dearly departed Lost opted to keep adding mysteries to a giant melting pot, then try to answer as many as it could within reason, and hope the fact it didn't answer everything wouldn't matter if the character arc were compelling. The Event already feels more FlashForward than Lost, in terms of its construction. It's fast-paced and tells a simple story in the most convoluted way possible, intending to make everything look more compelling than it would be linearly. Within the opening five minutes the story had jumped back in time three times; by minutes, days and months. It's initially rather irritating, although the gimmick becomes increasingly less prevalent as the episode continues. Boyish Sean Walker (Jason Ritter) and his beautiful fiancé Leila (Sarah Roemer) are enjoying a luxury cruise together, where he intended to propose, only for her to vanish while he's away snorkeling with a woman he rescued from drowning. Even worse, Sean discovers that his presence aboard the ship has been ominously erased, with the liner's staff finding no record of their stay or Leila's whereabouts. In the present, Sean is now attempting to get inside the cockpit of a passenger jet, evading CIA Agent Simon Lee (Ian Anthony Dale) and leaving him behind on the runway. Simultaneously, the President of the USA, Elias Martinez (Blair Underwood), is preparing to hold a news conference at his Florida retreat, to deliver controversial news of a US detention centre at Mount Inostranka, Alaska, back by the inmate leader Sophia Maguire (Laura Innes). How does everything fit together? You won't find many answers here, although it does all snap together for a thrilling final sequence with the President under attack, complete with a visual sting that will coax you back for more. You can't argue with the fact The Event has the edifice of something intriguing, with its creators claiming the show will be 24-meets-Lost and won't make the same mistakes as FlashForward last season. But producers always talk a good talk, and it remains to be seen if The Event has anything to offer audiences beyond flashback-heavy incidents that are fun in themselves, but overall rather perfunctory. The biggest issue with "I Haven't Told You Everything" is that nothing about the characters left an impression, despite Jason Ritter's charisma and Blair Underwood doing his best Dennis Haysbert impression. There are good actors assembled here, too -- with recognizable character actors like Zeljko Ivanek (Damages, Heroes) and Bill Smitrovich (Millennium, Independence Day) filling out the ranks -- but the only character-based moment that stuck in the memory was Sean's bewilderment that his girlfriend's gone missing and someone else is staying in their cabin. Is Sean going to be compelling character, racing around the US in a North By Northwest style, aided or hindered by the President in a 24-style, slowly uncovering a big conspiracy? It's unclear what the show will be from this, but I enjoyed the pilot on a shallow level and I'm keen to see how it develops in the next few weeks.
WRITER: Nick Wauters DIRECTOR: Jeffrey Reiner CAST: Jason Ritter, Blair Underwood, Laura Innes, Zeljko Ivanek, Sarah Roemer, Scott Patterson, Clifton Collins Jr, Ian Anthony Dale, Bill Smitrovich, Taylor Cole, Julia Campbell, Seth Caskey, Anna Clark, Ellie Cornell & Michael Cummings TRANSMISSION: 20 September 2010 NBC, 9/8c