FlashForward

In the wake of Lost ending, it seems like ABC is trying to find another addictive and seemingly deep show to replace it. I think this is one of their replacements. I missed the first few episodes that were aired before the hiatus, but watched the recap special when it came on after Lost. Sometimes I just don’t feel like getting the remote from the other couch. So I kind of knew what was going on when I watched the two episodes that aired after the break. Mostly it sounded like something someone thought up while they were stoned.

‘People are so much like zombies, they’re just sleepwalking and going through life on auto-pilot.’
    ‘Yeah...’
‘What if everyone, like, took a nap all at the same time?
    ‘Heh that’d be crazy...’
‘And what if they all saw the future while they were knocked out?
    ‘Uh...’
‘And it changed their lives in strange, profound, and immeasurable ways?
    ‘You have smoked yourself retarded.’
Basically, on October 6, 2009, everyone on the planet passed out simultaneously for 2 minutes and 17 seconds and had visions of their near futures on April 29, 2010. And the show follows a fairly large cast as they deal with the repercussions and try to figure out what caused the blackout. The immediate damage was that everyone that was doing anything remotely dangerous found themselves to no longer exist or were all kinds of messed up. The immediate effects of cars piling up on the highways and planes and helicopters falling out of the sky utilized pretty good effects for a television show. Once everyone wakes up they swap stories, the bazaar and mundane, the epiphanies. Then there were the people who had no fun in their visions, or didn’t see anything. People started piecing together the things they saw to figure them out ahead of time instead of just waiting around to see what happens. The FBI gets in on things and investigates the cause of the random nap-time and tries to figure out if there is another one impending. And the mysterious people behind all this do mysterious things.

The first of the two episodes was confusing and almost boring to me, but by the end of the second I was kind of interested in what would happen. I’m sure my confusion was because I didn’t see any of the first episodes, so I didn’t know everyone’s back stories. At least it was easy to keep the characters apart and remember their names. Since I didn’t know everyone’s personal story I found that in these two episodes I enjoyed more the parts about the people behind the blackout. Some of the science just seemed like technobabble thrown together to baffle the mind and make people think that in some way group consciousness time travel is possible. I found myself having to think hard enough to follow the plot but not too hard so as to get hung up on errant details. I think the strain that delicate dance caused in my mind also made me bored, I kept zoning out and getting more confused.

The acting is as surprisingly good as the effects, and a couple of the actors from Lost have found their way onto this show. I don’t remember anyone being such a clumsy actor that they stood out to me in my half attention span. Despite my not knowing about their lives and what their visions really meant I felt like I should catch up to find out. The flashes seemed to add a lot of characterization, along with how each person deals with what they saw. Some people try to change their future, some that were hopeless before the event are way more optimistic, and others seem to have their visions help them out in the present or turn into a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy.

They help the main FBI characters immensely, since agent Mark Benford (Joseph Fiennes) happened to be looking at a bunch of clues in the future he would need to figure something out in the present. Another agent, Demetri Noh (John Cho), was one person who had no vision of his future and struggles with what that could mean. Mark’s wife Olivia (Sonya Walger) is a doctor and sees that she was with another man. The mysterious people behind all of this include Lloyd Simcoe (Jack Davenport), whose son Olivia treats in the hospital. His research partner, Simon Campos (Dominic Monaghan) is being chased about by FBI agent Janis Hawk (Christine Woods) in a pretty amusing game of cat and mouse. Simon’s revelations in the two episodes I watched were the most interesting, and his acting was the most entertaining.

There are about a million other characters too, each with their own story, and they’re all interconnected. Clearly, this is a tangled knot of a story. Which makes it easy to overlook some inconsistencies due to the sheer scope of the show. Hopefully someday soon I’ll manage to catch up on episodes I’ve missed. I also hope that this show will keep up with its lofty ambitions. Sadly I think neither will happen.