Fall TV Preview 2009: The Forgotten

Get our reviewer's take on the new Jerry Bruckheimer procedural: Should you watch or pass?

The Forgotten (ABC)

Premiere: Tuesday, Sept. 22, 10-11 p.m.
Time-Slot Competition: The Jay Leno Show, The Good Wife, Sons of Anarchy
Cast: Christian Slater, Michelle Borth, Heather Stephens, Bob Stephenson, Anthony Carrigan, Rochelle Aytes
Status: We've seen 10 minutes of the reworked pilot.

What's The Forgotten all about? Should you watch? Read on...

Everyone wants to give the Boy in the Box a name and/or identify the hundreds of mysterious people in coroners' unidentified persons databases (link NSFW or for anyone without a gut of steel), but just the same, ABC's new drama The Forgotten, about a group of amateurs devoted to identifying John and Jane Does, seems like one of the weaker crime-procedural premises in recent years. (Well, that's assuming we don't count Past Life, Fox's midseason series about crime solving via past-life regression. Oy.) Don't get us wrong, we love procedurals, and we'll watch almost any half-baked crime show on TV, but this is getting ridiculous.

Separate from a potentially flimsy premise, The Forgotten is clearly in flux: ABC has not released a full pilot for review, and Christian Slater was added in to the cast at the 11th hour.

It's hard to say if this latest Jerry Bruckheimer-produced show will be a paragon of excellence, just tolerable or downright terrible, but for the time being, we're being cagey about committing to an hour a week with The Forgotten.

The show creators insist the series is not depressing, and executive producer Lukas Reiter says, "There's a real opportunity for the group [of volunteer detectives] to be giving meaning to the lives of people who are nameless, by telling their story. It really validates their existence." We'll see.

Verdict: Pass

Poll

Fall TV Preview 2009: The Forgotten

The Forgotten?

Watch

Watch

15.1%

DVR

DVR

27.8%

Pass

Pass

57%

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