Mark this date on your calendars: April 29^th, 2010. If you’re a college student, it’s the day before the last Friday of classes for the 2009-2010 academic year. If you’re a television watcher, it is the day alluded to in last night’s premiere episode of ABC’s FlashForward.

For those who don’t know, the premise of the show is that everyone in the world blacks out for two minutes, seventeen seconds (save for one person dramatically revealed to be lurking in Comerica Park in Detroit). During the blackout, everyone has a vision of his or her future in six months.

The show opens with Los Angeles a smoldering mess. Cars are piled up, buildings are on fire, and around the world the scene is the same. The camera focuses on Mark Benford (Joseph Fiennes), an FBI agent who immediately surveys the mess and tries to piece together what happened. Along the way, we learn that Benford is a recovering alcoholic whose sponsor (Brian F. O’Byrne) has a daughter who died in the Afghanistan conflict.

Of course, the visions that every person has during the blackout change what each person believes. Benford sees himself drinking again and being targeted because he is piecing together why everyone blacked out. His sponsor sees that his daughter is still alive. Benford’s wife (Sonya Walger) sees that she is with another man and Benford’s colleague (Harold and Kumar’s John Cho) doesn’t see anything at all.

However, for such an interesting premise, the show is not without faults. The show followed different storylines for each of the characters, which made it seem as if there were multiple shows on the television screen. Furthermore, the characterization was rather weak and some of the emotional dialogue seemed out of place (no one really recognized that thousands of people died as a result of the blackout). However, the story was so compelling that it demanded the viewers’ attention. This show is one that will stand on the merits of its story, not of its characters.

This show will probably explore fate versus free will, a concept that Lost has tackled in the past. Will a character that knows his future change his actions to correspond with it? Probably. Will the veracity of these flashforwards be called into question? Possibly. Will I continue to watch to see if my predictions are right? Definitely.

A large reason that this show has a chance to succeed is because of Courtney Cox Arquette. She plays Jules Cobb, a middle-aged single mother who is trying to hold down a job as a real estate agent, manage her teenage son, deal with her idiotic ex-husband and find some new companionship. Yes this premise is not new, but Arquette’s acting really freshens up the formula.

Despite the fact that she is a beautiful woman, the show quickly establishes that Jules is not a super confident Desperate Housewives type. The opening sequence of the show has Jules lifting and pinching skin and flab on her body after she gets out of the shower. She is critical on herself and feels as though she wasted her prime on a husband who can only be described as a “bro”.

She is back on the market partially because she is really horny. All the women on this show are—whether married, single, young or old. This includes Jules friends and colleagues. Two people particularly stand out: Ellie (Christa Miller from Scrubs), a horny married neighbor and Laurie,(Busy Phillips), her assistant who tries to get Jules to have more fun. Both are played well and offer some interesting plot opportunities.

As Jules is a middle-aged divorce she also has a son named Travis (Dan Byrd). He is pretty clichéd teenager who is embarrassed by his parents. It doesn’t help that his mom’s real estate billboards are used as “whack-off material” for the other boys at his high school. Despite the abrasive elements of the relationship Travis is able to cope with his mother’s sexual antics. That being said, he is still scarred when he walks in on Jules giving a much younger man a blowjob. Needless to say, they have some awkward conversations after that.

Some may be turned off by the sexual content in the show. Yet I am willing to overlook the occasional overly sexual scene to watch Courtney Cox Arquette as Jules Cobb. Since Friends went off the air it seems as though she hasn’t really fit into any roles as well. Quite frankly, she is a delight to watch in the Cougar Town. The pilot was entertaining enough to warrant watching future episodes and there is a good chance it will develop into a successful series.

The show is filmed in the mockumentary style, with brief interstitials that allow for exposition. Though the show is obstinately about intra-family relationships, it has a greater focus on dark and absurdist comedy. One such example is a scene in which one of the children has a problem with shooting his siblings with a toy BB Gun. To correct this problem, his parents (Ty Burrell and Julie Bowen) decide that he needs to be shot with the gun. While discussing when he this shooting should take place, Burrell and Bowen manage to work in references to soccer games and other obligations, which creates a degree of recognition for people who grew up on the traditional family sitcom. Yet, at the same time the dark and absurdist comedy coexists with the traditional.

And yes, the show does venture to the absurd quite often, usually while referencing some elements of pop culture. Burrell dancing to High School Musical was used heavily in commercials, but there are other gags that are just as adept. The show plays upon the “I gave her my heart, she gave me a pen” line from Say Anything when detailing the courtship of an eleven-year-old by substituting “picture of me as an old-time sheriff” for “pen”. These references aren’t in any heavy-handed manner and fit the characterization of each character (much unlike the “manatee gags” of Family Guy).

The breakout star of the show is Burrell, who portrays the self-stylized “cool dad”. He tries to be hip when it is painfully obvious that he is not in any sense of the word. Even though the “cool” dad has been performed many times throughout the years, the mockumentary interstitials allow for more development and jokes that seem fresh, even if the archetype itself is stale.

Modern Family marks a step in the right direction for television comedy, and is the best new comedy this year. There is tremendous potential to be found within its first thirty minutes, and it marks the first comedy on ABC in a long time that is worth watching.