Has the next 'Lost' been found?

What did you see? That's the initial question posed by "FlashForward," ABC's new offering to the world of intentionally enigmatic television drama, but it's certainly not the only one.

Loosely based on the 1999 novel of the same name by Robert Sawyer, the show has a simple, if far-fetched, premise. For two minutes and 17 seconds, everyone in the world blacks out. Most get a brief, vivid taste of their lives six months in the future, and it's the job of our FBI agent hero, Mark Benford (Joseph Fiennes), to figure out what to do about it.

How does he know it's his job? Because it was his job in his flash forward. And therein lies one of the bigger questions posed by the show. If you knew your future, could you change it? Would you want to?

Despite the out-there premise, the big sci-fi puzzle maintains a refreshingly normal core for the show, grounded by well-drawn characters and realistic relationships. As in all ensemble dramas, every character comes with a fair share of baggage - and in this case, they have the past, present and future to deal with.

The series succeeds in portraying the different ways people might react to a taste of clairvoyance. Mark and his wife Olivia (Sonya Walger) are frightened by visions that could threaten their domestic bliss, while friends and coworkers receive a new lease on lives they weren't sure were worth living.

Both Fiennes and Walger have experience playing half of a great romance - he was "Shakespeare in Love," she's Desmond's star-crossed sweetheart on "Lost." Mark's FBI partner Demetri (John Cho) is another standout: He's the enthusiastic rookie, but his fears about an uncertain future give him an intriguing edge.

After providing a convincing representation of worldwide chaos - an impressive glimpse of destruction on the highways and beaches of Los Angeles, along with surveillance and news footage of people losing consciousness, simultaneously, all over the world - the pilot sets the rest of the plot in motion, with many characters already revealing what they saw and why it matters. Knowing everyone flashed to the same day, April 29, 2010, creates a captivating sense of urgency.

But for a show so shrouded in uncertainty, there haven't been a lot of surprises yet. The central conceit and action sequences are enough to keep things interesting for now, but hopefully they'll throw in a few bigger twists - and stop giving them away in their promos.

My biggest question is how they'll tell this global story from a limited perspective. Even with the action of the pilot limited to Los Angeles, there's a lot to balance: Mark and Olivia's home life, his work in the FBI, her job as a surgeon. Hopefully the strong character development won't suffer once the international intrigue becomes more dominant.

"FlashForward" has been hyped as a possible replacement for "Lost," and it's easy to draw comparisons when you look for them. The shows share both thematic elements and a few cast members. But this isn't just another knockoff. Besides, if we can have multiple shows about hospitals and crime solvers and rich teenagers, we can have a few about a diverse group of people grappling with fate and mystery in the wake of a massive disaster, right?

"FlashForward" is cinematic, exciting and smart. It rewards you for paying close attention, but it's entertaining even if you don't. And if the series continues to deliver as it did in the pilot, I'm betting audiences will have a lot to look forward to six months from now and beyond.

Pros Exciting premise, well-done action sequences.