My Take On…FOREVER on ABC
Tonight on ABC, catch the “sneak peek” of FOREVER, one of my top picks for the new season, before it moves to its home at 10/9c on Tuesday nights.
Ioan Gruffudd plays Dr Henry Morgan, a NYC medical examiner who has died hundreds of deaths, yet none of them have stuck. He uses his position in the morgue to examine death to try to figure out how or why exactly he is immortal, and in doing so, helps solve the unsolvable cases.
In the premiere episode, he happens to be on a subway car that is involved in an accident and when he comes “back to life,” he finds that Det. Jo Martinez (Alana de la Garza) is looking into the “accident” and needs his help. They form an uneasy partnership, while working to solve the case, with Henry working overtime to be sure she doesn’t find out his little secret.
He does, however, have one friend who knows his secret. His best friend (his only friend), Abe, played by Judd Hirsch, who is there as a sounding board and confidante, while Henry deals with his immortality. Abe pushes Henry to step out of his comfort zone – I think they have a great friendly chemistry that I really enjoyed watching.
While Henry deals with not dying, telling only Abe, solving cases with Jo and keeping his secret – he also has to deal with the fact that somewhere out there, someone sinister has started making calls to him, telling Henry that he might not be the only immortal person in the world.
Combine all of those elements that sound, admittedly, off-the-wall and familiar (remember the under-rated NEW AMSTERDAM from years ago?), the show is unique enough that I could myself drawn to it, invested in the relationships, the twists, the turns, and what might happen next.
It has pieces of CASTLE and BONES (two opposites that share a bond), with mystery of shows like RESURRECTION, where you don’t exactly know what causes what’s happening the majority of the time. On a completely arbitrary scale of 1-10, I give FOREVER an 8 with a definite chance to go up as the episodes continue!
FOREVER
