So far, three episodes have aired and we've watched them all. Without giving you any spoilers it will be hard to articulate my reaction to it.
The premise is a little X-filesy, but instead of having to fight to be allowed to investigate, Our Heroes are recruited.
Scully and Mulder had more chemistry in their eyebrow hairs than Our Heroes do in their entire bodies. But of whom is this not true?
I felt badly jerked around by the first episode's third-act turn, but am still watching. It's not so bad it couldn't win me over if we got a serious upturn in a week or two. So far we have little hints and peeks of things that might be interesting, but the key is whether I remain more annoyed by than sympathetic toward the characters. I ought to feel a lot of compassion for the female lead, but I don't.
Their investigative and medical procedures are, um, a little - irregular. Yeah, that's a good nonspoilery word. Irregular. Viewers who can tolerate characters they don't like in well-constructed plots may hang up on this.
The villains and problems are pseudoscientific rather than occult and the guy spouting the technobabble spent the last 17 years in an insane asylum. It's definitely SCIENCE! rather than science. The right temperament can have a lot of fun with this element. They are not using standard fringe concepts so far, no psychic kids or time machines, so the plot won't be immediately obvious to anyone with a moderate knowledge of Forteana.
Glimpses of mysterious and annoying uberplot, but you knew that when you saw Abrams's name. Far too soon to tell which visible stringpuller is a good guy, which a bad guy, or whether either term is applicable.
Defining visual conceit: You remember those little typed labels that would appear at the bottom of the screen during XF (so charmingly spoofed in Middleman)? Well, they don't tell you the time and they don't type it in an unobtrusive corner in Courier, they CGI massive 3D sans serif letters saying "Harvard University" or whatever and plant them in strategic places on the landscape, where they look like serious hazards to traffic.
Unless it tanks (and Abrams is due for a failure), I expect you'll see it in Britain after the usual time lag, whatever that is.
For what it's worth.