FlashForward

What about Prison Break?

I would say Prison Break is worth watching. The first two seasons are fantastic, the third is pretty good but gets messed up by the writer's strike and the fourth is kind of lame but is still decent TV.
 
I saw the pilot. I felt worried as soon as I noticed that the show is produced by David S Goyer (who isn't very good) and Brannon Braga (who kinda killed STAR TREK).

The episode is desperately trying to be HEROES. It has the exact same set up - weird global changing event and a vision of the season finale that the show will now build towards in a clockwork fashion, whilst showcasing the lives of disparate ordinary people all affected by said event.

Yes there are some cool things inherent about the concept of FLASHFOWARD, but it will always be put on 'hold' to do stories about boring people doing boring things. For example, we already know, from the pilot, that a lot of this show will be devoted to a marital affair between two of the main characters, another character looking for his daughter, an alcoholic succumbing to his addiction, a man dealing with a terminal illness (i.e. "In six months I'm dead... I think"), and no doubt, more to come (like the suicide guy and the babysitter). So how much, do you think, each episode will deal with the whole point of the show, that is, WHAT WAS THE EVENT? Who, why, what, when, where, how, and yadda-yadda. Answer: Not much. In the pilot, we got, maybe 10 minutes of people discovering stuff and at the end we find out that there's someone who didn't black out. Because the show feels it must have soap operatics because the actual thrust of the show is paper-thin.

This was my big beef with HEROES at the beginning, and it took 9 episodes for it to get out of that funk, before it replaced it with a whole other slew of problems. But the probelm with the first 8 episodes of HEROES was that it spend all that time introducing characters and sub-plots that you DON'T CARE ABOUT. It got a free pass as it was "the first season", but didn't when it tried the same trick at the beginning of season 2. And if you think the free pass is a fair thing, you're demonstrably wrong.

Watch DRIVE. This show aired four episodes. It had an ensemble cast. In four episodes the plot not only introduced the main characters and their desires, but actually progressed the whole thing a great deal. Watch THE WIRE or THE SOPRANOS or, dare I say it, ROME, which have each episode matter both singularly and holistically.

FLASHFORWARD's pilot is a promise of a good show "later", once all the pieces are set up. But I doubt any of it will be worth the wait.

I dunno if I can be bothered to watch the second episode. Like FRINGE, LOST, HEROES, and BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, I'm sure FLASHFORWARD act like it has a long-running arc, but will actually just put in token cliffhangers each week while forcing us to watch dull, cliche soap operatics involving mundane cardboard characters we've seen a thousand times before.

Sure, it sounds like I'm being harsh, but here's the thing:

This is the pilot of a BRAND NEW SHOW. And no one who's seen it thinks its original. Everyone thinks it might be like "LOST" or "HEROES" but not as bad.

Well, yes it will be just as bad. Because the pilot didn't fix anything in their pilots. Why would the rest of the show be any different?

Am I condemning it unfairly? I don't think so. The pilot's a bland cliche. The only interesting part was the guy who didn't black out. How much you want to bet they won't even meet that guy for a month? In the mean time, we'll see the main characters tell their kids not to worry about the future and people endlessly talk about free will. *shudder*
 
Well, I watched the pilot a few days ago. I agree with Bass on the boring people point, but I've got another problem with it too. I didn't learn anything new in the hour. Everything they set up in the pilot is either obvious, run of the mill drama or was shown as a hook in the previews. It literally took them an hour to get acrossed everything I already knew from a series of 30 second clips.

I figure I'll just read the book. At least then there will be a resolution.
 
I was going to argue that it'd best if everyone just watch a few more episodes because I doubt if it's going to stay the same for long, but Friday brings up a good point. There's a book that the show is based on.
 
From what little I've read about the book, I see few similarities so far between it and the show. Instead of seeing sixth months ahead, the characters in the book see 21 YEARS into the future. Also, the main character's name is Lloyd and is a scientist, not a cop.
 
From what little I've read about the book, I see few similarities so far between it and the show. Instead of seeing sixth months ahead, the characters in the book see 21 YEARS into the future. Also, the main character's name is Lloyd and is a scientist, not a cop.

