Flashforward

Anyone catch this last night?

The world's entire population fell unconscious for 2 mins 17 seconds, throwing each person's consciousness 6 months into the future for that time.

After waking up the heat is on to find out who or what is responsible, and start cataloguing the 'visions' people are reporting.

Following the scrutinization of CCTV at the time of the flashforward, one person is seen conscious at a baseball game while the rest of the world is out of it. Who is he and why did he not experience the flashforward?

 

Oh crap. I knew there was something I wanted to tape last night..
I'll have to hunt for the repeat. (I'm sure it will be..)

 

Hulu is your friend. That's where I saw the premiere. I quite liked it too and will watch it until the inevitable return of LOST dominates my mind.

 

Hulu doesn't work if you live in the UK though, right?

I think I've tried that when Heroes season 3 came out.

 

I don't think Hulu works in the UK yet. I believe it will be coming here but I don't know when. I managed to tape this last night on Fiver +1. (The joys of Sky satellite.) I might try to watch it later when I'm at home to see if it's worth taping future shows.

 

I love the idea of learning from other shows that do things well. I.e., this show is not copying LOST in terms of plagiarism; it is looking at LOST as a vehicle with component parts that pushes the viewer from A to B. So as far as crafting a compelling momentum with ample character sympathy, indicative, declarative, unsimpering, and unapologetic reality frame that follows a 'real' event in time rather than the twitter-paced conversational crime-fighting adventures of an ensemble, as well as decent exponential possibilities in terms of hard-core science fiction (read the Wiki entry on the novel if you want to be spoiled), the premier episode threatened my ordinary quotidian disgust with virtually all things on television. (LOST seems designed to centrifugally spin viewers away that cannot hang on, but that's kind of an artifact of having a crazed talent at the helm.) I will be eagerly watching the next episode of Flash Forward. I think it's conceivable that viewer turnout will be low or decay enough that the show experiences some doubts from its financiers, but my intuition (which can be wrong) detects that this show has a critical mass, escape velocity and momentum that already exceeds requirements for getting past the first season. IF the producers heed LOST, as they appear to intend to. There are many ways they can derail from the innovative formula that LOST has put forward.

 

No More Good Days was great. I can't wait to see where they take the series.

 

I really liked "White to Play" and I thought that the pace is developing quite nicely. I have some predictions based on two episodes so far.

First, Demetri is the father of Janis' baby.

Second, Demetri's death sends Mark back to the bottle because Mark will no longer believe that the future can be changed.

Third, Olivia is with Lloyd Simcoe as a plant because Lloyd knows exactly why the blackout happened. She's basically spying on him in cahoots with Mark.

 

I also predict the following Lloyd Simcoe is D. Gibbons

 

T-plus 1 minute. 100 miles downrange. All systems looking good. Judicious use of long shots, wide angles, CGI and digital matte paintings. Poignant use of trope FEMA / Fortress America. Workably non-simpering comedy. Excellent second deployment of hard-sell acoustic aorta-plucker at ten minutes to curtain, rounded by a sensible dollop of plot advancement. Understated use of the word "LOST". In Demetri, a feasible analogue to "Yearrrreeeellelelle ginna daAEEE, Chaaalie".

"First, Demetri is the father of Janis' baby." Definitely the indication as of 2nd episode. Possible Charlie-AS-father arc, with man-of-the-hour demise in relation to the child. Con: Janis did not appear to be grieving during the ultrasound.

"Third, Olivia is with Lloyd Simcoe as a plant because Lloyd knows exactly why the blackout happened. She's basically spying on him in cahoots with Mark." What did Simcoe do or say as evidence for this supposition? Fact: He was not with his wife and child during the blackout. Fact: he was on the phone in his own flash forward (which when cryptic or non-obvious frequently means 'bad guy'). Your last prediction might find support in the lighting choices for Simcoe. Con: I've seen decent episodic television that uses lighting and framing for misdirection. Finally, the name might expand to 'Insurance Simulation Company'.

My wife speculated that Stan Wedeck and the Homeland Security Secretary are married. When the Secretary said she had to 'eat crow', the possibility of this improved for me.

 

Watched No More Good Days again yesterday... got a feeling the guy in the baseball stadium is the hospital kid's Dad

 

Pretty much for me all I want to know is why there was a random Kangaroo in the middle of the road, that's really the only question I want answered...

 

guy in zoo feeding kangaroo when blackout hits > Kangaroo makes a run for it while he's out cold

 

Thought that myself!

I got the impression that she was looking at Simcoe and thought it was her husband in the light. Thats why she feels love. However, as soon as he turns around she wakes up so her feelings donk kick in and she thinks.. "oh yeah... it's that guy..." Havent figured out why he's going to be there with his top off though!

Interesting...

Some excellent speculation here...

I'm loving the show...

