FlashForward: “Scary Monsters and Super Creeps”
By Tiffany Vogt
Nov-4-2009
This article may contain spoilers.
In “Scary Monsters and Super Creeps,” the show attempted to answer the question: “What caused the flashforwards?” Alas, the answer was perhaps more confounding than the question. For as Simon (Dominic Monaghan) attempted to explain quantum mechanics in simple terms to the blonde on the train, we were all left scratching our heads over how Schrodinger’s Cat Theory actually worked. In Simon’s example, you have to imagine that in your hand you are holding a tiny cat and a poisoned sardine, and if you fold your hand closed, the cat is given two choices: either the cat eats the poisoned sardine and dies, or it doesn’t and lives. You will not know until you open your hand which option the cat chose. Thus, it is up to the cat to decide if it wants to live or die. It is only after you (the observer) open your hand that you will discover the cat’s fate — and quantum physics says that until you open your hand both eventualities occur at the
same time. But, according to Schrodinger’s Cat Theory, the miracle of quantum mechanics is that the observer gets to decide.
This is a mind-bender. Are there two parallel realities? Is it up to each of us to decide which reality will exist? However, applying Schrodinger’s Cat Theory, as the woman noted, “The cat had already made up its mind.”
Also following this vein, the series seems to be focusing on whether each character will choose to eat the poisoned sardine or not. Does each move forward to make their visions a reality or move away and resist their visions to become a reality? Mark (Joseph Fiennes) and Olivia (Sonya Walger) are pushing against allowing their visions from coming true. Mark does not want to return to his dark days of alcoholism and a failed marriage, and Olivia does not want to abandon her marriage and find love with another man she does not know. Additionally, Demetri (John Cho) does not want his vision to come true either, for he does not want to be murdered.
However, in contrast, while Janis (Christine Woods) had initially struggled against her vision, after being shot she appears to have reconsidered her views on having a child. For she clearly did want to have a child as she wept over the possibility that the scar tissue from her gun shot wound and surgery may prevent her from ever getting pregnant.
Also, rather interesting is, as Olivia noted, the flashfowards are a distraction. Everyone is obsessed by what they saw. But Olivia, while haunted by what she saw, firmly rejected it and announced, “Today is all we have. I don’t want to miss it.” But can one truly choose their destiny, or is it predetermined?
What Worked
It was a nice Easter-egg moment, to have Mark, Aaron (Brian F. O’Byrne) and Charlie (Lennon Wynn) see the kangaroo while out trick-or-treating. In astonishment Aaron said, “Was that a kangaroo?” To which Mark’s daughter, Charlie, exclaimed, “That is the best costume I’ve ever seen!”
It was also a nice nod to “Firefly” using the “blue hand” clues to lead the FBI from the assassin who tried to kill Janis to the stickers found on the street signs to the house with the bodies, one of which had a blue hand. Not being deterred from doing his job, Demetri embraced the clue from Mark’s vision about the “blue hand” on the Mosaic board. However, though he was clearly disturbed by how prophetically true that clue turned out to be. Also, after finding the identification on one of the bodies, Agent Gough (Lee Thompson Young) realized that this was the Rutherford case, the one he had seen documents for in his flashforward. It was eerie as he said, “It begins tonight.”
As they were being rapidly propelled in the direction of the flashforward visions coming true, Mark finally admitted to Olivia about seeing himself drinking in his flashforward. His vehement denial, “Don’t condemn me for something I haven’t done yet!” was out of frustration as he rallied against a future he did not choose. But it was Olivia’s angry response to his outburst that was truly revealing, “Did you even hear what you just said? You’ve been punishing me this whole time for an imaginary relationship. But when it comes back to you, you want to be let off the hook.” She further explained how his vision was so much worse, “Your past with all the drinking is real. That still hurts. I’m not going through it again. It’s not about the drinking. It’s about trust and we don’t trust each other anymore.” And so begins the slow unraveling of their marriage as the seeds of distrust and doubt are sown.
Similarly, we watched with dual fascination and horror as Dylan (Ryan Wynott) announced, “It’s my house too” and walked right into the Benford house like it was his own. That combined with the fact Dylan was greeted so casually by Charlie was chilling. Thus, when Lloyd (Jack Davenport) arrived to pick him up and recognized the living room from his vision, there were simultaneous looks of dawning realization on Mark, Olivia and Lloyd’s faces. With a look of horror mingled with wonder, Lloyd said, “You’re her.” To which Mark sharply replied, “Not yet!”
