5 Reasons FlashForward is a Flash in the Pan

I’ve been doing some soul-searching lately, trying to decide whether or not I’m as into FlashForward as I thought I’d be. I have to tell you, I don’t think I am. It’s possible that more soul searching may be required. Anyway, Cinema Blend posted an article today that sums up a lot of my problems with the show perfectly. Par exemple…

The (yawn) characters (yaaaawwwwnn) are “yaaaaaaawwwwwnnnnn”:

Benford is an alcoholic. Demetri might die. After that, do we really care about anyone else in this show? I know I don’t. Benford’s wife is having an affair with some villain? Who cares. The other FBI agent is going to get pregnant? Snooze. Here is the biggest indictment of the whole cast: I have seen every episode and I needed to go on the website to find out any of the other characters’ names. That is bad, bad, bad. Maybe it is my fault for not paying enough attention, but honestly do you know what Mark’s wife’s name is? His sponsor? Anyone else? I know I don’t.

The entire article is compelling, and rich. Check it out here.

FlashForward – “D. Gibbons is a bad man.”`

The world is still trying to come to terms with the effects of the Flashforward. Some people are handling it better than others.

Aaron: You know, I could walk up to anyone and ask, “What did you see?” and they would all say—

Mark: Your beard! A**hole… *glugluglug*

Mark is still upset about Olivia’s vision and is becoming more paranoid about this Lloyd Simcoe character. Over at FBI headquarters, the Team is met by Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Anastasia Markham, who’s none too pleased that they’ve taken it upon themselves to investigate the Flashforward.

Anastasia: You hope you’ll find out what happened during the blackout? No one spends millions of dollars on hope!

Stan: I guess someone forgot to tell Barack Obama! Ya burnt!

Demetri is still freaking out about his non-vision. Mark’s tried calming him down, but he hasn’t been much help. Things change when they meet up with the local police in Pigeon, Utah.

Cop: I didn’t see anything, either.

Demetri: Really?

Cop: Yeah.

Demetri: You know, I think thing’s are gonna be alright.

Then this happened…

At the hospital, Olivia’s finally met Lloyd. She swore to Mark that no matter what happened, she could never feel anything for this man, but she’s finding it tough to resist that windswept hair and saucy British accent!

Lloyd: How do I tell my son that his mum is dead?

Olivia: Make me feel like a real woman.

Lloyd: Huh?

Olivia: Gotta go!

This is the point in the show where someone turns on one of the Grey’s Anatomy soundtracks. We flip through quick shots of everyone winding down after a long day.

Stan stops by the office to drop off some cupcakes.

Janice: Flash forward to my ass ballooning two sizes LOL!

Demetri: Oooohohohohoha! I like you!

Stan: Hey guys shut up a minute. I don’t know if you saw this, but we triangulated the calls that Gibbons chick made on her cellphone, and it looks like she was talking to Suspect Zero…during the blackout!

Demetri: Woah!

Janice: Mmmphphphhpgoohcupcake…

A little birdie tells me that this week’s episode will have people everywhere asking when the characters will quit acting like cardboard cutouts! Tune in!

FlashForward – “There are no more good days.”

EXT. DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES – DAY

A typical summer morning. Birds chirping. People on their way to work. Widen to reveal —

Four Hours Earlier

A typical summer morning. Birds chirping. People on their way to work. Mexicans trimming the trees and mowing the grass. Mark Benford kisses his wife Olivia before leaving for the day. Aaron Stark trims his beard. Bryce Varely sticks a gun to his head. The hot chick who was on Mad Men is taking her clothes off. Business as usual, right? WRONG. Today’s the day everything changes. Boom. Roasted.

FBI agent Mark and his sidekick Hikaru Sulu are chasing some stock terror suspect who will turn out to be central to the show’s plot halfway through the season when suddenly–!

For 2 minutes and 17 seconds, the entire world blacks out. No one’s sure what’s going on, but it’s like one of those Yellow Submarine things where even though it’s like one big acid trip, the music’s still pretty good so I just went with it. And then my aunt walked in and I was so high I hit on her, and she touched me in my swimsuit area.

When everyone wakes up LA is on fire. Sulu takes the helm while Mark tries to help all the people who are freaking out. Over at the hospital, Olivia is dealing with the same thing. Back at their house, Nicole the nanny pushes her boyfriend off of her long enough to make sure Charlie isn’t dead. She’s awake, clutching her teddy bear.

Nicole: Are you alright, sweety?

Charlie: I had a bad dream.

Nicole: What did you do?

Charlie: The malice of the act was base and I loved it–that is to say I loved my own undoing, I loved the evil in me–not the thing for which I did the evil, simply the evil: my soul was depraved, and hurled itself down from security in You into utter destruction, seeking no profit from wickedness but only to be wicked.

Nicole: Maybe I should call your mom.

Olivia’s got her own problems.

Later, at FBI headquarters, Mark and a stock task force gather in a conference room to figure out what’s happened. From what they know, the blackouts affected everyone on the planet.

Mark: No. It was more than a blackout. It was like a memory… of the future!

Everyone. At the Exact Same F’ing Time: You mean…a flash-forward?

Seth MacFarlane: Giggity.

