So. FlashForward then.

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Episode 1 premiered on UK television last night. Thoughts?


It has good credentials - the same production team brought us Threshold which was great and prematurely canned - but I'm a little concerned that it might go the way of Lost, asking questions that it never answers and being too damn mysterious for its own good.

It's hard to judge on episode 1 alone, since it's mainly scene-setting and character-creation. I'm still... in two minds. It didn't grab like Threshold did and the concerns are still there - the random wallaby being a major one, along with the episode description on Wikipedia saying "leaving more questions than answers".


Next episode is 1st October (US) and 5th October (UK).
 
I can't believe I missed this last night, I really need to get Sky+ sorted out. I'll have to watch it on the Five on demand service.

I read that the series is based on a book which I would like to read, anyone know the name of it?
 
Yes. It's called "FlashForward" by John Sawyer.
 
Famine
Yes. It's called "FlashForward" by John Sawyer.
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👍 At least I'll be able to remember the name of it next time I'm in Waterstones.
 
Watched it. Watched Threshold. Enjoyed both. Don't watch Lost. Am very worried that Flash Forward will go the way of Lost.

After interacting with one, I've learned a few things about what Hollywood writers are interested in, and I think I better understand what Hollywood producers are interested in.

This show strikes me as someone sitting down and saying "I want to combine CSI, Lost, Heros, ER... aaaand Desperate Housewives. Go"

What they came up with was a show with a catastrophe with a hook whose explanation they can draw out over seasons. An FBI team investigating the hook. Some strange superhero-like vision that only happens once but that they must learn to use for good, some personal drama complete with infidelity... aaaaand.... an Emergency room doctor just for the heck of it.

It seems as though writers for these shows can't help themselves when it comes to personal drama. Everybody has to be getting married, or having babies, or dating so-and-so, or breaking up. X-Files hit it about right for me as far as TV shows go. No home life, and just a smidgeon of personal drama at work. I'm really not interested in where the characters live, how many kids they have, whether or not their daughter is handling the crisis well, etc. etc.

All that being said, I think the show has promise. I just hope that they have a good explanation for what happened. Even though I recognize it as a hook, it's a good hook. And so far the writing hasn't really ticked me off. There was one annoyingly unrealistic part - the part where the main couple leaves their kid home with the babysitter when the world is falling apart, and then actually goes home in the evening to go to bed. This reeks of a holllywood writer that has no concept of the hours that can be demanded of an emergency room doctor or a government agent. The daughter would have been priority number 1. And she would have been taken to the hospital where she could play with other kids in their children's ward, and the parents would have subsequently worked 24 hour shifts.... hmmm... I got off track.

I was saying the writing hasn't ticked me off. So far it's ok. But I'm trying to figure out what they possibly have in mind with the overarching theme of the show, and I haven't pieced it together. Here's what we can reasonably assume.

- This was caused by people
- This was caused for a reason
- That reason is not nice
- There's something very important about the future date

I think a key question is - "what could you accomplish with a small team of people and the world asleep for approximately 2.5 minutes?"
 
I forgot to watch it ended up watching Mr&Mrs Smith on c4 I shall watch it next week.
 
I missed it as well, but I see it is due to be repeated at 10pm on friday - set the TV to remind me already.
 
It's repeated on Five's sister channel Fiver tonight at 10pm. Looking forward to it now.
 
I'm not liking the trend. The show is still hitting a decently high mark, but it hasn't been improving... it seems to be getting worse. I think it typically is difficult for shows like this to keep up with their opening episode, so I'm not terribly concerned. If it keeps up this level of writing I'll keep watching.

But I was irritated by some of the writing in the most recent episode (Oct 8):

The stupid crows.

