A Man. And His Blog.

Experience FlashForward and get set to grab hold of you from its first explosive moment. Chaos reigns after a mysterious event causes everyone in the world to lose consciousness at exactly the same time for 2 minutes and 17 seconds. Was it an act of nature or something far more sinister? During the global blackout, every man, woman and child was given a glimpse of his or her life six months in the future. One elite law enforcement team from the FBI in Los Angeles jumps into the investigation, attempting to solve the mystery, as the world’s population wrestles with the choice of whether to embrace the fate they’ve seen or fight to change the future.

Episode 01: No More Good Days
I reviewed this episode during the high times of the 2009 fall season. Click here to read more. 7/10

Episode 02: White to Play
I am still not really sure, what the series has to offer during the season; this episode shows many things what to expect in the story, but I am still not overwhelmed. At least we are now sure that this show won’t be a procedural kind of thing – well, it somehow is, but the story is developing.
The episode itself was good, even though the writers try too much to stamp the word “Lost” on their stories – there are already too much questions and open stories, which include all the secrets for the first episode. D. Gibbons, what Charlie (Lennon Wynn) saw in her vision, the situation in Utah, Demetri’s (John Cho) murder on March 15th, 2010. By the way: Charlie’s flash forward is a bit confusing. She knows that D. Gibbons is a bad man, which means she saw him doing something; she saw Dylan (Ryan Wynott), which means both of them are together during their flash forward. But from where does Dylan know Olivia (Sonya Walger)? She wasn’t in his flash forward, she was busy with Lloyd (Jack Davenport)… Hopefully there is a proper explanation coming. Another topic: The producers show the flash forwards too often – how often did I see Janis’ (Christine Woods) flash forward, knowing that her baby will be a daughter; how often did I see Demetri talking about him not having a vision and believing he is going to die; how often did I see Mark’s (Joseph Fiennes) flash forward already? It is the second episode and it already is a bit too much, I don’t need the reminders.
That Olivia and Lloyd are meeting in this episode for the first time was good (at least no stalling tactics in here), but the scene was totally boring. And all the scenes with Mark and Olivia are unreliable, because both actors don’t have the chemistry they need to be believable. How Mark kissed Olivia during the beginning was just laughable and bad acted.
The Utah storyline ended a bit too fast, it probably was a story for two episodes. At least we know that the FBI isn’t the only party who is investigating the blackout, which results in me wanting to know who else is on it.
The side plots were alright and nothing special: Wedeck (Courtney B. Vance) flash forward and him waking up again was funny as hell (and is a bit misplaced in a series like this); bringing us Lloyd closer as a character and finally Demetri and Janis posting their flash forward. But the series still has to find its way to tell all the stories. I am not sure that the writers knew at this point, what stories they wanted to tell. 7,5/10

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It is the last episode of the series. Silly writing, chaos behind the cameras (two showrunner changes) and that horrendous 4-month hiatus killed FlashForward at the end, and I don’t think it will be missed very much. Only around five million viewers were viewing the last episodes of the series, which is an acceptable tribe of fans, which could theoretically keep a series alive, but not on ABC and not with these ratings. NBC killed Heroes with those ratings, so everybody has to understand: FlashForward was dead since March 19, when the ratings for the episode “Revelation Zero” came out.
At least the final episode could manage what the last episodes couldn’t do: The story was entertaining, the action was nice (though corny), the characters not so annoying (since half of them only had less amount of screentime), and it kinda reminded me of “Kobol’s Last Gleaming” – the second season finale of SciFi’s reimagined Battlestar Galactica: The soundtrack, how all the characters were shown and what they do… It had much style and substance and I wished to have seen such scenes a bit more often during the season. Sadly, it wasn’t the case, and with this cliffhanger ending the series goes into its grave, hoping to be rebooted/get remaked in about ten years. But this time as a mini-series. Now it should be obvious that these stories don’t work for a long-time TV series.

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I am happy about the cancellation/ending of FlashForward. The writing is still ridiculous, even with the new showrunners taking the front position of the series’ making, and there is obviously nobody, who can write a good story for FlashForward. Or an interesting one. Or a story, which is not ridiculous.
The episode, which should prepare the awesome season finale of FlashForward couldn’t be more boring. It was April 29, the much appreciated (well…) day of all the characters, and what were they doing? Absolutely nothing. Olivia ran away with Charlie, Janis and Demetri are about to have a two-man war together with Simon to prevent another blackout, Mark is drinking, and somewhere else Tracy is dying. The writers were always thinking about letting the original timeline (a.k.a what we saw in the flash forwards) happen, but how it is going to happen is completely boring and uninteresting. And I was thinking about FlashForward filling the empty slot of Lost and/or 24, but now I still have to wait for a new show to be awesome…

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Well,not even the new showrunners can do a better and more interesting FlashForward. Though the last two episodes had some sorts of an interesting character development, this episode shows that the story would have been good for a miniseries only. FlashForward doesn’t work as a full-season series, which was supposed to run for several years. The writers didn’t know where to go with the story; most of the character developments were ridiculous; and the story seemed to change everything of what happened before; some writers even forgot to include previous storylines, and other writers had to take the rap for it (mostly the new and current showrunners).
Anyway, this episode showed that FlashForward is dead, and not even the crew behind the cameras doesn’t have very much interest in keeping the show alive with incredible and suspenseful storylines. We are one day prior to the flash forwards and this episode was basically crap. And I don’t have any hope that the last two episodes of the season (and definitely the series … When ABC renews this thing, I am going crazy and want Defying Gravity back) will be better than the best episodes of the season, which are some of the earliest.

