The concept for the show is laid out in the pilot after the entire planet blacks out for exactly 2 minutes and 17 seconds. No one knows how or why, but seemingly everyone on earth not only fell unconscious at the same time (with often catastrophic results--planes crashed, surgeries failed, cars piled up, etc), but everyone seems to have "flashed forward" to April 29, 2010 during the blackout, and were allowed a glimpse of their presumed future.The pilot starts off in medias res with the scene of a gnarled, horrific car crash. After dwelling on the scene for a couple of minutes and illuminating Joseph Fiennes as the obvious lead, the show then flashes back to "four hours earlier." It a directorial technique that's use frequently to get the audience interested in the exciting
events to come so that they're willing to sit through the set up. For a show like FlashForward, it's a lot more meaningful in concept, but could have been stronger in execution. In essence, the audience itself was given a "flash forward" of their own. They were allowed a glimpse of things to come four hours later in the narrative, in much the same fashion as the entire cast is about to experience. The only problem was that the flash forward we were given was fairly unexceptional. Car crashes are always unsettling, but there was little about the scene that confused or dismayed me. The times when this technique is the most effective is when the audience is presented with a scene that they can't fathom how it will come to be. Take for example the opener for the CSI premiere. If a very stylized freeze frame of events, the viewer sees Nick and Sara shooting at mysterious men in suits who are ostensibly stealing a body, the lab is in a shambles, Laurence Fishburne is kicking a guy through a window, and the entire rest of the cast is ducking for cover. Aside from the overall craziness of such a scene, the audience member who might not be as well informed as I am, would have to wonder where the hell Sara came from (having left the show previously). It was a scene the I genuinely wasn't sure how we'd get to once we flashed back 48 hours, but that all made sense when we caught up to the future. Extremely effective and managed to pique my interest in a show that I had kind of lost excitement for ages ago.With FlashForward, by contrast, I saw a car accident involving a bunch of people I didn't know and didn't really think too much
about. Had the scene been more bizarre, unsettling, and confusing, I think it would have made the build up more more effective and exciting and would have lent itself better as an analogy for the flash forward to come. Although it didn't quite hit the mark in as impacting a way as I would have hoped, it still set up the concept of a flash forward in a way that the audience could internalize. From the flash forward where we see Joseph Fiennes' character crawling out from an upturned car, we flash back to earlier in the day where he is going about business as usual, as --wait for it-- an FBI agent, conveniently enough.Fiennes' Mark Benford, who say in his flash forward that he would be investigating the global event that has just crippled the entire planet. It seemed convenient at first, but given the scope of what happened, it really just makes sense that he's the kind of character who would be at the center of things. He, his friends and family, his colleagues, and everyone else on the planet are trying to figure out what happened and how, but much more importantly, why.
The writers did a very good job of thinking out the scenario at hand and dealing with it in a logical way. I didn't spend the pilot thinking, "Well, why don't they look at security cameras to find out what happened? Why don't they set up a global network to share experiences and try to figure out what happened?" etc,
because the writers had already put themselves in the shoes of the characters and settled on obvious courses of action. They clearly evaluated this situation from every angle and then put the logical reactions on the screen. There's nothing I hate more than when half the cast are carrying the idiot ball and no one comes up with the obvious for the sake of more drama, or whatever. I also appreciated that there was very little blow black or skepticism from people. There was no agent Scully trying to rationalize everything and boil it down into understandable bits. The entire planet just experienced the mother of all WTF moments, they all know it, and they're all immediately ready to try to figure out what happened, how, by whom, and why.I really enjoyed the fact that this wasn't an isolated incident. Setting things up on a global scale is kind of daunting, but the show really makes it work. It could have felt like a bad Independence Day knock-off, but aside from scenes of the Eiffel Tower, definitely didn't. With everyone having experienced a glimpse of the future, everyone could be a clue to unraveling the mystery. If Benford saw clues to what happened because he's investigating this phenomenon i
n the future, who knows what other people may have seen. At the same time, no one knows for sure if what they saw is what will actually happen. Will she cheat on her husband? Will she be pregnant? Will he be killed? If it is what should happen, given no interference, is there anyway to change it? To ensure it? Some characters are afraid their futures will come true, others are afraid they won't. It has personal ramifications as well as societal. The concept for the show raises a lot of questions regarding certainty and uncertainty and manages to highlight the fact that both are terrifying in their own ways. It's a situation you don't see often and I'm really digging it so far.Everyone is so rocked by what has happened and how it happened that for now, the why it happened is secondary. Until one of the FBI agents investigates camera footage and finds that at least one person did not black out, they're at a loss for who may have done this and still haven't the faintest idea what the agenda could be. The "why" of it all is the key to the longevity of the series, as far as I'm concerned. The pilot had a "next time on" segment at the end that highlighted various points in the episodes to come and quite frankly, I can't wait. I'm only somewhat invested in the actual characters at this point, what with it being the pilot and all, but the concept has me
riveted. The reasons behind doing something like this are kind of unfathomable and I'm excited to see where the writers take it. Even after we catch up to the future in April, the people behind this and their reasons could take ages to uncover.I can see where this kind of show might not appeal to all audiences, but I'm definitely sucked in. There's a niggling hesitancy at the back of my mind that this might be one of those instances of a great pilot, bad series, but I'm confident that's not the case. The writers have a hell of a lot going for them and it shouldn't be too hard making a gripping series out of it. Indeed, I think the only way in which this could really falter is that the show might have too much going for it. They can't really spend every minute of every episode trying to figure out what happened, but at the same time, it's hard to imagine everyday minutia going on in light of what happened.
The show has a slick, high budget production style and the directing was solid and convincing, even in spite of such a difficult concept. The cast is excellent (including John Cho and Dominic
Monaghan), and while Fiennes' American accent could use some work, he's a consistent player who can certainly anchor a series. Overall I was more impressed with this pilot than any other so far this fall (I'm hoping V ultimately steals the show, but so far, FlashForward is taking the cake at this point). So long as the writers keep themselves grounded and don't loose focus (Heroes, I'm looking in your direction), I don't see why this show shouldn't have a long, successful life.The pilot is available on Hulu and had me sucked in from beginning to end. It wasn't perfect, but has a lot going for it and I'm digging it so far. It's definitely worth your time and assuming it finds the right audience, should be around for a long time to come (assuming it doesn't fall apart like other shows that started off strong and fizzled soon after (The Nine has become the benchmark--it was one of the strongest pilots of its season, but tanked soon after). The actors all seemed to still be employed in their flash forwards, so I guess that's a good sign?
Pilot Grade: B+
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