Despite the awkward confrontation at the Benford home, it was later quite touching when Dylan asked, “Is it going to be Halloween again tomorrow?” and Lloyd quietly replied, “No, just today.” Then Dylan’s response of, “Good. ‘Cause it was kind of scary” and Lloyd’s thoughtful, “Yeah. Yes, it was” spoke volumes about a man who may or may not be the big bad villain behind the black-out and flashfowards. That followed by the endearing moment where Dylan said, “Thanks for coming to get me, Daddy,” just melted our hearts. Surely Lloyd cannot be the villain in the story after all.
What Didn’t Work
Was it necessary to completely vilify Simon? The first time we saw him, we learned he was responsible for the black-out. Then after seeing him try to seduce the woman on the train, he uses the pick-up line, “I know what caused the flashforward.” His further elaboration was practically nauseating, “It was you. Whenever a heavenly body carries such an intense force of attraction, the universe just goes bananas. Your dark energy could bring about another catastrophe at any moment.” All this combined with his revelation of what he saw in his flashforward, he saw himself killing another man by strangling him with his bare hands, and his subsequent, “Aren’t you glad you asked?” did nothing to redeem him whatsoever. Even more disturbing was when Lloyd called Simon on his callousness and said, “Our experiment killed 20 million people, Simon. What more is there to say?” It certainly left a bad taste in my mouth. This is a character to
be despised, feared and hated with every fiber of our being.
Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due
‘Scary Monsters and Super Creeps’ was written by Seth Hoffman and Quinton Peeples, and directed by Bobby Roth. ‘FlashForward’ stars Joseph Fiennes, Sonya Walger, John Cho, Gabrielle Union, Courtney B. Vance, Lee Thompson Young, Gina Torres, Jack Davenport, Brian F. O’Byrne, Peyton List, Christine Woods, Zachary Knighton, Dominic Monaghan, Ryan Wynott, Lennon Wynn. ‘FlashForward’ airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. on ABC.
FlashForward: “Gimme Some Truth”
By Tiffany Vogt
Oct-28-2009
This article may contain spoilers.
Following the premise, “What if it happened before?” Mark Benford (Joseph Fiennes) enlisted fellow FBI Agent Al Gough (Lee Thompson Young) to contact a hacker to get CIA satellite imagery on Somalia from December 1990 – and they got just what they needed: photos showing several tall pylons in the middle of nowhere in Somalia. However, before they can run down this lead, the team is called to Washington, D.C. to answer to a Senate Intelligence Committee who is vetting each intelligence branch to determine which one should run point on the black-out investigation. It wants to consolidate money and data under one government branch. Thus, the FBI has to justify its Mosaic investigation or they could lose their funding.
With an admonishment from Stanford Wedeck (Courtney B. Vance), “Just keep your mouth shut. If you tell anyone else about this, we are DOA,” Benford must hide what he saw in his flashforward vision about his drinking. For once anyone hears that he was impaired at the time, it casts doubt on the credibility of the FBI’s entire investigation. But, at the Senate Intelligence Committee hearings, everyone subjected is to lie detector testing because the “CIA believes this was a targeted event designed to bring about the collapse of our government.” Despite passing the lie detector test, Mark is asked to testify before the committee and, while subject to cross-examination before the committee, he revealed that he was investigating crow attrition (the mass death of crows) as a sign that the black-out was not an isolated incident and may have happened before. He was also forced to reveal that he saw masked gunmen coming to kill him in his vision,
which he felt validated the Mosaic investigation as it must have yielded fruit or why would anyone want to kill him. But when asked, “Why is everything in your recollection so hazy and disjointed?” Mark could not give an adequate answer as to why he could not remember more than 30 seconds or so, when everyone else could remember in startling clarity every moment of their 2 minute and 17 second visions. He only continued to state that the Mosaic investigation is a way to construct a picture of what the world will look like in 6 months and it has proven more reliable than theories that the black-out was due to the work of aliens, pharmaceutical companies, or China.
Unbeknownst to Mark, Senator Joyce Clemente (Barbara Williams) had a personal ax to grind. As she reminded Wedeck, if only she could prove what he did 6 years ago, she would be the President of the United States. But then she cryptically said, “If you sit by the river long enough, you’ll see the bodies of your enemies float by,” and shared that in her flashforward vision, she saw herself as President. It was chilling as she said, “As impossible as that may be, it’s a nice thought, isn’t it?” But it was also prophetic.
