ABC cancels 'Flash Forward'

[Owain Taggart]

Problem is, FlashForward is based on a novel, and has a great concept for a novel or a mini-series, or even a single 22/24 episode season. Whichever way, it has an ending.
Do that well and maybe you can come up with a follow-up for season two. But trying to stretch it out so it could run for years is a good way of ensuring it ends after one, without even (from the sound of it) including the ending it could have had as a one-off.

Yeah, exactly. Even reading the novel, I could tell that it would be hard to adapt into a series, so much so that everything about the novel is completely different in the series. The location, for example, is just one of them, with it set around CERN in the novel, but in LA in the series. And then the amount of time they jumped into the future. I personally think it would have been far more interesting having the series set at CERN, but I guess it would have been a problem shooting there. I'm just getting rather tired of seeing NY or LA all the time. Feels too contemporary, no offense to anyone. It kind of sounds like they wrote themselves into a corner.

CERN does not look as cool as it sounds, it looks more like an industry complex than the center of the world's accelarator research.

It's still better than being in yet another nondescript LA location that doesn't help to explain how it happened. I could say the same thing as the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory which was the setting for his Neanderthal Trilogy; more of an industrial complex, but they help add some relevance to the story. It's like trying to take the science out of Sci-Fi, and still try to explain how an event such as a flash forward happens. The locations help to posit the how and the why.

 

[Marten]

True, but there is a reason they didn't use the actual CERN in Angels & Demons.

What they could have done was to create better looking CERN, and get the best of both worlds.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Actual or not, I think you missed my point. My mistake, as I think I meant setting instead of location. Sometimes they intersect. Either way, it's the setting they should have used. Instead they didn't and CERN as a location doesn't factor into the TV series at all. So yes, they could of created a better CERN like Angels & Demon, but they didn't, and I feel that was a mistake. It probably would of helped make the series more interesting.

 

[dru]

Another landmark TV "hit" for producer Brannon Braga! (/sarcasm)

Seriously, though, the Mark/Olivia melodrama killed the show. It's improved lately by focusing on the plot but I don't blame anyone for being turned off long before now.

I hope Courtney B. Vance lands another series since he was the reason I tuned in to start with.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

The physical jeopardy is in FlashForward.

Assuming you give a shit about Mark. And there's plenty of physical jeopardy in V. Ryan could get skinned alive if caught. Ditto for Jacob, who's in an even more dangerous position. Father Jack was injected with some creepy V stuff that will probably turn him into a lizard. Ryan's girlfriend is going to give birth to a lizard - will she survive? Lisa might have sex with Tyler and then eat him. (Cue wild applause across teh internets.) Plus Anna's army of Terminators are about to be born and there's an alien armada on the way. How much more jeopardy do you want? Compared with that, one drunk FBI agent is trivial.

Erica and Jack are very conventional but physically attractive heroes. I think that explains why V has ratings.

FlashForward's characters are also conventionally good looking - that's hardly a distinction. It's just business as usual on TV.

The reason why FLASHFORWARD failed is because there was no clear cut good guy.

Now that's a good insight - more precisely, there were a lot of people who could be good guys, but what were they trying to accomplish? The FBI is trying to safeguard everyone, Lloyd is trying not to cause any further damage, but it was all too waffly and hard for the audience to grab onto, compared with "Erica must stop Anna" as a nice, neat, focused conflict that everyone can relate to.

In TV, it doesn't pay to overcomplicate things unless you're Lost, and we've seen the carnage of shows that try to imitate Lost.

 

[RobertScorpio]

Someone mentioned earlier that one thing that ruined Flashforward was that it got back to normal a bit to quickly. I think has much to do with it. Five thousand people died on 911, and this country froze for about two solid straight weeks. 28 Million died on Flashforward, and pretty soon things are back to normal...no way...

And another "jump the shark' moment was when Llloyd admitted to causing it, and the next thing you know he's just walking about as if it wasn't any big deal. bull. Our government, and I don't mean the FBI, would have had him so far removed from anyone he'd never see the light of day again...