Mark tells Demetri they need to figure out a way to see what everyone saw during the flashforward. They’re on it, and a plan comes together surprisingly fast.

Demetri: We’ll make a website!

Girl: And a TV show!

They take the idea to Stan, who’s quick to jump onboard.

Stan: Good job, guys. But let’s keep all this blackout business under wraps for now. We can’t let the public find out about this.

Mark: Uh, you realize the world knows, right?

Stan: Keep up the good work.

That night, Mark’s talking to Nicole. Ever since the blackout, she hasn’t been able to stop crying.

Nicole: I’ve been watching the news all day, except for when I was…nevermind. I just don’t know what to think, you know? I’m scared. I’m horny.

Mark: You really should go. I’m already a recovering alcoholic, I don’t need–you know. That other stuff coming up.

Nicole: What other stuff?

Mark: Please leave.

And she’s not the only one acting strange. Mark told Olivia what he saw during his blackout, but Olivia’s kept quiet.

Mark: What did you see, babe?

Olivia: I don’t want to talk about it.

Mark: But–

Olivia: He made me feel like a real woman!

Back in the office, whatshername calls Demetri over. She points to her computer.

Girl: Did you know every security camera in the world feeds into the FBI database?

Demetri: Really?

Girl: Yeah. I just finished looking through it. Check out what I found!

Demetri: That wasn’t taken during the blackout. It’s an Astros game. But it’s kind of cool that you found such a huge clue so quickly.

Girl: I know, right?

What does it all mean? Who’s the mysterious Suspect 0? What role will the kangaroo play? Was my Astros joke topical? More importantly, will FlashForward be as commercially viable as Lost? Tune in next week!

FLASHFORWARD by Robert J. Sawyer

It’s possible that you’re one of the five or six people who have heard absolutely nothing about this book, or ABC’s TV adaptation, which was just added to their 2009-2010 Thursday night lineup. Or maybe you have heard of the show, yet in the glitz and glam of modern-day television, did not realize that  before TV, there was the book. In any case, you should waste more time online catching up on things like this.

Flashforward centers around a group of physicists working at the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, Switzerland, who spend their days smashing subatomic particles together, in search of the elusive Higgs boson. Which, from my own studies in quantum physics is best described as a particle whichssmmmphmmmrmpph. Anyway, during one such experiment, every man, woman, and child on Earth blacks out, where for two and a half minutes, their collective consciousness is thrown twenty one years into the future.

When everyone wakes up, they’re forced to deal with the mass chaos that would understandably follow six billion people blacking out. Planes, cars, and buses have crashed. People undergoing surgery are dead. Others have fallen off of roofs and down stairs. As those who survive come to terms with what’s happened, they slowly begin to piece together what they’ve seen. Some saw visions of their lives twenty one years hence while others saw nothing. Were they sleeping? Were they dead? Slowly, a portrait of the future begins to emerge.

Robert J. Sawyer is one of a small group of authors who writes “hard” science fiction, or science fiction which puts a heavy emphasis on the science behind the fiction. That is to say, he is one of a small group who does it well. A few years back I read Hyperspace, by Michio Kaku. It’s a book about theoretical physics in terms a layman can understand. Most of what I remember is wondering what it would be like to travel back in time, to make sure my parents hooked up at the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance. My point is, if this crap is such a headache to understand, why do I want to spend more of my leisure time reading about it? Well, authors like Sawyer (also see Stephen Baxter and Alastair Reynolds) are able to explain the science without overshadowing their stories or the characters in those stories.

While Flashforward lives safely within the limits of science fiction, there’s a lot of mystery, suspense, and philosophy here, too. Theo Procopides is one of the physicists who sees nothing during his blackout. After others tell him that they saw reports of his murder, Theo sets off on a quest to find out as much as he can about his future killer, and the circumstances surrounding his death. Will he succeed? Can he succeed? Is anyone capable of changing their future, or is free will just an illusion? In the book, arguments are laid out for both, and they’re questions you’ll be asking yourself throughout.

The book gets high marks for a truly original story, and low marks for a somewhat anti-climactic ending, although the scientific a-ha! moments really suck you in. If you’re planning on watching the show this Fall, you’ll definitely want to check this one out. From what I’ve seen, there are major differences between the two, so you won’t be ruining anything for yourself.

7 out of 10 stars

Buy the book from amazon.com.

What did you see?

I’ll tell you what we saw, ratings gold! Go out and buy a hat, then get ready to hold the f**k onto it, because this is the next big thing. Maybe you noticed these commercials during tonight’s episode of Lost.

ABC is doing some early promotion for a series that it hasn’t officially announced yet. It’s called Flash Forward, and is based on the novel of the same name by Robert J. Sawyer. Let’s check out zap2it for more info!

The show is based on Robert J. Sawyer’s novel and follows the fallout from a cataclysm in which the world’s entire population blacks out for just over two minutes. In addition to dealing with the chaos that ensues when everyone wakes up — everything from car crashes to people walking off rooftops — people soon come to realize that they all had a vision of their futures. The network says that those investigating the event will have only “a huge mosaic of people’s flash forwards” to go on.

ABC has already set up a website you might want to check out. It’s sure to be all the rage at your office’s water cooler in the coming weeks, with everybody talking about what they saw and such. Check out Wikipedia for more on the book.