Flash Forward: "No More Good Days" 9/24 - Grading & Discussion
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But they didn't, they made him look like a nut IMO. It was convincing yes, because what he was suggesting was insanely stupid.
I don't think they were unaware of the fact that he looked like a selfish delusional idiot.
Impressive stuff. Feinnes was a bit dull but I liked the rest of the cast and more importantly, the characters interested me. That bodes well.
Of course, the channel that screens it here will probably shuffle it off to a late-night slot within a few weeks, but I'll deal with that when it happens. For now, I'm interested enough to keep watching.
Of course, the channel that screens it here will probably shuffle it off to a late-night slot within a few weeks, but I'll deal with that when it happens. For now, I'm interested enough to keep watching.
Agreed. The acting/lines left more to be desired, but ending on the scene with us seeing that one individual walking around in the stadium full of unconsious people was errrrriie!
I gave the opening episode “above average”. Interesting characters, show premise and I like the mysterious nature of the storylines. I hope the writers can keep the intrigue up without taking us into lala land (i.e. developing a lack of direction with the various story arcs). I was a little concerned about Braga being onboard with the show, but so far so good.
Ralph Fiennes (“Mark Benford”), John Cho (“Demetri”) and Sonya Walger (“Olivia Benford”) are shaping up to be my three favorite actors/characters on the show.
Ralph Fiennes (“Mark Benford”), John Cho (“Demetri”) and Sonya Walger (“Olivia Benford”) are shaping up to be my three favorite actors/characters on the show.
I just watched this. Thought it was a bit crap.
I love the main premise itself, that's cool. What I didn't like was the execution.
It was way too smug and self-knowing, in its setup of the mysteries. He may be dead. She may be cheating. The child going there's no more good days to come. He'll scribble down mysterious messages. Every line before the ad breaks being all 'dramatic'. The dramatic music when he gets a friendship bracelet, when that's not dramatic at all because we've clearly established that they are Flash Forwards.
(Oh and how many times do they say Flash Forward?)
I felt the cast had zero chemistry. I felt the dialog was cumbersome, and just way too on the nose. Considering it was such a huge issue, you saw very little of the ramifications and about 30 minutes the sense of drama starts to go and it becomes a good old chinwag. When they were all standing in groups discussing the problem, it reminded me of a Star Trek episode with lots of dialog in the conference room. I then realise that Brannon Braga wrote this! Ha. But they all just talked at each other, there was no real sense of "holy fuck", which Lost did very well if we're going to compare.
When the Flash Forward is brought up, no one had mentioned it before. Yet when he mentions it, they all remember quite cleary... the dates and everything. There's no effort, it just spills out like one big hose. The whole scene just feel so wrong. I can't quite articulate why, but it just does't feel right.
Strangely it reminded me of Voyager's season one episode Cathexis. This is odd and specific I know, but I always remember Neelix going "I think I was just inhabited by the alien" like he was talking about a making a cup of tea. They do it here... "in my vision.." and "what was your vision?" etc like it's every day la la la and they've already rationalised it. I wonder who wrote Cathexis, would be funny if it was Braga.
Then yes, cumbersome dialog. Case in point:
Multipe news items say it's worldwide.
Random man goes "God, it's the whole world" in case you didn't realise and cut to adverts.
Main guy talks to his wife and asks "Everyone there blacked out?" Well of course, it's worldwide numb nuts. Oh Chicago had blackouts too she says. Well yeah, it's worldwide. "Looks like this thing was global", he says... to reassure once again it's fucking worldwide. "Global?" she asks. Yes it's global!
But no, he's still not sure. He goes back to the FBI. "What is this, a worldwide phenomen?" Yes he's told. "People from all corners" he says. YES YES YES YES YES!
Jesus... well we'd better set the Eiffel Tower and Big Ben on fire, that'll show it's worldwide.
Just way too many moments are drawn out for dramatic effect, when they could be punchier. With the end bits of the video, why show five different videos when showing someone still walking about speaks for itself. Get to the point.
Oh and the CGI was quite shocking.
Man, I feel I've torn this to pieces. But I just felt it was sub par in its execution.
I love the main premise itself, that's cool. What I didn't like was the execution.
It was way too smug and self-knowing, in its setup of the mysteries. He may be dead. She may be cheating. The child going there's no more good days to come. He'll scribble down mysterious messages. Every line before the ad breaks being all 'dramatic'. The dramatic music when he gets a friendship bracelet, when that's not dramatic at all because we've clearly established that they are Flash Forwards.
(Oh and how many times do they say Flash Forward?)
I felt the cast had zero chemistry. I felt the dialog was cumbersome, and just way too on the nose. Considering it was such a huge issue, you saw very little of the ramifications and about 30 minutes the sense of drama starts to go and it becomes a good old chinwag. When they were all standing in groups discussing the problem, it reminded me of a Star Trek episode with lots of dialog in the conference room. I then realise that Brannon Braga wrote this! Ha. But they all just talked at each other, there was no real sense of "holy fuck", which Lost did very well if we're going to compare.
