The first episode of Forever, coming this fall on ABC is available on-line now at the ABC site (and we are hearing some cable/video-on-demand boxes have it), and is well worth the time to check out… or you could be patient, and wait until it premiers, on your television, Tuesday Sept. 23.

This is a show that caught my eye at San Diego’s Comic-Con International with an interesting trailer at the ABC booth, and the first episode lived up to my hopes.  It fulfills the promises, introducing us to the main characters and giving us a sufficient idea of how they are connected to one another, and just enough back story on the key players to make them interesting, and prompt me to want to come back next week and find out more.  I’ll concede there was at least one moment where I groaned and wondered why they chose to open that door and head down that path… but since I have no idea what is ahead, or where we are going, that simply leaves me wondering where the path I would not have chosen will take us, and if I will be satisfied when we reach the end of it, or if I will wish we had taken a path less traveled.

ABC’s Forever, poster from the ABC.com Site

Forever stars: Ioan Gruffudd (Ringer, Fantastic 4), Judd Hirsch (Taxi, Numb3rs), Alana De La Garza (Law and Order, Do No Harm), and Joel David Moore (Bones, Avatar), all of whom are familiar faces with a large body of work between them, and they come together with some very nice performances, honestly, when you pull together such an evenly matched cast, how is one to choose a stand out?  Instead it would be fair to say they continually bring out the best in one another.

With flavors of previous characters visible you can easily understand why these actors came to mind when the show was being cast, and yet already it appears they will be playing different characters than we have seen them in before, simply with a similar foundation and core, I felt subtle differences even in this first episode (perhaps in part because I was watching the screen, watching to see if they were there or not), again making me curious to see what future episodes have in store for the audience.

This is a great trailer for the show, but be warned, it draws heavily on the first episode to pitch the show, that said, I really do love how it sells Forever.