J.J Abrams
Revolution comes to Sky1 tonight and become the latest TV show to bear the name of J.J Abrams.
While he might now be off taking over the world of sci-fi cinema, Abrams’ roots are still very much in the world of American TV. So to celebrate yet another ambitious TV project; we’ve looked back in time at the four cracking shows that have been guided by the hand of J.J Abrams.
Felicity
His debut TV production, Felicity showed that Abrams was going to be a talent that would go far in the industry, with the show garnering critical acclaim from the very outset.
Focussed on the titular Felicity ,a teenager who decided to change universities and head off to New York to chase after her high school crush, the show was a fantastic coming of age drama that might even be the spiritual forbear to Lena Dunham’s amazing series Girls.
The show even won Keri Russell a Golden Globe during its first series (with the show itself also getting nominated) and has become a cult favourite in the years since it went off the air, with Entertainment Weekly even listing Felicity as one of the top twenty characters of the last twenty years.
Not too shabby for a first time effort.
Alias
The show that made him one of the most wanted men in TV, Alias still stands as the best show that Abrams has put his prodigious talents towards.
Starring Jennifer Garner as Sydney Bristow, a CIA agent desperate to keep her true identity and vocation from her friends and family, we followed her trotting across the globe trying to carry out high risk espionage and later on trying to recover artefacts and bring down a crime syndicate.
The show proved that action and suspense could work well on network TV and made Garner a household name in a role that still stands as the most complex and layered of her career. With more plot twists than an M.Night Shyamalan marathon, Alias was an utterly captivating series.
Lost
The show that most people know Abrams for, Lost became one of the biggest, best and most infuriating shows on television.
The first series of the drama that saw a group of airplane passengers marooned on a mysterious island was utterly incredible. Brilliantly paced with great characters and able to ask and answer questions in equal measure, it became the bar by which all other debut seasons of American TV are judged.
Over the course of the show though, it became more and more complicated, tying itself up in knots and leaving audiences simply bamboozled. That’s before we even get to the ending of the show, which caused such a blowback from the fans that it soured a lot of their appreciation of the show.
If only it had been able to keep up the quality of its first series, then we could have been in for something truly game changing.
Fringe
The last show that he got really down and dirty with before he disappeared off into the movie world, Fringe was a show that survived by the skin of its teeth for the five years it aired, but paid off the faith put into it in spades, creating wheat might be one of the most utterly barmy shows on TV.
The show focussed on the actions of a team exploring the paranormal and fringe of science. This could be anything from horrific psychotropic drugs to an entire parallel universe crossing into ours and wrecking everything for all of us.
The ratings might not have been stellar, but the show was an utterly bananas sci-fi show that was one of the most inventive and interesting things on American TV when it was on the air.
What’s your favourite J.J Abrams show? Let us know in the comments section.
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