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Used to watch it. Periodically watch it again. The plot is pretty interesting but the characters aren't.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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Loved the book it's based on, have reread it a few times. Saw the first 2 episodes of the show, couldn't get interested.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Yeah, I couldn't handle the show's habit of one plot development point per episode. It got boring pretty quickly. Sorry.
Posts: 684 | Registered: Jun 2002
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This show was okay for the first few episodes, but seriously lost momentum in the middle - it got far too caught up in the characters who, frankly, weren't that fascinating.
But the last couple episodes have been very, very good - now that we can see where the show is going it's extremely interesting. The story seems to be moving very fast now, in exciting directions, I have no idea what'll happen next, and they just added James Callis, who makes everything he touches excellent, so of course it'll be cancelled pronto.
I think when people watch this on DVD and can flick from one episode to next quickly, they'll appreciate it more.
Posts: 1528 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Brinestone and I watched the first few episodes and quickly lost interest. The first episode was great, and then it almost immediately lost steam and got bogged down in boring people's boring problems. If it's picked up again, maybe we'll give it another shot.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Bella Bee: This show was okay for the first few episodes, but seriously lost momentum in the middle - it got far too caught up in the characters who, frankly, weren't that fascinating ...
Yep. A shame too, considering the relatively diverse cast.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: Used to watch it. Periodically watch it again. The plot is pretty interesting but the characters aren't.
I was trying to figure out why I watched the first 8 or so episodes attentively, and then watching it became a real chore. I stopped at that point, but yeah, it was because the characters were boring. Also the constant "the audience are idiots" editing was annoying as well.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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I watch hardly any tv, but I decided to watch this because I'm into sci-fi, and this show seemed to have an interesting premise. I'm still watching it, and I think it's... ok.
I have the book, but I haven't read it yet. I'm debating whether or not to wait until the season is over to start the book.
Posts: 1080 | Registered: Apr 2006
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The book's plot has only the faintest of similarities with the show. You can start now, it's a good read. (To put it in perspective, there is less than a Blade Runner/Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep similarity but more than a Harsh Realm(tv)/Harsh Realm(comic) similarity)
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For one thing, in the book human consciousness jumps 21 years, not 6 months. Whole different style to the book and you get a better narrative since you don't have to have hidden plots and cliffhangers every chapter (episode) or so to keep viewer interest up.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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The show has really picked up steam in the last few episodes. I agree, many of the characters are off-putting, and the soap operaness of it all was getting to me. But I've hung in there and am getting very hopeful for the show, based on these last few episodes. Maybe it'll get better. But, of course, once it gets better it'll probably get cancelled. And it's nice to see James Callis in it.
Posts: 315 | Registered: Dec 2005
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FlashForward is actually one of my favorite shows currently airing, despite it's obvious (and sometimes quite painful) flaws. I'm far more invested in the overdramatic lives of these people than, say, anyone on "V."
And yes, James Callis brings the awesome wherever he goes. Posts: 3932 | Registered: Sep 1999
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I've managed to have watched about two thirds of all the episodes. Even when I missed 2 weeks in a row it's been easy to pick it back up. I'm not sure if that's good or bad.
But I can't stand the pregnant agent and the guy with the scary beard. When either one is the main focus of the episode I tend to just get frustrated.
But the show has won me over enough that if I'm home on a thursday night I'll watch it. Early on when the one really likable character killed himself I almost gave up on the show, but it dragged me back in.
Posts: 856 | Registered: Jun 2007
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quote:Originally posted by Carrie: ... I'm far more invested in the overdramatic lives of these people than, say, anyone on "V."
Oh yes. They've been really blowing the potential richness of the concept. I'm tempted to track down a copy of Earth:Final Conflict to see some aliens subvert the humans.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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I've been watching Flashforward from the start, particularly since I love the book. It really dragged until "Hello Demitri" from the past. That got me really interested.
What I don't get was in the last ep when Olivia went on investigation to the asylum. Since when does the wife of an FBI agent do that?
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*nod* Frankly, I'm rather dismayed that the new Doctor Who series is leaping so rapidly into metaplot.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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So I am reading Flashforward now, and I've found something very interesting. The book was published in 1999, but takes place in 2009. In the book, Robert J Sawyer names the pope of 2009 - Pope Benedict XVI.
Did RJS have his own little flash forward?
Posts: 1080 | Registered: Apr 2006
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Benedict was probably just the most likely name that the next pope would pick (Is there a rule for this, like we've had a Benedict so the next one has to be a Pius, or something? I remember hearing that John Paul was an unexpected choice in honour of the Pope who didn't get much time.)
I liked the way Sawyer was mostly kind of vague about future events, as it drags you out of the story when you're going 'well, that didn't happen, and we don't have those...'
Like the flying cars and AT&T telephone boxes together in Back to the Future are wrong, but Cafe 80s is so accurate.
ETA: Apparently this guy really did see the future of technology, though.
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It makes me cry to hear Tesla only being remembered through the car and the coils. That's pathetic. The man invented alternating current. If Edison had won his war against Tesla, everything would still be direct current.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Come on Lisa, somebody would have figured that out eventually right? He had more important inventions, like resonance transmission. And anyway, direct current schemes were worked out eventually for long distance transmission, as far as I know, so it was all really just a race to find a billable product that was reliable. Whoever won the race we'd be no better off one way or the other, I think.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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In general, yes, although you have to be capable of surviving the Canadian in-jokes and location references.
Flashforward is definitely one of the better ones. For me, personally, I liked The Terminal Experiment and Frameshift very much as well.
My memory is a bit hazy, but I recall enjoying Illegal Alien and Calculating God as well.
Mindscan and the series starting with Hominids were less enjoyable (the latter seemed to be unnecessarily drawn out), but still worth a read (YMMV). I read Factoring Humanity, but the details totally escape me. Time for a re-read, I guess.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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Calculating God was pretty good. Factoring Humanity... I don't know which was written first, that or Sagan's Contact, but the main plot element is identical in the two, even though what's done with it is entirely different.
I loved the Hominids trilogy, btw. Sawyer is on my buy-on-sight list. Even when he's less good, he's still better than most writers out there.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Sean Monahan: It appears Flashforward has been cancelled.
Not surprising. As others have said, it was slow, boring, and the characters weren't all that interesting. I watched about four episodes because the concept was good, but it wasn't worth it. In this case, I honestly don't even think it would have been better to see it back to back on DVD, because the episodes simply weren't enjoyable to watch. Each one had a sort of cliffhanger ending, but that was the only interesting part of each episode.
Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
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I hope that they have time to wrap up the story in the last episode like the author suggested they would if the show was cancelled (honestly, it has become a pretty entertaining show in the last few weeks since they dumped a lot of their old writing staff).
And that one day, someone takes the original property and makes a brilliant film out of it. This story was made to be told in 2 hours.
Posts: 1528 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Bella Bee: This story was made to be told in 2 hours.
One season to tell something that happens over 6 months, and 2 hours to tell something that happens over 20 years?
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Yes, but even the author himself didn't actually tell 20 odd years worth of story. He told a couple of months worth of blackout trauma and then skipped forward. And it's a short book. This would have been a much more fast-paced, exciting way to tell the story.
Not that I haven't enjoyed the show (I'm glad now that I suffered through the middle) but it didn't need six months. That was why the middle sucked - there weren't enough exciting story lines for the amount of time allocated.
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