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.