For Wedeck is friends with President Dave Segovia (Peter Coyote) and he knew that by playing the right card, he could secure their funding and make this Senate investigation go away. So when the President told Wedeck, “The Chinese view chaos as opportunity and the black-out gives me a chance to pay you back” and offered Wedeck the Director of Homeland Security position, we knew that this was when Wedeck was going to play his card. The President had a deep dark secret: a mistress who bore him a son. After Wedeck blackmailed him into making the Senate hearings disappear, the President said, “So no more Boy Scout. How did you find her?” Wedeck simply replied, “Well, I was the bagman who paid her a quarter of a million dollars.” To which the President coldly remarked, “You weren’t just comfortable in the mud – you enjoyed being there. You can only play this card once you know. Are you sure you want to play it now?” Wedeck
quietly replied, “Now is all I’ve got.” And just like that, Clemente’s vision came true. She got the Vice President nomination which opened up after the prior V.P. was killed during the black-out. And the Senate inquiry screeched to a halt as the FBI was selected as the branch to receive the investigative funding and to run the primary investigation of the black-out.
In a telling bit of foreshadowing, when asked about his flashforward, the President said the he was following the example of other world leaders and not revealing what he saw. He also reminded everyone that it is time to be “thinking about the present, not the future – we have too much to do.” However, we saw that the President had been woken up by a Secret Service agent who said, “Mr. President, sorry to disturb you, but something is happening.” What exactly did the President see? That is the real story yet to be revealed.
What Worked
The opening and closing scenes of the episode were riveting. Watching the simultaneous attacks on Mark, Demetri (John Cho), Wedeck, and Janis (Christine Wood) while on opposite sides of the country was a thrilling adrenaline rush. It was perfectly executed and perhaps a lethal strike. While Mark, Demetri and Wedeck were under attack and a rocket propelled grenade blew up their car in the parking garage, Janis faced her attacker and managed to efficiently defend herself until she was shot and left lying in a pool of blood on the street. It was gripping and nerve-wracking. The cliff-hanger ending was particularly well done.
Also surprisingly handled was the conversation between Janis and her lover, Maya (Navi Rawat), who asked her, “Do you date guys too? I Mosaic’d you. It’s way better than Google-stalking.” For Maya had seen what Janis had posted about seeing herself pregnant in 6 months. After Janis was shot, we are left to wonder whether her vision will come true after all.
What Didn’t Work
While it had to come out sooner or later, it felt clumsy the way Olivia (Sonya Walger) found out that Mark had been drinking in his flashforward. It was entirely too convenient to have Aaron (Brian F. O’Byrne) hanging around their house and she just happened to overhear him on the phone with Mark reminding him to go to an AA meeting while in D.C. Then later Olivia just happened to receive a text message from an unknown caller which read, “Mark was drinking in his flashforward.” Given how Olivia reacted, it felt a bit like she was looking for excuses to make her flashforward vision come true. Maybe the future is not yet set in stone and it needs a little push perhaps?
Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due
‘Gimme Some Truth’ teleplay was written by Dawn Prestwich and Nicole Yorkin with story by Barbara Nance, and directed by Michael Rymer. ‘FlashForward’ stars Joseph Fiennes, Sonya Walger, John Cho, Gabrielle Union, Courtney B. Vance, Gina Torres, Jack Davenport, Brian F. O’Byrne, Peyton List, Christine Woods, Zachary Knighton, Dominic Monaghan, Ryan Wynott. ‘FlashForward’ airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. on ABC.
Genre Ratings, October 12-16, 2009
MONDAY: At 9:30 on CBS, The Big Bang Theory pulled in 12.8 million viewers, up 12% from the week before.
WEDNESDAY: Eastwick, down a bit from the week before, pulled in 5.8 million viewers on ABC at 10PM.
THURSDAY: Things kicked off at 8PM with ABC’s FlashForward, up slightly with an audience of 9.1 million. Over at the CW, the news gets better and better with The Vampire Diaries hitting a series high of 3.9 million, up 6% from the week before. At 9PM, Fringe, still struggling on Thursdays, found 6 million viewers, which was up slightly from the week before, while things stayed fairly static for the CW with Supernatural at 2.6 million.
