FlashForward Mid-Season Finale

FlashForward has turned into quite a good show. Good enough that I'll miss it now that it's gone away for a while. Some of the last few episodes were solidly entertaining.

Of particular interest is the fact that the future is not set, it can be changed. There was a wonderful irony that the characters were given hope from the suicide of one of the FBI agents who had seen his future and discovered he caused the death of a mother.

Last week's episode was very "Lost" in style with flashbacks explaining why the young doctor dude was about to kill himself on the pier just before the flash forward and why he changed his mind. There was another nice irony in the fact that he couldn't find his Japanese gal in Japan but she has travelled to LA, at least in part to look for him.

I guess with the abduction of Jack Davenport Penny, sorry, Olivia will end up looking after his kid and that puts things in place for the Penny, sorry, Olivia-Joe Fiennes split-up.

And will Joe Feinnes really shoot Mr Sulu? I bet someone else uses his gun. He doesn't even have it anymore.

I have my own theory on what is going on: Everyone has had the flash forward to the specific date in April 2010 because on that date the experiment is going to be repeated. Most of the inspiration for that idea is from a movie I saw on TV years ago, The Philadelphia Experiment, where a tunnel in time is created when an experiment is attempted in the 1940s and then again in the 1980s. So, we'll see.

Final note, I had assumed actress Sonya Walger was American, despite her turn as Penny in Lost. However in the show Channel Five had on after this week's episode there she is talking in an English accent. Is everyone on that show English?

FlashForward episode 1

FlashForward arrived on channel five last night accompanied with a lot of hype. What a relief that it turned out to be actually quite good. I won't dwell on the set-up for too long. Basically everyone on the planet blacks out and has a vision of what they will be doing on 29 April 2010. When they wake up they discover the planet is a disaster zone because, well, everyone blacked out.

I have to say that the nearly post-apocalyptic aftermath of the blackouts was well presented.

The show gets to ask the continually interesting time travel question: If you know what's going to happen can you change things, or does your foreknowledge actually make it happen.

Lots of British cast members are in this show. I counted Joseph Feinnes, Jack Davonport and Alex Kingston. Dominic Monaghan is supposed to be in the show later. And special mention for Sonja Wagler. She's not British but played Penny in Lost, who was British.



(Actually I got great enjoyment from saying "Penny!" every time she was on screen. I tried to say it in a Desmond accent but was largely unsuccessful. She was also in the Terminator TV show but sadly got killed off. It's nice to see Sonja get a new show.)

Oh, the new Mr Sulu is in this also.

One question that wasn't answered was why did the visions of the future not have people going, "huh, deja vu."

Oh, and at least one person did not black out! I bet it was Dominic Monaghan!

So until the remake of V comes along this will do nicely.