"The Nine" is a lot like "Lost" — a group of people who have, at most, passing prior acquaintance are thrown together by a catastrophic event.

Only these people aren't separated from the rest of humanity by an ocean, they're separated by the trauma of their shared experience. They were held hostage during a 52-hour bank robbery/standoff that ended with two deaths.

The result is a promising series premiere (tonight, 9 p.m., Ch. 4) that's at least a 9 out of 10 on a quality scale. We're introduced to nine interesting characters, and there's a healthy dash of mystery thrown in — we aren't privy to what actually happened during the standoff.

But we will see a bunch of "Lost"-like flashbacks.

There's Nick (Tim Daly), a police detective; Malcolm (Chi McBride), the bank manager; Felicia (Dana Davis), his daughter; Kathryn (Kim Raver), an assistant district attorney; Jeremy (Scott Wolf), a surgeon; Lizzie (Jessica Collins), his girlfriend; Egan (John Billingsley), a suicidal nebbish; Eva (Lourdes Benedicto), a bank teller; Franny (Camille Guaty), her sister; and Lucas (Owain Yeoman), one of the bank robbers.

We'll see immediate effects of the ordeal and not always what we expect. It's a turning point in an upward direction for one character; another falls apart.

"It's not just a drama about people reacting to a bank robbery," said creator/executive producer Hank Steinberg. In addition to continuing storylines, others will wrap up in the course of a single episode and "plenty of incidents between the characters (and) action in their lives as they go forward."

We'll learn a little bit every week about what happened during the standoff.

"We're going to unravel it over the course of the first season," promised Steinberg. "It's a character drama with a backdrop of what happened in the bank ... which will be revealed through flashbacks. And stay tuned for the season finale, and you'll have a lot of your questions answered."

By that point, I'm thinking we'll be so invested in the characters we'll want to keep watching. I mean, it's not like they're stranded on a desert island with a smoke monster or something.

TURNS OUT THE IDEA for "The Nine" came from a real-life event that happened to a friend of series creator/co-executive producer K.J. Steinberg (the sister of creator/executive producer Hank Steinberg).

"He was on a horrible date with a girl," K.J. Steinberg said. "They were walking home from that date, and a car pulled up. And a guy got out, and he put a gun in their faces. And he said, 'Give me all your money.'