However much executive producer J. J. Abrams is actually involved in this tedious series of interlocking melodramas—and rumor has it that the mastermind of Lost keeps his distance—it’s still not enough to make us care. The credible ensemble cast, which includes Hope Davis, Jay Hernandez, and Campbell Scott, is asked to impersonate variously a grieving widow, a hotshot lawyer, and a recovering-addict photographer, all of whom wander around in an urban limbo of random collisions and missed connections. They are antsy, needy, wounded, precious, and pathetic, and I haven’t even mentioned the ex-con limo driver and the woman with the mysterious box.

ABC, Thursdays, 10 p.m.

Related:

• Archive: “Television”
• Articles by John Leonard
• Table of Contents: October 2, 2006 issue of New York | Subscribe!