NIELSENWAR 2014-15 Trailer Review: ABC’s “Forever”

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FOREVER:  Tuesday 10PM on ABC

THE FACTS:  Dr. Henry Morgan (Ioan Gruffudd) is a brilliant New York medical examiner who can solve any murder.  Partly that’s because he has a lot of experience with death, since he himself has (temporarily) died many times–when he falls out a window, is poisoned or hit by a subway train, he merely reawakens, naked and in water.  Alana De La Garza plays his reluctant new cop partner, who knows there’s something not quite right about him.  The series creator is Matt Miller, whose credits include Chuck.

WHAT’S IT SAYING:  Cheerful murder investigations a la Bones or Castle, with Judd Hirsch around to provide grumpy comedy relief, and an almost certain romantic undercurrent that will emerge over time between Henry and his (widowed) partner.

WHAT’S IT REALLY SAYING:  We’re all just having fun here, a procedural where the hero can’t really be hurt and the accent is on his jovial outlook about his own weird condition.  Eventually one assumes some kind of mythology will rear its head as to just what made Henry the way he is, but the trailer’s message is that in the near term, things will be kept simple.

THE OUTLOOK:  ABC has been a complete disaster in the Tuesday 10PM slot (Lucky 7, Killer Women, Mind Games), so it won’t take much to look like a success.  Airing against the much darker Chicago Fire and (probably) Person of Interest, and after the newly-moved Agents of SHIELD, Forever will offer a more good-natured alternative, and while it’s not likely to be any kind of breakout hit, it could find a reasonable audience, especially in the female viewers that ABC targets.