FRIDAY: At 8PM on CBS, Ghost Whisperer was the top rated show of the night with 8.2 million viewers, representing a slight decline from the week before. Smallville got a ratings shot in the arm over at the CW, with 2.6 million, representing a 22% increase from the week before and the show’s highest rating in its new Friday night timeslot. At 9PM on CBS, Medium pulled in 8 million viewers.
FlashForward, Dollhouse & Bat Boy (Oh my!)
Not surprisingly, ABC has given a full season order for FlashForward, actually expanding the episode run from the typical 22 to 25 episodes. The show’s ratings have been pretty solid against tough competition, and newly released DVR figures shows that the show enjoys a significant bump in the number of people watching. Offers Variety, “With FlashForward and ‘V,’ which premieres Nov. 3, ABC is hoping to hold on to sci-fi fans who have been longtime viewers of Lost. Island mystery ends its run in May.”
Over on Fox, the network has stated that despite low ratings, Dollhouse will air all 13 episodes of its second season, at which point the show’s future will be determined. Helping to solidify that particular decision is the fact that analysis of DVR numbers shows that the season two premiere enjoyed a 50% bump in viewers. “We’re going to run all the episodes,” Fox scheduling chief Preston Beckman told The Hollywood Reporter. “We’re not saying we’re happy with those numbers, or accept them, but we don’t have to overreact. It’s one of the reasons that we brought Dollhouse back; we knew it was DVR-friendly. Hopefully we’ll see the overnight ratings increase from week to week. With some shows, you have to look at the bigger picture.”
In the same piece, Joss Whedon, addressing concerns of fans who fear the 13 episodes could be the end of the road for the show, offered, “We’ll definitely have closure but will leave some doors open.”
The Weekly World News, one of the most bizarre (and in some ways beloved) tabloids out there will apparently be the source of a number of projects, the “characters” it focused on making the leap to television. Dreamworks, according to The Hollywood Reporter, is developing a television series based on “Bat Boy,” the bizarre half-human/half-bat that was featured on many a front page (prior to the tabloid going online).
WWN CEO Neil McGinness told The Hollywood Reporter he believes the audience will embrace their characters. “You’re seeing an embrace of the fringe,” he said. “Zombies were big two years ago. Vampires are the rage this year. And we think 2010 will be Bat Boy’s year. [He's] our Superman or Batman. He is in the genre of the trickster hero — like Huckleberry Finn.”
For the full Hollywood Reporter story, click HERE.
FlashForward: “137 Sekunden”
FlashForward – “137 Sekunden”
Do the ends ever justify the means?
By Tiffany Vogt
Oct-11-2009
This article may contain spoilers.
When ABC first debuted the new television series FlashForward three weeks ago, the world sat riveted in front of their TV sets. It was an adrenaline rush that left the audience breathless for more. Based on the book of the same name by Canadian science fiction writer Robert J. Sawyer, the series version of FlashForward began with the calamitous events that occurred on a seemingly normal day when the entire planet came to a stand-still. For 2 minutes and 17 seconds, virtually every human-being blacked-out and fell to the ground. It was a world-wide disaster as airplanes fell out of the sky, cars collided, and a multitude of horrific events occurred because there was no one conscious. But FlashForward is not merely a disaster show. It is about what happened during those mysterious 2 minutes and 17 seconds, for everyone was not simply unconscious, they were given a glimpse of their future. They were able to see exactly where they would be in 6 months – what they were doing and who they were doing it with. The real story driving the series is whether each will see their vision of the future come true. For some, that is horrifying and for others, it is everything they’ve prayed and hoped for.
Initially, the central characters are an FBI agent, Mark Benford (Joseph Fiennes), his partner, Demetri Noh (John Cho), his boss, Stan Wedeck (Courtney B. Vance), and Mark’s wife, Olivia Benford (Sonya Walger, better known as Penny from Lost). They are the characters that we are first introduced to and whose flashbacks we experience. It is also Benford who first clued in that there may be a conspiracy afoot, as his flashback revealed to him that he was investigating the flashforward event in relation to something called the Mosaic Collective. For his partner, Demetri, he had a more alarming realization: he did not experience a flashforward vision, which led him to believe that he may not be alive in six months. Then for Benford’s wife, Olivia, her vision was perhaps the most disturbing of all as she saw herself having a romantic liaison with another man – a man she had not even met yet. For all of these individuals, their visions have not brought them peace and comfort in what lies ahead. To the contrary, they will do everything they can to prevent their visions from coming true.