When the Flash Forward is brought up, no one had mentioned it before. Yet when he mentions it, they all remember quite cleary... the dates and everything. There's no effort, it just spills out like one big hose. The whole scene just feel so wrong. I can't quite articulate why, but it just does't feel right.
Strangely it reminded me of Voyager's season one episode Cathexis. This is odd and specific I know, but I always remember Neelix going "I think I was just inhabited by the alien" like he was talking about a making a cup of tea. They do it here... "in my vision.." and "what was your vision?" etc like it's every day la la la and they've already rationalised it. I wonder who wrote Cathexis, would be funny if it was Braga.
Then yes, cumbersome dialog. Case in point:
Multipe news items say it's worldwide.
Random man goes "God, it's the whole world" in case you didn't realise and cut to adverts.
Main guy talks to his wife and asks "Everyone there blacked out?" Well of course, it's worldwide numb nuts. Oh Chicago had blackouts too she says. Well yeah, it's worldwide. "Looks like this thing was global", he says... to reassure once again it's fucking worldwide. "Global?" she asks. Yes it's global!
But no, he's still not sure. He goes back to the FBI. "What is this, a worldwide phenomen?" Yes he's told. "People from all corners" he says. YES YES YES YES YES!
Jesus... well we'd better set the Eiffel Tower and Big Ben on fire, that'll show it's worldwide.
Just way too many moments are drawn out for dramatic effect, when they could be punchier. With the end bits of the video, why show five different videos when showing someone still walking about speaks for itself. Get to the point.
Oh and the CGI was quite shocking.
Man, I feel I've torn this to pieces. But I just felt it was sub par in its execution.
Yeah, my girlfriend and I got a real kick out of making fun of that scene. Apparently, sometime in the next six months, everybody has clocks and calendars installed into their eyeballs. It's the only explanation for how many people in that room knew the exact date and time for the vision.
By the way, I think the whole show is pretty poorly designed. Of course, I thought the book was one of Robert J. Sawyer's less interesting works, so that probably didn't help things (not that the show is much like the book).
Checkmate
Commodore
That's one of the few things I don't have much of a problem with on the show. These weren't foggy dreams that you only kinda sorta vaguely remember when you woke up. For all intents and purposes, you were there. Fully conscious and aware, living your life.
It would be odd if no one knew what time it was (down to the minute might be absurd unless you happened to look at a clock/watch, but a general estimate is fine) or what date it was. It's no different than me knowing about what time it is and what the date is without having to look at a clock right now.
But general knowledge was not conveyed; only immediate sensory data. For instance, chick-from-last saw the man she had been sleeping with, felt her future self's emotions for him, but did not know his name because it was never stated during the period during which she was an observer. So with the time.
That said, I'm entirely unsurprised that so many people who have the actual time. Why not? So many things double as timepieces now... clocks, watches, computers, cell phones, almost any electronic appliance displays the time as a default. I take a look at the room I'm in now, and there are five different time readouts visible from where I'm sitting. Generally I'll gloss over them, but in the middle of a dream vision it's something solid to seize upon, so no surprise that many people remembered it.
One other point I'd take issue with from Fearless Leader's review: the idea that everything just came spilling out. It did, and I think it's right, because after so strange an experience most people are not going to just start talking about it because of habitual fears of what other people will think. But when one person stepped forward and shared, it opened the floodgates, everything 'spilling out' and probably with no small degree of relief as people discovered they were not alone in experiencing another of the day's oddities.
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
But I just felt the emotion about it was wrong. To use the Star Trek Voyager conference room analogy again... they all spoke like this was every day thing. Like in sci-fi (not just Voyager, Farscape, SG1 etc) they talk about really strange shit because they deal with it every week. Sitting around talking about their visions because some alien probe came by until they get to the bottom of it... yeah, makes sense. But I just didn't get the sense of "HOLY FUCK" from these people, which is what they should be doing.
If the entire world (I think it was a worldwide phenomenon, I'd need to check ) lost consciousness, planes fell from the sky, you all saw the future... wouldn't you be up watching the news, wired, unable to sleep until you were exhausted? I think most people would.
There'd be groups of people in the streets talking. Sirens going off. But they go home, it's all quiet... and they go to bed.
I guess I just feel this could have been way more tense. Even to bring up that end scene again, it's exposition tastic. She calls that guy over to look at that screen.
This is how it goes:
"Okay so far as we know every single person on the entire planet lost consciousness at the exact same period of time right?" she asks [oh, I guess it's worldwide... but why does she need to ask him that, really?]
"Right" he says.