Okay, ten minutes, after I wrote this paragraph, news came in about ABC canceling FlashForward. Therefore the next two episodes are the final ones. I am happy about that, and I am now really confused, why I even started the FlashForward reviews…

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Okay, that FlashForward has a few new masterminds behind the project should be obvious with this episode. I don’t even want to know, how the episode would look without the threesome consisting of Lisa Zwerling, Tim Lea and Jessika Borsiczky (for those who don’t know: They are running this show). They really are trying to get back to the FlashForward we saw during the first few episodes, they are bringing back old stories and characters, and they even try to clean up the story mess the previous writers left behind – but not without creating some new story mess. But at least I have to give credit to the fact that the series is finally about the flash forwards and the previous blackout again. No more filler stories, instead the writers try to get to the mystery behind the blackout.
This is commendable, but I still miss some great and interesting stories to not let the series vanishing without a trace at the end of the season. It should be obvious now, ABC won’t renew FlashForward for a second season…

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Well, if somebody is still hoping that FlashForward will survive the May upfronts and ABC renews it for a second season, then you must be living in Fringe’s alternate universe. Probably they have pleasure in seeing such an inconsistent conspiracy show about a mystery element, which completely lost track in the series’ story.
That episode disappointed me from the beginning until the end. Only one character was likable during the 41 minutes, only one scene was actually so good, I started to consider giving the episode more than five points. I actually can’t believe how the writers try to build in more twists, just to keep the thrill alive. But they actually didn’t see that they are killing the whole series with it. FlashForward is even more inconsistent than a normal season of 24. The final scene of this episode just proved that. or maybe the showrunner changes are responsible for the bad writing during these last episodes – true to the motto: We don’t like what the previous showrunner did, so we change up everything.

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This episode showed again, how inconsistent the series is during the second half of the season. Not one story is interesting me; the writers dig out old characters, just to bring them back for two, three pathetic scenes, just to prepare a complete ridiculous cliffhanger; other characters completely vanish from the surface (again!); and the rest is so damn uninteresting, I’ve asked myself, why I did start with those reviews here. And I was hoping to see some improvement, but the doubled change of showrunner completely killed the series, besides the long hiatus, and it should be obvious that FlashForward won’t be renewed. So, the fans should say goodbye during the next few episodes, and I can roll with my eyes and thank for wasting my own precious time with dead meat. Well, applause to me…
The episode itself was kinda alright to boring, but absolutely nothing special. The only interesting seconds were the last seconds of the “Demetri dies” countdown, and I was seriously hoping to see Demetri dying. But the writers had something different in mind.
Which was lame and killed the episode for me afterwards.

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If I wouldn’t have chosen to review FlashForward for this blog, I would have canceled the series with this episode. The writers don’t give me any reason, why I should continue this show, when all the stories are currently slightly boring and uninteresting; the writers completely ignored the thrilling stories and gave us conspiracy stories, which probably should save the case about the blackout into the season (and highly possible series) finale. What the writers are doing at the moment is a stalling technique, to not tell anything about the story, just to put all the mysteries into the last two, maybe three episodes. The writers are giving us irrelevant stories, and they don’t have anything to do with the blackout storyline. I only can repeat myself: Blue Hand – is somebody still believing that this already forgotten storyline will be important for the conclusion and therefor a reason for Mark to put this clue on his wall of life?

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Well, my new format of writing reviews is not a testing phase anymore. I tried it first during my reviews for The Prisoner (the 60s series). (Un)Fortunately, no one read my review for the first episode of The Prisoner so far, so basically this new format of writing a review has a real premiere with an episode of FlashForward. And I only can repeat, while I changed it up: It’s easier and faster to write and simpler to read. Yeah, it’s so simple. So, from now on, all my single episode reviews will look that way. Except Lost – that shit deserves a full-grown text.
So, now to FlashForward: The episode was alright. After last episode’s action in Somalia, the writers pressed on Pause and gave us a story, which was a bit calmer, since it mostly was the search for a mole, who is to be revealed at the end of the episode. It could have been a good episode, when 24 wouldn’t be around, because I am starting to hate mole-twists, which are written in such a lame way. Other than that I am thinking that the writers didn’t really know what to do – the best example is the last scene, which contradicts with the rest of the series so far.
Well, kinda…

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Well, “Better Angels” could have been a better episode than last week’s; these better angels could have been better character drawings; or the better angels could have catered to deliver either a much better series, or a painless wipeout from ABC’s schedule.
To flash forward to the end of this review: It kinda was a better episode; the characters were extremely shitty; it still is not a better series, since I don’t have the feeling that the writers have a complete ongoing story (instead much smaller plots, which just connect with the previous mystery and brings us from episode to episode); but the cliffhanger of the episode just fucking got my attention, I can’t stop watching FlashForward, whose fate should be obvious by now: no second season.
Yeah, definitely, D. Gibbons didn’t just got Demetri’s attention, but probably everyone else’s, who stayed with this show.

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