However, for some, their visions brought hope and peace. Benford’s AA sponsor, Aaron Stark (Brian F. O’Bryne) saw a vision of his daughter, who he thought he had buried after a war-related tragedy, alive. One of Benford and Demetri’s co-workers, Agent Janis Hawk (Christine Woods) saw a vision of herself pregnant, despite the fact that in the present she doesn’t even have a boyfriend. And for Olivia’s co-worker, Dr. Bryce Varley (Zachary Knighton), he had nearly committed suicide right before the flashforward event, and he saw a vision of his life where he was happy and alive. For these individuals, they are very much looking forward to the futures they beheld. So whether the visions are a blessing or a curse remains to be seen.
In the subsequent weeks, we have seen pieces of each person’s visions come true. Mark is able to track down some of the individuals whose names were on the bulletin board he saw in his vision. Demetri has received independent confirmation from an unknown intelligence source that he will be murdered a month before the flashforward event date. And Olivia has met the man she saw in her vision — Lloyd Siemco (Jack Davenport) — much to her dismay.
But, while many things appear to corroborate the veracity of the visions, other events seem to undermine the likelihood of all the visions coming true. For one, Mark’s daughter gave him the friendship bracelet he saw in his vision, which he promptly burnt. Another event that had shaken the faith in the flashforward visions was Aaron Stark had his daughter’s body exhumed and tests verified it was her body in the grave, thus crushing his hope that his daughter is indeed alive somewhere in Afghanistan. And Demetri’s fiance saw a vision of him waiting for her on a Hawaiian beach on their wedding day. This would suggest that not all the visions are destined to come true.
So while the ultimate question may be whether or not the flashforwardds are indeed visions of the future, it also begs the question if it is the future, is that future a locked one or can it be changed? Agent Wedeck insightfully observed, “All of us are making decisions on what will happen — not what could happen. It makes us do things we would not ordinarily do. . . You think knowing the future would make us less concerned about it. But just the opposite has happened. The future is what all of us are living for now. It’s what we’re living by.”
Just because they have seen the future, does it make it true? Are they each prophets or are they biased based on what they would want to see?
This week’s episode focused on a crafty former-Nazi war criminal who claimed to know why the black-out lasted only 2 minutes and 17 seconds (or 137 sekunden, as it is known in German) — and he would only reveal the meaning behind it to Agent Mark Benford. In a moral quandary, Mark had to decide if the ends justified the means by granting a full pardon in exchange for the information the old man had. After verifying part of the old man’s vision, the pardon was granted, only to find out that their worst fears were realized: they had indeed been conned. The only thing the old man saw besides being released from prison was a “murder” of crows outside his prison cell window when he awoke from the black-out. And it was this vital piece of information that he used to barter his way out of prison. It was a crushing blow to realize how the old man had used them.
But perhaps the old man was not so crazy after all. His one clue about the dead crows was something that Mark decided to follow up on and, much to his surprise, it had happened before. In 1991, in Somali, there was a report of an incident where everyone lost consciousness simultaneously and coincidentally, there were thousands of dead crows. And as Mark thoughtfully remarked, “We have been so worried that the black-out may happen again, we forgot to ask ourselves: what if it happened before?”
Indeed, if someone does have the ability to control the mass black-outs, it is intriguing to consider what have they been doing with that ability before now.
What Worked
Perhaps one of the most deftly interwoven pieces of humor in this past episode was the scene where Zoe, Demetri’s finace, is aboard a virtually empty airplane across the aisle from an ashen-faced gentleman. When she asks him why he is flying, he replied that all the airline CEO’s were flying that day to prove to the public that it was safe. The fact that he asks for a stiff drink mere seconds later spoke volumes about how safe he felt about flying that day!
What Didn’t Work
After dangling the carrot of Suspect Zero and D. Gibbons in front of us, it would be nice to actually have a face to put to these mysterious figures. A mystery drama is never more compelling when evil reveals itself. It is time for the unveiling of the arch enemy — the show is limping without a nemesis.
Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due
“137 Sekunden” was written by David S. Goyer and Marc Guggenheim and directed by Michael Rymer. FlashForward stars Joseph Fiennes, Sonya Walger, John Cho, Gabrielle Union, Courtney B. Vance, Gina Torres, Jack Davenport, Brian F. O’Byrne, Peyton List, Christine Woods and Zachary Knighton. FlashForward airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. on ABC.