"Okay so I started cycling through a bunch of surveillance cameras from the last five hours because I was curious as to see what they recorded. I look at hundreds of them, in every major city, webcams in other countries, and they all show the exact same thing. At 11am people start dropping like flies, okay? Then two minutes and seventeen seconds later they start to come to." [ALL exposition for stuff we already know a gazillion times, and he should be saying yeah get to the point]
"And then I saw this, this was in Detroit".
"What am I look at here?"
"Just hang on a second" she rants. [Well you've taken five minutes to tell him stuff he knows, and now you're scanning across some video and not even getting to the point... why not have the walking man bit ready and zoomed in?]
"Right there, look right there" [as they pan off to his face.. dramatic music la la la]
I just felt that whole scene could have been so much tighter. Not a couple of people sitting in an office, one of them watching YouTube FFS. You would have had everyone still working into the night as it's the FBI, working on what's going on. Tired, confused... she barges in, says she has to show them something. A video of a ball game "at the time of the blackout" (that's all you need, those words) and that she saw this... shows the video... explains one man is still awake.
But I'm not a writer...
It wanted to emulate Lost, Heroes, Desperate Housewives and Damages... but with none of their
panache.
By the way after all this ranting of mine (I call it more technical ranting, scrutinising) I will watch more. I like the concept, and I find so many shows are shaky to start off with. I give anything time.
If the entire world (I think it was a worldwide phenomenon, I'd need to check ) lost consciousness, planes fell from the sky, you all saw the future... wouldn't you be up watching the news, wired, unable to sleep until you were exhausted? I think most people would.
There'd be groups of people in the streets talking. Sirens going off. But they go home, it's all quiet... and they go to bed.
I guess I just feel this could have been way more tense. Even to bring up that end scene again, it's exposition tastic. She calls that guy over to look at that screen.
This is how it goes:
"Okay so far as we know every single person on the entire planet lost consciousness at the exact same period of time right?" she asks [oh, I guess it's worldwide... but why does she need to ask him that, really?]
"Right" he says.
"Okay so I started cycling through a bunch of surveillance cameras from the last five hours because I was curious as to see what they recorded. I look at hundreds of them, in every major city, webcams in other countries, and they all show the exact same thing. At 11am people start dropping like flies, okay? Then two minutes and seventeen seconds later they start to come to." [ALL exposition for stuff we already know a gazillion times, and he should be saying yeah get to the point]
"And then I saw this, this was in Detroit".
"What am I look at here?"
"Just hang on a second" she rants. [Well you've taken five minutes to tell him stuff he knows, and now you're scanning across some video and not even getting to the point... why not have the walking man bit ready and zoomed in?]
"Right there, look right there" [as they pan off to his face.. dramatic music la la la]
I just felt that whole scene could have been so much tighter. Not a couple of people sitting in an office, one of them watching YouTube FFS. You would have had everyone still working into the night as it's the FBI, working on what's going on. Tired, confused... she barges in, says she has to show them something. A video of a ball game "at the time of the blackout" (that's all you need, those words) and that she saw this... shows the video... explains one man is still awake.
But I'm not a writer...
It wanted to emulate Lost, Heroes, Desperate Housewives and Damages... but with none of their
panache.
By the way after all this ranting of mine (I call it more technical ranting, scrutinising) I will watch more. I like the concept, and I find so many shows are shaky to start off with. I give anything time.
i enjoyed it.
and for people talking about have they got a plan, according to what i read in this month's SFX, they have a plan for a minimum of a 3 season show. it can be concertina'd out to seven, IIRC, but it's at least got to last 3.
and for people talking about have they got a plan, according to what i read in this month's SFX, they have a plan for a minimum of a 3 season show. it can be concertina'd out to seven, IIRC, but it's at least got to last 3.
^At least 3 seasons, that's good because when I watched the last episode I started thinking of how they are going to pull it off. I think it could've worked as a mini-series, but as long as the writers know what they are doing or think that they are doing, I'll keep watching.
I have to beg a differ as I think a scene like what you are describing is very cliche. Just over done in other movies/t.v. shows. I think that the way that it was done was fine, not so dramatic since it may not be if it happen for real. Granted there probably would be more employees walking around, but then again maybe they all wanted to go home to be with their families.
So far the show is entertaining and enjoyable to watch. Unfortunately, it's on ABC (I'm still a bit tiffed at them for canceling Life on Mars), but I will support it as best as I can.
I have to beg a differ as I think a scene like what you are describing is very cliche. Just over done in other movies/t.v. shows. I think that the way that it was done was fine, not so dramatic since it may not be if it happen for real. Granted there probably would be more employees walking around, but then again maybe they all wanted to go home to be with their families.
So far the show is entertaining and enjoyable to watch. Unfortunately, it's on ABC (I'm still a bit tiffed at them for canceling Life on Mars), but I will support it as best as I can.
Yeah ABC sucks but at least they're not NBC. Or Fox. Or CBS. Or CW. Or (shudder) Skiffy. 
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