Let’s give “Lost” more credit for resuscitating serial dramas on the networks.

The ABC freshman hit of last season did more than prove that viewers were capable of following storylines week to week, that they didn’t need everything wrapped up with a bow at the end of one hour.

It also showed that couch potatoes were up for a challenge, if the payoff is there. Its creative use of flashbacks to fill in the backstory of characters helped to fill in the puzzle, piece by piece. This made it nearly impenetrable for the casual viewer, but that’s the price you pay for lack of dedication.

The new Fox drama “Reunion” takes this use of flashbacks a step further. The show centers around a group of six friends in suburban New York, and opens in the present at the funeral of one of the six, who has died under mysterious circumstances. The other five are suspects.

But creator Jon Harmon Feldman (most recently “Tru Calling”) isn’t in any hurry to reveal who is in which group.

Instead viewers, along with investigating Detective Majorino (played by Mathew St. Patrick), will slowly find out about the sextet’s interactions over the past 20 years, with each episode covering one year. One of the six serves as narrator as well.

It starts in 1986, the group’s graduating year from Bedford High School. The six include a rich boy and a poor boy, two best friends in love with the same girl, and another odd triangle, a smart girl in love with a smart boy who is infatuated with the class drama queen, who is in lust with all the wrong guys.

The group’s perfect plans go awry that summer following graduation, and this sets in motion events that will lead to an early death for one of them.

“Reunion” is blessed with a strong young cast, who will still be pretty after 20 years of aging, including Amanda Righetti (“North Shore”), Will Estes (“American Dreams”) and Sean Faris (“Life As We Know It”).

The show is a little lacking as a soap opera, as we’ve all seen these characters before. But it’s definitely a new kind of hybrid, a whodunit blended with a melodrama.

“Reunion” isn’t the guilty confection that its lead-in, “The O.C.,” is. It’s meant to be more than high camp and misdemeanors. Instead, it’s supposed to show how friendship and hate evolve over two decades. Whether it will get the chance to age that far up against “CSI” and “The Apprentice” is anybody’s guess. (Dale McGarrigle, BDN Staff)