Ok, during the first episode (this is less than an hour after I was introduced to the premise), I was already wondering whether animals were affected by the signal (whatever it was). Security cameras in veterinary hospitals, pet boarding facilities, zoos, even aquariums would have been of interest. Some kind of pattern from that information would be useful for diagnosing what triggered the event (or what materials blocked the event). For those animals that were affected, what are the common features in their brains that might be capable of triggering a loss of consciousness. This is basic stuff. So the crows should have surprised exactly no-one. Because they should have seen the crows sitting around in a parking lot somewhere. And it's not like bazillions of people wouldn't be reviewing their security footage. As soon as something odd came up, it would be all over youtube, the wiki that the FBI created, and probably sent in directly to the government to help find the cause. Local news would cover it, national news would cover it, it would literally be a matter of watching TV for these guys to discover clues.

Ok, that out of the way, I was a bit irritated by the existence of a worldwide crow-counting society that keeps up-to-the-minute plots of crow population around the world. But even if that were true, wouldn't they have come forward with the information that they found? They might even find a correlation to the previous crow-killing event in Africa. It wouldn't require releasing anyone from prison. Some bird-watching geek would have done all the legwork for them out of sheer curiosity (if one even existed). And if one didn't exist, well the FBI isn't going to be able to get the information either.

My current guess as to the explanation?
- Evil use of cell phone towers.
 
Well, it's back after its winter hiatus. And bloody hell...

The daddy/daughter/Jericho storyline is a bit pap, but I'm sure it'll resolve into Jericho's involvement with the first blackouts. The Simon/Flosso diversion was... odd. No doubt we'll see something of Flosso's involvement in later episodes. Nice kicker at the end of episode 13 with D. Gibbons and Demetri (which may also answer why Simon's design appeared a year before who drew it) :D
 
I must admit my eye's were a bit tired after too much of this :rolleyes: ;)

I hope they do explain the Flosso story, he's obviously been a key part in linking Simon to the towers and blackout...he also happens to have the best dentist super hero sidekick name ever!

It doesn't make sense what Mark Benford's daughter heard CIA agent Marshall Vogel saying during her flash forward as he was on the phone to Lloyd Simcoe (or Miles as I can't help saying) at the time.

They seem to be using a lot of "popcorn logic" but I'm still enjoying it...may have to change my title though!
 
i'm watching the first and sec. season together. 2 on five uk, and first on german tv.
Very confusing to keep it apart.
 
Second season? They've only made 1 season and 16 episodes so far - and broadcast the first 13...
 
ok i thought it was second season because of the second flash. then i am at 1-6 german and 10-13 on five
 
I'm really enjoying it so far, things are starting to get interesting especially with the revelation of the mole.
 
Mark T
I'm really enjoying it so far, things are starting to get interesting especially with the revelation of the mole.
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It is pretty good fun and I’m glad I got into it although it could be a bit tighter. For instance no one seemed too bothered after the mole had been caught that she had shot a number of agents including Peter Griffin Seth MacFarlane Agent Jake Curdy!

I’m wondering if Janice Hawk was telling the truth to Simon Campos about being a second mole or was calling his bluff to see if he is involved with “the bad guys”. I’m not convinced her character would be dishonest but I guess anything is possible.

It’ll be good finding out the connection between Demetri and D. Gibbons. I’m assuming time travel is involved unless I’m missing something.
 
I only realised the other night when they mentioned the season finale. It started off but all of a sudden things have began to unravel very quickly. The last few episodes were rushed in my opinion to get things to a close.
 
I've actually got some theories about why the flashforwards happened:
  • A supernova caused some radio waves at a certain frequency which reacted with our DNA, triggering the blackouts.
  • A North Korean nuke detonation, which caused some radiation causing the blackouts.
  • Everyone was doing some serious drugs.
  • Something to do with The Matrix. Maybe Earth is a computer programme and it crashed for just over 2 minutes.
 
I'm pretty disappointed the series was canceled. It was bad at first, especially the writing, but after the break they really did a good job improving their weak spots.
 
nikhil
It was bad at first, especially the writing, but after the break they really did a good job improving their weak spots.
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I agree – before the break it was fairly atrocious, but after the break they really picked up the ball and ran with it. Between FF and V, FF deserved to go on – the plot in V is moving slower than a dead rat.
 