And I still contend that mark's character was written like he was a moron. He got better towards the end. And i don't care about Baltar insisting that Lloyd and Penny (which her name will always be to me) were meant to be together. The episode she went to his house and they started kissing proved to me she was just a slut and would, if this show played out and Mark started to drink again, blame his drinking on her straying.

Bad writing...

Rob

 

[stj]

Erica and Jack have very conventional personalities. If they had comprehensible motives for their heroics, they would be very conventional heroes. They are purportedly an FBI agent and a priest but what's on screen is a tiny band of heroes almost singlehandedly saving the world. They are privy to secrets the unwashed masses do not know (that they aliens are evil.) They are so superior it is futile to appeal to authorities, much less the rabble (why they must fight in secret.) They must shoulder the burden alone because only the heroes can save us (why there's only four or five of these people.) They do this from the goodness of their hearts, not because it's their jobs or because they were thrust into it.

They are like paper dolls, a flat, paper thin costume barely draped over them. That's why it doesn't matter that the FBI office or the church in V are so absurd. It's play pretend aimed at our inner ten year old boy. (Also, the show resonates for people who feel threatened by evil creatures who seem human, but really aren't, sinisterly foisting universal health care, green energy and world peace upon poor us.)

But Mark was not a conventional TV hero, which is why many people couldn't stand him. Alcoholic heroes on TV are supposed to be simpleminded crap like Saul Tigh. It is true that no one on FlashForward was a conventional TV hero. At this point, people are bitching that the consequences of the blackout were minimized, but I remember very well that the early bitching was that they were wasting time instead of moving the mystery forward! Those episodes were the ones that explored the consequences of the blackout, like the Blue Hand club.

The series started with Mark and Olivia joking about hating each other. Ironic foreshadowing is a trifle sophisticated. Thinking that divorce/infidelity is something that happens instead of a an apocalyptic derangement of the moral universe may have moved past sophisticated into something urbane, or even worse: French.

 

[Procutus]

Well, I can't say that I didn't see this coming, but I am disappointed as I have really grown to enjoy the show. Yes, it has its flaws to be sure, but it still kept pulling me back in each week. The real pisser indeed is that there will be no real closure or ending to it.

That said, never having read Sawyer's novel, I'll have to do that just to compare the differences between the two.

 

[Mr Cool Dude]

I'm glad this is over. I kept thinking to myself every week - "Why am I watching this? Why am I watching this? Why am I watching this?". I suppose I was hoping it would get better because it has an interesting premise, but it just got dumber and dumber. There was one episode a few weeks ago - when Tracey was kidnapped - everything that happened in the story was dependent on the characters making stupid mistakes and acting like complete idiots. Then, I think a couple of weeks later, that chess match - telephone number thing was probably the stupidest thing I have ever seen in my entire life.
The people who made this show deserve to lose their jobs because they started with this interesting concept, and decided to make an incredibly dumbed-down TV series out of it. I'm glad it's all over.

 

[Sheep]

Actually, the show hasn't been canceled. It's being retooled with a new cast and a significant shift in tone.

I dunno if it'll work. What do you all think?

What the hell was that?

As for FlashForward getting cancelled, as I said in the SFF thread this is no surprise. The show's plots just got lost and they chose to focus on melodrama between characters we barely had any interest in instead of trying to balance it with stories about how the WORLD responded and how that affects our characters.

 

[RobertScorpio]

I'm glad this is over. I kept thinking to myself every week - "Why am I watching this? Why am I watching this? Why am I watching this?". I suppose I was hoping it would get better because it has an interesting premise, but it just got dumber and dumber. There was one episode a few weeks ago - when Tracey was kidnapped - everything that happened in the story was dependent on the characters making stupid mistakes and acting like complete idiots. Then, I think a couple of weeks later, that chess match - telephone number thing was probably the stupidest thing I have ever seen in my entire life.
The people who made this show deserve to lose their jobs because they started with this interesting concept, and decided to make an incredibly dumbed-down TV series out of it. I'm glad it's all over.

My friend and I kept finding reasons to watch too...we just kept hoping it would get better. I feel sorry for the cast because, aside from the dude playing Mark, I liked them all...they were let down by the writing staff, IMO.

Rob