For weeks, there have been trailers on Channel Five, for the latest hot TV craze from America, a show called FlashForward. Honestly, you haven’t been able to move for promos of it, with people raving about it. Naturally, this made me a bit reticent to think it could actually turn out to be good, since, y’know, people rave about Lost and it’s rubbish. So, I watched it last night, with exceedingly low expectations. And this is my opinion of the first episode:
Even if I’d watched it with very high expectations, FlashForward would still’ve blown my mind.
It. Was. Awesome.
And best of all, for the purposes of this blog, it actually had some relatively modern mobile phones in it! Well, alright, let’s not go overboard, a relatively modern phone.
Well, alright, a Blackberry Storm. Considering the cack phones that normally get seen on TV, or in films, that’s a massive step up, that is. Oh, and there was a Samsung F700 as well, which is, as one of Samsung’s earliest touchscreen phones, a precursor to modern monster like the Samsung Pixon 12.
Ah, but what of the plot?
Well, here’s the mindbending bit. The story begins on a day like any other day, with people going about their business, and FBI agent Mark Benford (Joseph Fiennes proving he can be as large a ham as his brother…) in hot pursuit of a rather attractive blonde woman, and a terrorist (oh, and his partner is the MILF Guy out American Pie… or Sulu out the new Star Trek, if you want a more nerdish reference). And then everyone in the world blacks out, for 2 minutes 17 seconds. Billions of people, all switched off like lightbulbs.
And then, when they wake up, you get the kind of chaos you’d expect from 6 billion people suddenly falling asleep, especially if they’re behind the steering wheel. Roads are jammed by thousands, millions, of fatal accidents. People lay dead where they fell face down in a puddle. Planes on take-off or landing have dropped out of the sky, ploughing through nearby houses. Helicopters have flown into buildings, setting the L.A. skyline ablaze. Millions of people, round the world: dead in the space of two minutes.
Oh, and bizarrely, there’s a kangaroo hopping around in downtown L.A.
Oh, but people didn’t just black out. They saw the future. For those two minutes, their perception was six months in the future, living memories of events yet to happen. Cue the ongoing plot: figure out what caused the global blackout, and figure out why April 29th, 2010, is so important…
Oh, and cue lots of people watching in awed silence, then getting hit with a HUGE cliffhanger. And then, cue lots of wild mass guessing on what the hell is going on.
It was masterful. Not for a long time have I seen a TV show that got me thinking and discussing possible theories with so many people. This is what we need more of on telly, intelligent, well-made sci-fi. And I don’t care that the writers and producers say it’s not sci-fi. Unless their explanation of the event is “God, or possibly a wizard, did it”, then it has to have some kind of scientific explanation. And since it’ll then be fiction that involves science (and ten quid says it invokes quantum, and predestination paradoxes/stable time loops are a shoe-in to get mentioned, too), it’ll be science fiction.
Now, in the original novel the TVshow’s based on, the whole thing was caused by the large hadron collider being turned on, and some kind of cosmic accident. Since it looks like the event on the telly was something done deliberately (watch the episode on Demand Five, and pay attention not just at the Detroit Stadium scene, but at the two Chinook helicopters… you’ll see what I mean), I reckon we can rule out the LHC.
So, the question remains, what the hell is going on? Well, in truth, I do not yet have a clue. But I know one thing. The next 13 weeks, as we find out, are going to be awesome…
What’s your theory on FlashForward? LHC, aliens or a wizard did it? Leave us a comment and have your say!