I had no intention of watching this show, but I got home, was dead tired, and too lazy to change the channel(plus I saw Gwen Raiden's name in the cast ). It's not a bad premise. Kinda reminds me of Lost with the flashbacks filling in the blanks while a modern day mystery is occuring. The women are certainly easy on the eyes, but the acting was some of the worst I've seen in a long time, even on a teen/young adult drama. I'll tune in next week before deciding whether or not to keep watching. I'm of the opinion that a series' 2nd episode is a much better indicator of quality than its pilot.

BTW, speaking of the premise, how in God's name can there be a Season 2? I know everyone questioned 24's ability to repeat the same formula and that's worked out great, but a 2nd season for this show will be much more difficult to pull off.

So do I, but I wish they would have let her remain a supporting character on The O.C.

Oh wait - that's what she has to fall back on the minute her show's get cancelled.

Wow.....just wow. I think the creators spent more effort trying to secure music rights and play 80's dress-up than actually worrying about a decent script. The constant pop culture references seemed way too forced at times. Believe me you cannot find a bigger lover of 80's movies or music than me, but this is a hard era to recapture and it makes it worse when it's like "Look everybody it's the 80's hey i referenced Wham!! oooh that girl has the Madonna slut look!!! a pink Izod!!!".

When all I'm waiting for is what big hit from the era they're going to prominently play next, you know something's wrong. I think I heard at least 5 really well-known songs in the first 10 minutes. And seriously...some of that dialogue wasn't worthy of a daytime soap. Will Estes was great on American Dreams, but I felt embarrassed for some of the stuff he had to say. He said something to one of the girls about Haley's Comet that was supposed to be romantic.

I loved how the rich guy seemed to own nothing but Izods and Miami Vice blazers/t-shirt combos

And could they have segued into next week's episode with any less subtlety? "So tell me about 1987..." Then the week after that it'll probably be "So what happened in 1988?" But I'll give it a few more episodes...I guess the plot's secondary so I'll just go along for the nostalgia ride. I can't wait until they try and recreate the grunge era.

I found it funny as well. Some of the clothing and the music were the only things that reminded the viewer that this took place in the 80s - and it was forced at times. The rest of it could have been set in today's world.

All in all, decent premiere.

Great to see Keith from Six Feet Under back on TV.

There won't be a season 2. It's just going to be a one season deal, from what I understand.

And I agree with others, the acting was horrible, but I still enjoyed it and will probably keep watching. What else is on in this time slot? CSI and Apprentice? I don't watch either anymore, so I'll record this just so my Tivo doesn't start to think he's getting an hour off.

And did anyone else think the Aaron character was a bad Seth Cohen knock-off? He looked to me a little like Cameron from Ferris Beuller but had the witty geek attitude of Cohen. And really he wasn't all that witty. No one was thinking Wham was the next Beatles in 1986.

i have this tivo'd so i haven't watched it yet.

as for S2, i seem to remember hearing an interview somewhere that if this were to get picked up, a good thing is that they could just recast it every year.

the only reason I checked this show out (and will probably check it out again) is this:





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9.24 pm

Ow. Owwwwww. Oh God make it stop! Make it stop!!!

So bad it's good? Was there any storyline in tonight's episode that wasn't an ancient cliché?

What's funny is that despite the outfits and music, it didn't feel like 1986 at all.

It was cliched. The dialog was terrible. And the storylines were stupid.

But I am hooked. I can't wait for 1987.

Ugh. I agree with the Cohen ripoff and the complete 'hey, this is the 80's!!!!!'. I'll tune in next week as it looks to be a little bit better.

Also, I read somewhere that they did have a second season-type thing planned to look further into each wooden character.

Part of the problem with the 'period' setting is that they didn't get it right. The music (Mr. Mister, A Ha, Time After Time) wasn't summer of 86 at all -- most of it was 83-85. And the Madonna in lace look was 84, not 86.

Picky, I know, but I remember the summer of 86 quite well, and that, sir, was no summer of 86.

I have it TiVo'd and yet to watch it, but I read also that if it's picked up, they plan to recast every year.

I only chose to TiVo it because the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reviewed all the new shows and this was one of their highest rated. Funny to hear about all the bad reviews now. :P

Anyone willing to guess who dies and who kills? I'm putting my money on MIT geek being one of them. Just because he's the nobody of the bunch. And as for the killer maybe Estes or Leigh as they seem the most wholesome (at least in 86).Yeah I read an interview in TV Guide or saw it on one of those entertainment shows (Extra, et, etc). This would either be a one season deal, or a different cast, possibly with limited tie ins from the initial season. But c'mon do you guys really think its gonna make it out of the first season?

With Fox (and the timeslot) we'll be lucky if they actually finish out the season. Knowing Fox they'll probably start airing the episodes out of order: 1996, 1990, 2002, 1988, 1492...

yeah it turned out to be over the top level of cliched characters ... the rich kid, the plain girl who turns out to be really hot, the slutty chick, the broke kid. etc etc.. Oh no and the plain girl really like the good hearted guy who of course can't see it and likes the slut.. It played out like a screen play from a really bad 80's beach film..

So over all I thought the show, or at least this ep, was pretty bad.. I'll still tune in being for a few more eps just to see how they start to arch the story line over the years... Sep as others have said I really have ZERO faith that fox will let the story play out..

So fans of the show are going to get screwed if they hit you with 8 years worth of a 20 year story..

Sometimes they are wrong (IE the x-files, all the critics hated that show at the start)

I really didn't like this show. I agree with many of the "hey look, it's the 80's" comments and I really dislike the "present day" stuff. I think Matthew St. Patrick kicks some serious ass, but all this skirting around who died and who is still alive has already started to piss me off...and this is episode 1. I mean, the speech at the funeral sounded more like a TV guide synopsis of the show, rather than a eulogy.

And of course the "tell me about 1987" was cringe-worthy... an investigator would just grab Carla by the hair and say "tell me what i need to know bitch, I don't need a life story! Relevancy!" Of course, then there would be no show, but the writers need to work a little bit harder to make this concept work... I'm willing to give it another 2 episodes, but if it doesn't turn around, I'm giving this one the axe.

MATT

Damn, i missed it. Well it hopefully it's like every other show on Fox, and they will air the pilot 217 times.

God, you guys are HARSH! It's like almost everyone here has just been waiting ALL SUMMER to trash something! Geez!

I liked it, but yes, bring your "suspension of disbelief" with you to the TV room. The acting is not bad, but I'm not really familiar with The O.C., which the cast seems to be most compared to, so YMMV.

Hopefully the setup of the program means that Fox will commit to it for 20 episodes -- I mean, it seems almost mandatory that they do.

The pilot re-airs tonight (9/9) at 9:00 ET

So true.

a question - I keep hearing the phrase "suspension of disbelief" being thrown around alot with all these new shows and was wondering, how can you guys enjoy anything if you have to analyze every inch of it about how close to reality it is/isn't? do you do the same thing if you watch a Jerry Bruckheimer movie?

I agree with everything in this post except the part about giving it a few more episodes. I'm done.

I wonder how old the writers are. I'd be shocked if any of them is older than 25. The whole thing played like it was written by people who've seen too many bad 80s movies but weren't actually around at the time. Every detail was a terrible, obnoxious cliche. And the soundtrack seemed like they'd just hunted down an old episode of MTV Top 20 Video Countdown and played only those songs. Because, you know, all anyone listened to in the 80s was Wham and Madonna.

Ah well, the upside is that this is one less series I have to worry about following this season.