TV Spoilers

This will be a quick refresher of the latest episode.

A man wakes up in an overturned car. He crawls out and finds the entire highway littered with smashed-up cars and astounding amounts devastation. He calls out for someone named Demetri and we’re tossed through a quick title sequence.

Four hours earlier, Mark wakes up to an odd note from his wife, Olivia. The babysitter shows up, Mark heads off to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and Olivia takes off for the hospital she works at. At AA, a man named Aaron talks about how he lost control following his daughter’s death in the military. Olivia is scrubbing up for a surgery, Aaron is climbing a telephone pole, the babysitter mounts her boyfriend while a young girl sleeps upstairs, a man walks out onto the Venice pier and prepares to kill himself, while Mark and his partner Demetri are in hot pursuit of a trio of terrorists.

Suddenly, everyone blacks out. During this time, Mark sees himself months in the future drinking heavily and examining a corkboard covered in clippings, pictures and other items. Masked men with assault rifles are coming down the hall towards him and then he “wakes up” in his car, now overturned, just as we saw as the show began.

Olivia wakes up on the floor of the ER, her patient now dead. The man on the pier wakes up as balloons float up into the sky. The surfers below call out for help as many of their friends lie lifeless in the water. Nicole, the babysitter, wakes up on the floor and rushes to check on Charlie, who says she had a bad dream. Nobody knows what just happened.

Slowly but surely, people begin to learn the extent of the phenomenon. It’s not just local or regional. This thing isn’t even just national. It’s global. Seven billion people around the world just blacked out in the middle of whatever they were doing for two minutes and 17 seconds. Cars veered out of control, planes have crashed and many people are either dead or injured as a result.

Mark and the FBI begin trying to make sense of all the madness. It comes slowly but they realize that everyone had a vision of some kind of future. Everyone’s visions took place on the same day and at the same time- several months in the future. Mark and Demetri set up a huge corkboard and tack clues to it that Mark can remember from his vision. It’s only a few paltry pieces of an expansive puzzle but it’s a start.

Everyone starts asking each other what they saw. Some saw very little. Some saw a lot. Some saw nothing at all. Some people are more hopeful for the future while others are afraid of what they saw. As the world tries to recover and put the pieces together, Mark and Olivia discuss what they saw in their visions. Olivia reveals all- she saw herself in love with another man. Mark, on the other hand, holds back the fact that he saw himself drinking.

The episode comes to a close with Demetri working late with a woman named Janis. After going through hours worth of webcams and security footage, Janis makes a startling discovery. At a Detroit ballpark, a lone, dark figure is seen walking while the rest of humanity is out cold.

This little section is going to be where I talk about what I liked about the episode, what I didn’t like about the episode and the things that made me go “hmm.”

GOOD: The opening scene
I liked how they stuck us right in the middle of things. Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few months, you knew the show’s premise in advance thanks to ABC advertising the living daylights out of this series. Instead of a long and tedious buildup, we’re thrown right into the aftermath. There’s confusion, chaos and carnage. And in case you were wondering, this opening scene does NOT take two minutes and 17 seconds. It actually only took 49 seconds by my count.

GOOD: The quick flashback
It doesn’t really matter what everyone was doing before The Flash took place. What matters is what they saw, how they react to what they saw and how they handle the messy aftermath of The Flash. Character backgrounds and development will come in time. It was nice to see what everyone was doing when The Flash hit and they handled it very well. They could have spent the first 15 minutes or even half of the episode building up to The Flash, which would have been terrible.

UH...GLY: The Oceanic Airlines billboard
Did we really need this? There’ve already been too many comparisons between this show and Lost. I felt the inclusion of the Oceanic advert was unnecessary. Maybe if it hadn’t been quite so painfully obvious I’d be okay with it but this was the pilot episode. Why reference another show in the episode that’s supposed to lay the foundation? Let the show establish itself before doing anything like this.

GOOD: Embracing the disaster flick staples
Trucks exploding, people on fire, screaming, crying and no one having a darn clue what to do about it- this is exactly what the pilot episode needed. In chat rooms and forums across the web, there seems to be a very vocal minority who hated this element of the premiere. They are complaining about excessive amounts of slow motion footage of Mark running through the streets of LA, overly dramatic music and the heavy-handed tone of it all. Frankly, how could anyone not expect to see this?

When everyone on earth blacks out at the same moment for over two straight minutes, lots of things are going to go wrong. Especially in a large city. Plus, this show is being brought to us by David S. Goyer, whose resume is full of action and sci-fi flicks and TV shows, and Brannon Braga, who has worked on another action-oriented show called 24. To think that these men wouldn’t milk all the disaster epic potential from the aftermath of The Flash is just kind of silly.

