Is Quantico the New Lost?? A TV Review and Predictions of the Bad Guy...

Imagine a TV show intro...  a lone figure, lying prostrate on the ground, coming to consciousness.  Surrounded by chaos, flames, debris, a terrible event has just occurred.  Then, cue a flashback.  Amidst the large collection of characters gathered here, everybody has a secret.  (and everybody is ridiculously attractive, naturally...)

Do you think I'm describing the opening of Lost??  Nope, just described the intro of Quantico, the new suspense show on ABC named after the FBI training academy.

And you're right, it totally did describe Lost too, because somebody had the brilliant idea of borrowing the format of one of the most popular shows of all time and hoping it would work in a new scenario.  And honestly *whispers*

...I don't mind... 

I whisper because I feel like I should be mad that they ripped off the format of Lost, which I loved devotedly, but I'm really not...  if a winning format helps give us a similarly compelling show, I won't complain.  ;P

I've only watched the premier so far, so I won't say much more than that, but the show seems off to a good start!  There were only two things that annoyed me about the opening episode:

*spoiler alert, stop reading if you want to avoid spoilers!!*

The poor Mormon dude was freaking out lest the Southern dude learn his secret (let's face it, I don't know any of their names yet), but in the scenario it is implied that the FBI already knew his secret.  So why freak out about people finding out, when presumably people already knew and he was basically screwed already?  And if he felt confident that the FBI HADN'T found out his secret, why would he think that this random trainee with an attitude would have been able to unearth it in 48 hours or whatever?  If he had THAT much angst about his secret, you would think he would have stayed far, far away from the FBI in the first place, rather than trying to join their ranks.

At the last moment, attractive-female-Jack-stand-in who is being framed for the bombing is WHISKED away by Important-Leader-of-Quanitco-Lady, who tazes several of the FBI guards and then overturns a van in her effort to help the younger woman escape.  1) Would she really have taken this approach to get her free?  Was there really no way to prove that the other woman was being set-up, instead of sacrificing her own career and probably her freedom to break female-Jack-equivalent out?  2)  As far as we know, lady-Jack is only in custody a few hours before Important-Leader shows up all ready to pull a jail-bust for her... how did she find out lady-Jack was in custody, figure out what was going on and that she was being framed, get the right uniform, AND just happen to hop into the transport van at the right moment to hijack it?  That seems like a huge stretch.  ABC, I'm going to need a flashback to explain THAT fortunate series of events to me...

So far the show is set up for us to think that one of lady-Jack's fellow classmates at Quantico is responsible for the bombing.  Assuming that that is true, and it's not just Clearly-Sneaky-Alcoholic-Bad-Guy behind it all, I'm going to offer my best prediction on who the culprit might be now.  I predict.... Cutesy-Blonde-Sniper-Girl!  OR Important-Leader-of-Quantico-Lady, though given that I suspect she will spend the rest of the show in jail, that seems unlikely.  Either way, those predictions are based on of my tried and true Agatha Christie Theorem, which goes like this: think through the characters... now decide which one you would never suspect.  Indeed, THAT IS the bad guy!  Mystery solved, no need for a dun dun DUH!

Seriously, read an Agatha Christie novel with my Theorem in mind, I swear it works.... to my deep regret.  Agatha is still my homegirl, but it greatly diminishes the fun of a mystery novel if you can always tell whodunnit in chapter 1.

However, there is one thing that I think will prevent Quantico from becoming Lost, no matter how hard it tries... its just not as open-ended a concept.  Sure, they have a large cast and can spend a lot of time developing plot and characters in flashbacks, and maybe flashforwards too, but its set around a single bomb blast and the nine months that proceeded it at FBI training school.  Lost was anything and everything the producers wanted it to be (which, let's face it, sometimes got weird...), and that made it singularly epic in a way that I don't think Quantico will be able to replicate.  It still looks like it will be a fun ride though!

PS  Since there are now FIVE episodes of Quantico available for streaming on ABC, I clearly am getting a bit of a late start.  I'd love to know if anyone else is watching, and your Bad Guy Predictions if you are, but please no spoilers!!  ;)  I promise to catch up quickly... 



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