FlashForward midseason report

ABC

OK, time out, FlashForward. You really don’t know where you’re going with this do you? Eight episodes in and I still don’t care about any of your characters. 20 million people have died and I cared more when FaceLift misplaced her nail varnish on Lost. FlashForward fan boys clog the Internet forums wondering “how will they square development x with development y?” I’ll tell you how – they’ll cheat. Because while everyone in the world is either trying to avoid their FlashForward or bring it forth the writers of the show are just relaxing in Lame-Oh Land just spinning the yarn in any direction they feel like.

“Olivia has solved the free will debate for good and all by destroying her future knickers. I don’t see how an identical twinset can end up on her sometime in the next six months – it’s not like they’re mass manufactured or anything.”

So yes, some people go to any lengths to avoid their future. Of course Olivia doesn’t want to end up sexing sexy Lloyd Simcoe, so when the bra and panties she wears in her future flash love nest with Lloyd arrive as a gift from husband Mike she takes the only sensible option: she throws them in the bin. For good and all she has solved the free will debate by destroying her future knickers. I don’t see how an identical twinset can end up on her sometime in the next six months – it’s not like they’re mass manufactured or anything.

“They hang out at underground clubs where they wear black, play Russian roulette, listen to industrial metal and get their perv on. Welcome to GothForward”

Also wresting control of the future back is FBI agent Al Gough who took a swandive off the FBI building rather than realise his future: causing the death of a woman he doesn’t yet know called Celia. Gough’s suicide causes big waves in the Already Ghosts community, those unfortunate humanoids who did not receive a FlashForward (the assumption being that they don’t live to see the next six months). These nihilist miserablists hang out at underground Blue Hand clubs where they wear black, play Russian roulette, listen to industrial metal and get their perv on. Welcome to GothForward.

I’m pretty certain none of that amounts to much. FlashForward badly wants to be Lost and to this end they employ the show’s most annoying actor Dominic Monaghan playing Simon, a hugely unconvincing espionage bastard involved in the Event experiment with Lloyd Simcoe that caused all the forward flashing (and the 20 million dead).

“They kill the guy with the star tattoos on his arm from Mike’s FlashForward. BUT WAIT. In the big end of show reveal there are other dudes with star tattoos ON THEIR ARMS. It’s almost like a star tattoo isn’t like dental records or DNA after all. Talk about phoning a script in.”

Lloyd is having conscience pangs at having killed more men than malaria and wants to go public with what they did but Simon is all “yeh, woteva”. Then, for no reason I or anyone else can fathom, Simon says he’ll agree to go public if Lloyd beats him at poker. “You want to wager the fate of millions of people on the outcome of a *poker* game?” asks Lloyd. Did I stutter, motherfucker? Lloyd wins by cheating just like the show does.

And it’s because the show is filled with crappy, haphazard, this’ll-do writing like this that I know they won’t deliver over the course of a season. Mike and his FBI buddies kill the guy with the star tattoos on his arm from Mike’s FlashForward. BUT WAIT. In the big end of show reveal there are other dudes with star tattoos ON THEIR ARMS. It’s almost like a star tattoo isn’t like dental records or DNA after all. Talk about phoning a script in. Future knickers and star tattoos are their big issues.

I guarantee you the finale will be a confectionery of fudges, a holding cell of cheats and a haunted house of deux ex machinas. No good will come of it.

The best thing about it: The anticipation waiting for Sonya Walger’s drawers to return from the dead.

The worst thing about it: It wants to be Lost but it’s really just lost.

The verdict on FlashForward midseason report: Already strongly making the case for its own extinction.

Marks out of 10: 5

Imagined: Wednesday, November 18 2009