BAD: Brushing the disaster epic stuff off so quickly
Do you really expect me to believe that all the roads have been cleared after only a few hours? It looked like The Flash occurred early or in the middle of the day because there was a lot of traffic mangled up on the roads when everybody came to. And yet, Mark and Olivia both manage to get back to their quaint little home in the suburbs at the end of the day? That just doesn’t make sense. With all the wrecked cars, planes and whatever else, I would expect a city the size of Los Angeles to end up clogged the whole way through. There couldn’t possibly be enough emergency personnel, National Guard troops and tow trucks to get everything cleared up so people can be home by sundown. And I can guarantee you that Olivia would be putting in extra time at the hospital due to all the injuries caused by The Flash.

I understand that time was limited and they needed to get a number of things laid out for storytelling purposes but the kind of cleanup necessary after such a catastrophe simply could not have been accomplished in one day, let alone a few hours. This was one of the two major flaws in the FlashForward premiere. I think that the cleanup of LA, in conjunction with footage of the cleanup across the world could have easily been incorporated into the first few episodes. Dealing with the aftermath of The Flash should have been a 3-episode story arc in my opinion. Progress could be slowly made on what The Flash was during that 3-episode arc but they really shot themselves in the foot with the way they chose to execute it.

BAD: Visual effects
When things blow up and shoot shrapnel everywhere, visual effects are a must. Fortunately, the premiere didn’t overuse special effects. Much of what they did use though was subpar and definitely looked fake. I realize this is only TV we’re talking about and all shows have their share of lousy SFX, but I think they could have tried harder than this.

GOOD: Floating surfers
Man that was creepy! All of the crashed cars and smoky buildings were nothing new but the shot of the surfers floating in the water really hammered home the danger of The Flash to me. It made me think about all the day-to-day tasks that we do and how many possible injuries you could sustain by passing out in the middle of them. Really scary stuff.

UH...GLY: Cell phone reception?
It didn’t take too long for Mark and Olivia to make contact. While very few, if any, cell towers were damaged by The Flash, the sheer volume of people trying to get through to loved ones would probably leave things clogged up and crashing for much of the day. More and more people have cell phones these days (I myself am not one of them) and there’s a growing trend in forgoing landline phones altogether. Not being able to get through to his wife for a few hours would have allowed Mark to fulfill his obligation to restoring order as well. I know he’s not a cop but he is law enforcement and people were looking for order and assurance. He could have helped.

UH...GLY: Doctors without masks
Maybe I just haven’t spent enough time in hospitals (thank God) but I would have thought that, even in times of extreme crisis, doctors would remember to put on surgical masks when they’re in the ER. Sure, blood spattering on Olivia’s mouth and cheek made the scene dramatic and showed more of their facial expressions but it didn’t make sense to me. I’d have thought grabbing a mask would be second nature to a doctor.

BAD: Figuring things out in just four hours
I know it’s the FBI’s job to investigate stuff and get answers but it was just a little too ridiculous for me when they started figuring things out so quickly. I can understand realizing that everybody saw stuff and possibly finding out that other people saw the same stuff but the way they worked out that what they saw was the future so quickly reminded me of the laughably quick thought processes that drives the National Treasure film series. Then doctors and scientists come along minutes later and confirm what Mark and the FBI theorized. Again, I think they should have taken it slowly with the figuring out of things and spread it over the first few episodes. This was the second major problem I had with the premiere.

BAD: The quick implementation and use of the term “flash forward”
It’s a neat title for the series but hearing it come out of the characters mouths just sounds wrong. I could live with them calling what they saw a ‘flash’ but to actually use the title of the show as a description of the event somehow sits wrong with me. As of right now it’s just being thrown around by the FBI but I have a feeling people are going to be talking about their flash forwards all season long. It just came about too quickly and is already being tossed around too casually for my liking.

GOOD: The handling of the flashes
Another thing the vocal minority has been clamoring about is the way they executed the flash forward sequences. I think the disjointed, quick-cut nature of the flashes was perfect. Our memories aren’t seamless so why should a flash forward be any different? I was glad that the flashes were shown to us from the 3rd person perspective. If we’d have seen them from the character’s perspective it would have been a little weird. Also, it seems like they remember seeing things from a distance, as if their conscious self didn’t replace their future consciousness. It reminded me of the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. By entering through magic doorways, people can enter the back of another person’s mind. They can choose to take control of the person but they can also sit and watch. The way Mark and Olivia described their flashes, it seems like they were sitting and watching. Had they taken control, they would have just been confused in their future body.

UH…GLY: Create a website!
This was pretty cheesy. I know that it makes perfect sense but the way it came up was just way too corny for me. TV and radio haven’t been disrupted, so it should be easy to get the word out about the site, but still- the way they executed this was weak. Besides, what’s to stop people from making their own websites to collect flash accounts? Also, what’s to stop someone from lying about what they saw?