I watched the first season here in the States on ABC. It's a pretty good show. Lots of twists. I won't give away too much, but it's worth watching.
 
Does it get better after the break? I watched some of it up to the crows part, and the niggling naggling thing in my mind is this:

If you were a mentally unstable person, and saw yourself one year from now in a situation that you did not like, wouldn't you attempt suicide / mass murder or both? Simply to prove that the visions weren't necessarily set in stone?

The suspension of disbelief required for this show is huge... but it does have its good points. Still, a little too "Lost" for me... but with its cancellation, at least it'll have more closure than that show ever will.
 
niky
If you were a mentally unstable person, and saw yourself one year from now in a situation that you did not like, wouldn't you attempt suicide / mass murder or both? Simply to prove that the visions weren't necessarily set in stone?
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That was addressed in episode 7. ;)
 
Watched the season 1 finale last night and although there was some dubious acting (I'm looking at you FBI Assistant Director Stanford Wedeck during the FBI HQ shootout) I still can't believe it's been dropped. Thoroughly disappointed as judging by the closing scenes and the second lot of flashforwards the next season was going to be great. :grumpy:
 
Hnngh!

The last episode was great - some flashforwards not coming true, some coming true but misinterpreted, some coming a bit true but with changes (never saw the conclusion of the "Celia" Flashforward though), some coming wholly true and, of course, Demetri and Simon who never had them. And then the kicker endings (Charlie's flashforward; Mark's present).

No real explanation of the cause of the flashforwards - though they're edging towards the causes of the novel (naturally-occuring phenomena in space causing ultralong wavelength waves which intersect with high-energy collider experiments - as Uncle Flosso said, Simon didn't cause the blackout, merely amplified it).

The science geek in me wants series 2. The sci-fi viewer in me doesn't - they've established and explained that flashforwards are glimpses of the future caused by changing quantum states and that the futures aren't necessarily fixed because of changing quantum states. Which is nicely circular and wrapped up. We don't need to see more "getting clues from the future which might not occur" and people seeking to change their future or ensure it occurs - nor ever-escalating trees of bad guys.

Be nice to have Alda, Carlene and Hellinger's roles explained/explored, a bit more on Jericho (did they innocently stumble upon a blacked-out village and Tracy thought they'd killed everyone, or are they involved with the blackouts), Gabriel and the other savants (how many flashforwards and how far did they go?) and Gibbons' "December 12th 2016 - The End"... But is there enough stuff to keep a second season going - and if Charlie's new flashforward is talking about Mark, can it really get by without its lead star for for that long?
 
I watched probably the first half of Flash Forward (S1) and initially enjoyed it. It was an intriguing concept but i never felt much for any of the characters. Don't know if that's down to the script, the actors or the director(s), but i never felt compelled to see the whole story through. About 3 or 4 episodes in it became apparent that they weren't telling a story with a start, middle and ending, it was only a start and a concept of what the ending might be. I felt exactly the same with Lost, Jericho, Threshold and BBC's Survivors as well as a number of other similar TV Sci-Fi shows of recent years. I know this format means you can spread a story out over a number of seasons and likely make a lot of money for the network broadcasting it, but i personally find that once this method of story telling becomes apparent, i quickly loose interest in what happens to those characters. Maybe it's just me getting old.
 
There's nothing wrong with being old and cynical ;) I didn’t have as much invested in the characters as I have in other shows but it could have been worse…like in Cloverfield where I actually wanted them all squished as soon as possible!

BTW I saw 2011 and 2015 dates in flash forwards but Charlie looked more than 5 years older in hers therefore inferring there wasn’t a worldwide date everyone jumped to…not that it matters now!

/deflated
 
Sage
That was addressed in episode 7. ;)
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Damn you... now I'll have to watch that.



But after Famine's post... maybe not... ultimate spoilers... :lol: . But that's possibly the only way that FlashForward can make sense.

Maybe I will still watch it, to see if I can really get into it.
 
Anyone think this is a strange title for a thread?
 
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