FlashForward (2009)

Everyone loves a good mystery. We can't help but be curious about something we can't figure out right away. Who can say where it comes from?  It is just an innate quality that most human beings share. Lately in the entertainment world we have seen something of a rebirth of the classic mystery. Mainly it has been within the sci-fi/fantasy realm. The first taste we got was with a well known TV show called Lost. It was able to not only pose questions to the audience but created compelling characters that we wanted to learn more about.

Naturally many other networks have tried to jump onto this bandwagon and recreate what Lost did. Flash Forward was one of those shows. Essentially the show is about a global blackout that lasts exactly two minutes and seventeen seconds. During that time every single person in the world has a vision of their lives six months in the future. Our main characters are Mark and Olivia Benford. Mark (Joseph Fiennes) works for the F.B.I. and is a recovering alcoholic. Olivia (Sonya Wager) is an E.R. doctor. They have a daughter together, Charlie, played by Lennon Wynn. When Mark blacks out he sees a future in which he is drinking again while obsessed with figuring the mystery of the blackout. Olivia saw a future in which she is married to another man.

We could go on and on about what each person saw but you get the idea. Some visions were bad, some were good. Initially what sets this show apart is the plot. Unfortunately that's where the originality ends. The show basically pulls a lot of ideas from Lost and tries to make them seem fresh. The opening scene where we see what the affects of a global catastrophe would look like is certainly interesting but essentially is what we got in the first episode of Lost. As Mark is making his way down central L.A. we see kangaroo run past him and we are obviously supposed to wonder what that means. Again, anyone who watched Lost will be reminded of the polar bear. The parallels between the two are so similar as you watch the episodes that you have to wonder if perhaps the producers of the show weren't just really big Lost fans and harbored a severe jealousy that they didn't come up with the idea first.

The series never made it past the first season. It was released on DVD as a box set. Five discs, twenty episodes, so for those of you who really enjoyed the show you can now re-live it to your heart's content. The set does offer some interesting features, an in-depth look at how they created the highway catastrophe in the first episode. Some "real" interviews with other people and how the blackout affected their lives. A look into what a kangaroo was doing in downtown L.A. and a look at the overall arc of the series from beginning to end. Again, though, while the features will certainly be interesting to fans, they don't offer anything original.

Eventually a show will come along that is able to recreate what Lost did without coming off like a rehash of that show. Flash Forward was not the show to do it.