GOOD: The last minute of the episode
The premiere was pretty right up the middle until that last minute. The revelation that someone in Detroit was awake while everyone else in the world was flashing was awesome. Since the flashes were worked out and explained so quickly and easily the audience needed something to cling to for a week. Seeing a dark figure moving amidst a sea of limp bodies injected life and momentum into the series. While the first episode had high ratings, you’re almost always going to lose people after the first episode. The dark figure undoubtedly secured a number of return viewers for next week.

BAD: ABC’s promotions department
All summer long they’ve been pimping this show out to the max. It risked overexposure and that probably worked against some viewers who may have been left hoping for more. The advertisements touted it as coming from “the people that brought you Lost.” This is horribly disingenuous. David S. Goyer and Brannon Braga have never worked on Lost. FlashForward is coming from ABC Studios, which also produces Lost but the people at ABC Studios hardly have much to do with the show itself.

Also, the promo that aired after the premiere showed us a little too much. I can see how it might help draw in people wavering on whether to keep watching but it seemed like an awful lot of information was either put forth or hinted at during the promo. It seems like ABC does this a lot and I can only hope that there were some red herrings amidst all that.

Every week I am going to come up with 20 questions that I’m dying (or at least very eager) to have answered. Twenty is a daunting number, so don’t be surprised if some of the same questions appear week after week. I’ll keep track of what gets answered.

1. What’s up with Mark and Olivia’s relationship?
Seriously, between the “You’re a crappy husband… I hate you” not in his safe and the “Hope I never see you again” text message, these two are either on rocky ground or have a very weird way of showing affection.

2. What’s up with Bryce?
What led him to the verge of suicide and what did he see in his flash that makes him so positive? It can’t just be that he saw himself alive.

3. Were animals affected by The Flash as well?
The presence of the kangaroo in downtown LA leads me to believe this is not the case but I’m curious. That probably would mean a whole lot of birds died. I have my doubts but I want to be sure.

4. Speaking of the kangaroo, what’s up with that?
Seriously, was there some kind of zoo escape or was Jack Hanna just filming an animal special in LA?

5. Is Aaron’s daughter really alive?
Remember the guy at the AA meeting who was later dangling from the power lines? He saw his daughter alive in his flash. Could this be true or could he have been dreaming this in his future?

6. What did Charlie see that leads her to believe there are going to be no more good days?
This part was undeniably creepy.

7. Will there be another Flash?
Was this an isolated event or will it be an ongoing thing?

8. Did everyone see the same future?
They made it seem like everyone saw the same future because the FBI was able to corroborate a flash that involved two people. But just because a few people saw the same thing, does this mean everybody saw the same future?

9. Why did some people see nothing during their flash?
Are they dead or just asleep? This could definitely bring some drama into uncovering the mystery. It’s almost a shame that, so far, only one main character seems to have seen nothing during their flash.

10. Can the future be changed?
Just because people saw themselves in the future doesn’t necessarily mean that is what will happen. This opens the door to some potentially heady discussion about fatalism vs. free will. Some people might feel that seeing themselves in the future means that they’ll survive anything that happens in the coming months. Some might be emboldened to do some surprising things while others may take the other stance. Some may just sit around and not do anything because they know they’re alive in the future and don’t want to risk changing that.

11. Will some people try to prevent the future they saw from coming true?
Bryce saw something positive in his future. Mark and Olivia saw negatives things in their futures. Others, like Mark’s boss, saw a future that wasn’t clearly good or bad. The people who saw good things probably would like to see them come true. Will this put them at odds with folk like Mark and Olivia who would rather not see their future become a reality? Certainly Aaron is going to want his future to be true if it means finding his daughter alive. The people who saw an innocuous future may be stuck in the middle of this looming conflict. This holds a lot of promise.

12. Will peoples’ knowledge of the future cause it to come true?
For instance, Olivia saw herself with another man and Mark saw himself drinking. Which comes first? Could Olivia’s revelation that she saw herself with another man torment Mark to the point of drinking again, thereby causing her to leave him for another man? This is like the Mozart Paradox- You travel back in time with a CD of one of Mozart’s symphonies to a point before Mozart began writing that symphony. You have Mozart listen to the music and he writes it down. Where then does the music actually come from?

Or could it work this way- Mark didn’t tell Olivia that he saw himself drinking. He lied by omission. If she finds out that her husband wasn’t completely honest with her, could that lead her to another man, thereby causing Mark to drink again? Could the cause of the future have yet to take place or is the cause of the future seeing the future itself? Again, some potentially heavy stuff here.

