Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 50% (Critics) / 100% (Audience)
Directed By: Brad Anderson
Written By: Matthew Miller
Starring: Ioan Gruffudd, Alana De La Garza, Lorraine Toussaint and Judd Hirsch
Channel: ABC

Synopsis:A 200-year-old man works in the New York City Morgue trying to find a key to unlock the curse of his immortality.(Source)

The Good:
Ioan Gruffudd is a likable TV presence and he fits this role of a man out of time who is burdened by a curse that he doesn’t understand. The aspects of the show that focus on Gruffud’s search for the mystery behind his resurrections and fantastical events surrounding his powers is the only thing saving this show from being lost in the shuffle of TV detective shows.
And it is always good to have Judd Hirsch back on TV on a weekly basis.

The Bad:
There is so much unoriginal about this show and its lead character who seems more like an amalgamation of already established TV detective shows…a pinch of ELEMENTARY, a dash of Bones, a sprinkle of CASTLE. Hopefully the show goes in a more serialized direction and relies more on the shows supernatural mystery and mythology instead of the case of the week stuff or the “will they or won’t they” dynamic between the two leads.
There is also a really well done train crash that looks movie-worthy early in the pilot episode.

The Ugly:
Because if chemistry, whether romantic or anything else, is what FOREVER is going for between Ioan Gruffudd and Alana De La Garza then this show is in serious trouble because there is zero chemistry of any kind between these two actors and De La Garza is just woefully miscast in general.

Final Verdict: A winning performance from leading man Ioan Gruffud and an interesting supernatural mythology helps take FOREVER out of the realm of same old same old and makes it worth a viewing. Hopefully the show realizes that focusing on it’s serialized nature is the best shot at success because the TV landscape is already full of male/female detective combos that are much better than the twosome on this show.

Rating: C+