 

137 Sekunden was a good but not great episode, imo.

One thing that frustrates me is that Mark bases his present investigation on what he sees in the future regardless of the fact that nothing, except his future board supports the direction he investigates. Of course I doubt he'd put something pointless on the board and leave it there in 6 months but you never know.

Nothing really happened this week in the show though...except for the suggestion that Janis is a lesbian, which I don't find that interesting because I think she and Demetri will hook up in three months. Zoe most definitely did not see her wedding with Demetri, rather I think she is merely doing what Demetri claims to have seen in the flashforward as a way to remember and memorialize him. I do have to say that Gabrielle Union is amazingly beautiful.

Otherwise, the crows in Somalia were creepy, especially with the tower emanating a sort of cloud that apparently killed the crows.

Overall, an okay episode but next week needs to get cracking with the pace.

 

The main character is a serial overactor, and interestingly enough (with his impressive resume), isn't fit to helm this show.

He always looks like he is about to cry.

 

T-plus 2 minutes. 150 hundred miles downrange. Acceleration loss apparent. Altitude nominal. Excess emissions of hard-sell acoustic aorta-plucker at ten minutes to curtain (they played two different numbers I think). Warning indicators on "HEROS"-grade pat/faux villain complexity (in comparison to Benjamin Linus). Hope they're just losing the first stage booster. Continued judicious use of CGI in matte paintings, particularly Munich.

Prediction: 137 maps 4815162342 - it's a bait and switch and will be forgotten after the first season. Crows lost consciousness while in flight and crashed, so they must share some aspect with the human condition. Mark's AA buddy is mapping John Locke (has a wound, and, faith). The ex-wife / bartender is reprising her LOST role as damaged goods / voice of experience / non-moving Garmin / static reference point (like with Kate).

Weird: 'eat crow' from first episode, now, crows dying.

 

This was picked up for a full season today.

 

This is the only thing I can stomach to watch on TV, because it strives to represent an indicative, non-simpering alternate realistic hard-science fiction experience, but I'll drop it like a rock if it screws up.

Points need to be taken off for the whole RPG + Ford Explorer + camera evidence of 4 occupants + camera evidence of huge kinetic inelastic collision = 4 occupants HAVE exited vehicle, HAVE retained all wits and agility, ARE engaging enemy, DO take down all enemy, and DO all walk away smiling. Points can be added for the Dylan, which can stand in for the ISO9000 LOST-standard aorta-plucker ten minutes to curtain, but still.

Points can be added to this episode for the weird 4 references to China, which required some thinking and research. Chinese fire-drill early on which foreshadows the hit, President said Chinese take chaos as opportunity (and then calls hit, we are led to believe); the VP-designate quotes SunTzu, stay by the river and you'll see the body of your enemies, and then the actual assassination attempt by Chinese, one of whom was portrayed by Michio Kaku, who is not Chinese, but who would make an excellent master mind.

Points can be deducted because the 'enemy / river / body' is not technically a vetted quotation of Sun Tzu, and is not in the Art of War, but rather a Japanese proverb. (Besides, Sun Tzu would not advocate such a passive attack as to let thermodynamics run its course in an arms race of pure self-contentment. The Sun Tzu of Art of War would say something like, "Always sit quietly by the river in full view of your peers and carry a very inconspicuous and very long-range radio transmitter that will explode your enemy's favorite lighter when he goes for a cigar" or something like that.) This whole Chinese/Japanese confusion may have been why they included Michio Kaku, just to hedge their bets.

Points can be added to this episode because of the top-secret satellite footage of five robot chicken feet in Zamtanzanibia, arranged in a circle, clearly the remnants of some catastrophic failure that occurred as five robot chickens were performing the chicken dance. the connection between robot chicken feet and dying crows was not explored, but I do recall that in the previous episode the pylons actually looked like minarets which from a viewer/reader responce in this post-911 world could have made a viewer think, "OH, now the Arabs in their hot, dry, golden land are going to cook up another doomsday event with a consciousness-sapping minaret emission!! How timely! How relevant! How provocatively resonant with persistant anxiety about Iran and its nuclear ambitions!"

I have to be polite and not take away points for the exploration of Janis' personal life and identity. (Now, if I do not care about her story but was intrigued by LOST's Sun-Jin relationship, does that mean I'm a homophobe?) Regardless - she's a high clearance FBI officer and she lets another person rummage around at will in her residence? (?)

Decent Shakespearean misdirection: FBI Director makes an incorrect assumption about the exact timing of Mark being "drunk" and Mark is approximately too distraught to catch it.

 

Monaghan did really steal the show. At least they have managed to advance the overall story more in these 2 hours than they really have over the preceding 10.

 

I've gotta say I was pretty tired this morning after watching the double bill, I love this show, and this really did fly forward quite a bit from where we left off.

I didn't see the double cross from Monaghan coming, then the death of wheezy at the end was just awesome. I'm liking where this is going.