Lloyd Simcoe is also in the show. He's the man Olivia sees in her flashforward, also whose son Olivia and Bryce operated on and saved his life
 
I enjoyed the second episode more than the first but I still don't see how this will work as an ongoing show. I think it's much more suited to a mini-series.
 
Yeah... I'm really interested, and clearly something big is going down... But I have NO idea how they could do this over multiple seasons.
 
Yeah... I'm really interested, and clearly something big is going down... But I have NO idea how they could do this over multiple seasons.

There's most likely gonna be another flashforward (which I think is a huge form of déjà vu). Like I said before, I think for the two minutes and seventeen seconds that the people saw of their future, that future won't even happen. I think once the moment comes for their flashforward to occur, the world will blackout and have another flashforward. Any more opinions on this would be cool to read.

Speaking of déjà vu, is it kinda creepy or cool when it happens? I think if you see your own future, you immediately change it just by seeing it (anybody seen Next?). But when I think of Mark Benford's flashforward, he was investigating the GBO (global blackout). It wasn't him with his family still sober, or whatever he could have seen. So it makes me think the future is already written in this FlashForward universe.
 
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Anyone catch the second episode? I like the direction it is taking, but it is scary how it tries to be like Lost. They're essentially building to the revelation that there are "the Others" that know about the flashes before it happened. These flashes are going to be proven to be repairable, blah blah blah.

Don't get me wrong, though. I enjoy it.
 
Anyone catch the second episode? I like the direction it is taking, but it is scary how it tries to be like Lost. They're essentially building to the revelation that there are "the Others" that know about the flashes before it happened. These flashes are going to be proven to be repairable, blah blah blah.

Don't get me wrong, though. I enjoy it.

I had to rewatch it a couple of times to understand what was happening. Especially since the news stations here kept interrupting the broadcast warning us about thunderstorms and severe weather. I wish they'd do that during commercials.
 
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I had trouble following a little, too. I especially had trouble trying to understand why they were investigating certain things, most specifically that building with all the dolls hanging in it.

I am pretty committed to this show, believe it or not. I think it'll be entertaining enough at least to hold me over for Lost.
 
I think the investigation is going to be stupid. It occurs to me that the show can just go, "This is a clue because I saw it in a flashforward. I don't know why it's a clue, it just is." That was the level of 'detective work' the first episode did, and I bet they never move past that for the whole show.
 
You can't even enjoy that though? It's going to turn out to be mindless -- it's television -- but just as entertaining as the next sci-fi show. The trouble people have with it is that it has a hype machine behind it.
 
Edits

Be sure to check out my first post. I'm constantly editing it as the series progresses. Any help from you would be cool.
 
You can't even enjoy that though? It's going to turn out to be mindless -- it's television -- but just as entertaining as the next sci-fi show. The trouble people have with it is that it has a hype machine behind it.

I can't enjoy it because... if it was supposed to be mindless, then the show could have fun being mindless. But it's not, it's supposed to be clever.

It's just a bad show. Watching it because it's 'mindless', is like driving 10 minutes to McDonald's to order food that will take 5 minutes to get once you've finished 5 minutes of queuing, when you could just easily make something proper in 20 minutes at home.

Anyhow, I'm being a sourpuss. I'll leave you guys to enjoy it. :)
 
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I fail to see how you can pass judgement on a show based on two episodes, especially if it's a serial. You know what to expect going in, dude. A serial in the barest of bones is essentially on-going story arcs. You've barely seen this one take off yet. Give it time.
 
Actually, it's just one episode.

Really, the only time I can recall recently of my first impressions of a show being wrong was HEROES. I thought it was really stupid and boring, and then it became awesome. Then it became stupid and boring.

I don't need to see another show which may become good for a brief time. Especially one that hasn't got a character or premise I'm interested in, nor any plot lines.
 
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137 Sekunden

haven't seen "137 Sekunden" yet, been busy with two jobs (lucky me). can't wait to see it. any thoughts/reviews on it?
 

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