Any Flash Forward Watchers?

[Grom 0]

Just watched the first two episodes on ABC.com. I have to admit, I like what they've done thus far. I know it's not 100% sci-fi, but it sort of fits into the genre. What do you all think?

[Tachyon 0]

I've watched the first three episodes; the fourth is on my PVR, but I haven't decided if I will continue watching.

 

Alas, I think it's great . . . except that's on ABC. That's not to knock all ABC shows--I love love love Castle--but I feel like the network prodded the show until it amplified the drama enough to be on a "mainstream" network. It only adds to my concerns about the quality of V, on top of the myriad production issues and delays already mounting around that experiment. . . .

 

The first episode was a great start to the series and left me optimistic. The show portrayed the consequences of a global 2 minute 17 second blackout very realistically. (I'm not as convinced of the realism that an FBI field office in LA can unilaterally decide to take over such a prominent investigation, but I'll suspend my disbelief.) It kept me interested for the entire hour and ended with a nice, if predictable, twist.

 

The third episode, however, let me down. It was full of plot holes or otherwise questionable developments (really? No one bothered to check instances of mass blackouts prior to this and came up with Somalia, 1991?). The moral dilemma over whether or not to bargain with the former Nazi, and by extension, the opposing positions taken by Mark and Janis, was contrived. Oh, and of course Mark pulls Janis into the office just so she can do a search. The reason for this so that the audience can overhear their dialogue and learn about the Somalia thing . . . but it just looks like Mark doesn't know how to use the FBI's magical multiple-intelligence-organization search engine that looks like Wolfram Alpha on steroids.

 

OK, that last paragraph sounded increasingly petty. I'm probably being too hard, or at least putting on the appearance of being too hard. However, when that happens, it's usually because the show fails to sustain enough of my interest so I ignore those petty flaws in favour of the entertaining parts. FlashForward has promise, but it's not living up to my expectations.

[Grom 0]

I think with any Sci-Fi, you have to accept the premise of the plot if you're ever going to get into a show, because, as we all know, shows are produced for their entertainment value above anything else.

 

That being said, I definitely agree with you on the third episode. This was by far the weakest episode?

 

*On Nazis: Is this really the only contemptible figure they could come up with? The Nazis are a really tired concept and I really did not find their dealings with the guy as believable. Neither character would have been alive during World War II, so as horrible as the Nazis were, the reactions would be mostly driven by media personification and history books. As you said, the reactions were very much contrived and there was no backstory that would suggest such a deep-set level of emotion. I think it would've been much more interesting to use a more modern villain.

 

On the magic-computer: I laughed when with a few key strokes, everything was at the Janis' fingertips. I'm sure intelligence computers bring up the birth and death rates of crows all the time, right? And you're right about the Somalia plot addition. I imagine the first order of business would be to check whether this happened before.

 

Plot-note: I was a little disappointed that they already threw in variables to the dreams whereby two people dreamed different things (the agent and his girlfriend) and "resolved" the story of the guy and his deceased military daughter. Too many variables will be the show's undoing if they're not careful.

 

These complaints aside, it's still been a good watch, and I'll continue watching unless they go off the deep end.

[TKAR 0]

LOV IT -it reminds me of heroes but different and Ninoy is in it .....