13. Will any of those items that Mark saw on the corkboard be useless?
Let’s return to that Mozart Paradox for a second- if your future self gives you a clue for a case, where does the clue every really come from? In Mark’s flash, he saw a whole bunch of pictures and words tacked onto that corkboard. Toward the end of the episode, Mark is trying to put as much onto that corkboard as he can remember. Here’s the thing- if he’s putting clues on the corkboard based of what he saw in his flash, this means that this is always how it has been. This means that “Blue Hand” and “D. Gibbons” were never clues that Mark stumbled upon through any of his work but were always put there because he remembered them being there in his vision. Could any of these clues be completely meaningless then? Technically there was never a valid reason for those clues to exist save for the fact that Mark saw them in his flash. This could lead to some red herrings down the line. I hope they think of addressing this potential conundrum.

14. Who is the mystery man named “Suspect Zero” in the promo?
Every good show needs a mystery, so I hope we don’t find out too terribly soon.

15. Why didn’t he flash?

16. Did he have something to do with The Flash?
If he didn’t flash then this is certainly a logical extension of the above question. He also didn’t look freaked out at all by what was taking place around him. Could The Flash have been something people could have known about? Could it have been prevented or avoided?

17. Why didn’t he try to fit in?
In this day and age, cameras are everywhere. Surely, Suspect Zero knew this. So why not just lay there with the rest of the crowd and pretend to wake up dazed like the rest of them? I wonder if Suspect Zero knew there was a good chance he would appear on camera and intentionally walked around. Maybe he wanted to be seen? Perhaps he did this to divert people’s attentions away from The Flash itself and get them to focus solely on figuring out who he is. But what would he be trying to hide by exposing himself?

18. Is Suspect Zero the only person to have avoided The Flash?
Now that they’ve found one person seemingly immune to The Flash, I’m sure that the FBI is going to look at a lot more footage to try and figure out how many more people weren’t affected. If there is more than just one person immune to it then I smell a conspiracy.

19. Can/will the FBI keep Suspect Zero a secret?
Again, this is the day and age where cameras are everywhere. Will the FBI want to keep this guy a secret while to work to figure out who he is? If they do want to keep him a secret, can they? I’m sure that someone else will be able to patch in or hack that camera and see that dark figure walking amongst the masses. If that happens, will they notify the press? This whole Suspect Zero thing could get very messy very quickly. But maybe that’s the point?

20. How far and how long can this show stretch the premise?
My first thought after seeing this episode for the first time was “This would have probably made for an awesome mini-series.” There is a great danger in trying to string viewers along for too long without any sort of satisfying resolution. FlashForward is a serialized drama. It has worked in the past but it has failed more often than it has worked.

The future that everyone has flashed to is April 29, 2010, which happens to be a Thursday. If the first season of this show is going to draw us near to the point that everyone flashed to, then there better be something interesting enough to take us past that point. If the show is going to drag the march up to that date on for several seasons, then we need to get enough payoff on the way to keep us interested.

I guess the ultimate question right now is this: Is April 29, 2010 the end point or is it just the first stop on a larger journey?

This section is going to basically sum up my thoughts on each episode and the series up to that point.

I liked the premiere of FlashForward. It seems like it’s going to be a fun show to watch. Does it have its problems? Sure, but what show doesn’t? Was it overhyped? Absolutely and that’s a shame. Is it the next Lost? No, but should you really be asking that question? I don’t think it’s fair to compare FlashForward to Lost because aside from the freaky, potentially supernatural stuff and their serial nature, they have absolutely nothing in common. You want to talk about similar shots? I bet that you could find shots that Lost replicated or emulated from other great shows of yore but no one is crying foul.

My point is that everyone needs to shut up and stop comparing this show to Lost. Yes, ABC’s promotion department wants you to think it’s the next Lost but screw them. Just take the show for what it is and judge it for its own inherent strengths and weaknesses. In fact, this show doesn’t remind me of Lost one bit. If anything, it reminds me of last year’s US adaptation of Life on Mars (sorry, never saw the UK version) and the underappreciated apocalyptic thriller Jericho, which ran on CBS for 29 episodes. Life on Mars had a great mystery and Jericho made good use of its disaster-epic roots. FlashForward seems like a smart merger between these two concepts.

“No More Good Days” was pretty good for a premiere episode. It introduced us to some interesting characters, delivered the show’s central conflict and left us wanting more. It showed up, did its job and left. It had a fair share of mistakes, misfires and implausibility but, as long as you don’t let it fall victim to today’s demand for hyper-realism in everything we watch, it wasn’t that bad. Character development will come in time and we’ve already been given one heck of a mystery to latch onto. This show has plenty of potential and I’m willing to give it time to realize that potential.

It could have been better and probably would have been better had it been a two-hour premiere but it could have been a lot worse. What can I say? I’m an optimist.

Episode Rating: 7 out of 10