HD Heads-Up: FlashForward, Lost, Grey’s Anatomy

TV2 launches the first phase of its 2010 HD line-up this week with the premiere of FlashForward and the return of Lost and Grey’s Anatomy.

FlashForward (8.30pm Wednesdays) was one of the first hits of the 2009/10 US TV season but, like Heroes, the sci-fi sensation has started to tank in the ratings as the writers presumably have struggled to sustain its compelling, race-against-time premise.

The Washington Post gave it the thumbs-down from the start: “The premise becomes so byzantine and the complications so arcane that eventually people just give up on trying to make sense of the darn thing.”

Time magazine wasn’t much more enthused: “Like many of ABC’s post-Lost attempts at serials, this one has a great premise with tremendous potential, but I wish more attention had been paid to fleshing out the characters and generally bringing a fresher voice to the dialogue.”

But it earned five-star raves from Entertainment Weekly (“combines sci-fi-ish conspiracy suspense with excellent prime-time-soap drama”), The New York Times (“works just as powerfully as a domestic drama as it does as a mechanism of apocalyptic intrigue”)  and The Hollywood Reporter (“well-cast and full of expensive-looking special effects, FlashForward should hook a respectable number of viewers with its combination of surprise and suspense”).

TV2 is following FlashForward with the sixth-season premiere of Lost – will this at last be the end of primetime’s most maddening serial?

Interest certainly is high, with the premiere, which aired only last week in the US, finding new viewers. And just as ABC did, TV2 is preceding the new season with a 10.30pm Tuesday recap, Lost: Final Chapter.

It follows the two-hour return of Grey’s Anatomy, or what New York magazine memorably dubbed “Desperate Surgeons”.

Next week Grey’s will be double-billed with spin-off Private Practice but despite being from the same ward, TV2 won’t be screening the latter in HD.