I am a 'Lost'-ie who loves 'FlashForward' -- and I do not apologize.

Yes, I know ABC insists on pushing 'FlashForward' as a sorry replacement for its biggest hit, 'Lost,' which ends in May after six amazing seasons. Yes, I know it's got a gimmicky sci-fi premise (the whole world blacks out for 2 minutes and 17 seconds and everyone sees six months into the future). Yes, I know it's been months since the show's last episode aired. And yes, I am apparently the only person looking forward (ha!) to its return this week.

'FlashForward,' based on novels by Robert J. Sawyer, debuted strong to 12.47 million viewers last September (compared to the 'Lost' season 6 premiere's 12.1 million). But in the following weeks, the new drama's viewership dropped off. On the eve of its second wind, I'd like to ask you -- fellow 'Lost'-ies and non-fans alike -- to give 'FlashForward' another chance.

There's a tendency in our culture, and it's certainly prevalent in the blogosphere, to snark at anything that doesn't immediately turn us on. I'm guilty of this myself, but I cut myself some slack because I'm writing about the entertainment industry, which is, to me anyway, of little consequence within the Grand Scheme.

A couple of days ago, my fellow game show fan Bob gave a big thumbs down to Deal or No Deal, the new game show on NBC. He thought the premise, where a contestant goes through torturous rounds of elimination to determine if the briefcase he picked has a ton of money in it, got too tedious after 20 minutes or so. He also thought the "banker", who calls in between each rounf to offer to buy the case off the contestant for mostly increasing amounts of money, was a goofy device.

Well, I didn't get a chance to watch the show until tonight, and I've got to say, I liked it. In this episode a woman managed to get the bank offer up to $201,000 before taking the deal, which turned out to be the right decision. Same with the second contestant, who, even though many of the big money cases were eliminated early, got the bank offer up to $99,000 before leaving his 50-50 shot behind (again, he made a good deal).