if you find something that works....

... stick with it.

ABC sure is.

Did you watch last night's series premiere of their new sci-fi thriller, FlashForward? It's got some very interesting similarities to everyone's favorite airplane-crash-haunted-island-time-travel drama, including a main character (Dr. Olivia Benford) played by LOST's very own Sonya Walger (Penelope Widmore). The coincidental choice in actress is not the only similarity between Olivia and several female leads on LOST. She's a doctor, like Juliet, and she's the main squeeze of FlashForward's "Jack" (Mark Benford), which is a role we've seen both Juliet and Kate in on LOST.

Then there's Mark Benford's "volatile, soon-to-be-married [FBI] partner", Demetri Noh, who put me in mind of Miles (and not just because they're both Asian, people), and Mark's daughter Charlie, who is almost as creepy as Walt.

I didn't spot it, but several viewer comments on ABC's website report seeing an Oceanic billboard.

And is there anything more similar to the first 15 minutes of FlashForward than the first 15 minutes of LOST? The screams, the explosions, the guy waking up completely unhurt in the middle of a disaster? We even see oranges in both pilots (one in creepy old guy John Locke's mouth on LOST, and rolling around the disaster scene on FlashForward).

Finally, here is a blurb about last night's episode, No More Good Days: "When the world’s population is given a glimpse of their future due to a mysterious global event, it forces everyone to come to grips with whether their destinies can be fulfilled or avoided."

Um, isn't that the exact premise of LOST?

Ok, even though I am kind of making fun of ABC for shamelessly copying their own wildly successful shows, I am intrigued and I will definitely not be missing many episodes of FlashForward.