Flash Forward: "137 Sekunden" 10/8 - Grading & Discussion
- Thread starter Aragorn
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I wonder whether or not the people in Germany will actually be speaking, you know, German. 9 out of 10 times when they have scenes like this (e.g. in season one of Fringe) what they say is barely intelligible. 
Yeah, that's one thing I've enjoyed about Heroes--the Japanese with subtitles. Of course I can't tell if the Japanese is authentic or not, so...
The characters played by John Cho and Joseph Fiennes were killed off, but other than that, no.
Interesting. So the guys who are supposedly Demetri and Benford now are evil Nazi clones?
Makes sense.
Sets up the entrances of Professor Indiana Jones and Hellboy into the plot.
I doubt it. That's not something the FBI gets involved with. It probably did plant the idea of changing the future into his head, though.
I would have turned him in, just to see if the future can be changed. If a death sentence was hanging over my head, I'd want to know if I had a chance to escape it.
That was a let-down after the first two episodes, I felt. The A plot went nowhere, and the B plots, such as they were, were fairly uninteresting. We've already got a marriage-in-trouble storyline in the foreground, so why are we echoing the theme so closely with Demetri lying to his fiancée (repeating the old and by-now annoying 'Lost' pattern of characters just not talking to each other)? Ditto, don't care about drunken-beard-guy despairing--set him searching after his daughter already, instead of just moping around. He already has a pretty good idea of where he needs to go. The main plot seemed to want to tackle an ethical issue that both seemed besides the point of the series, and at the same time felt relunctant, pulling away from the conflict of the situation, with a completely cold spat between Mark and Janis, and the manufactured outrage of the two-dimensional German agent (and what was up with that which-country-did-worse-things pissing contest at the beginning?). I kept expecting we were being set up to learn something about Janis, if only that she had family that got caught up in the Holocaust, but that fizzled... unless she said something while they were looking at the dead crows (my antiquated VCR cut off with thirty-something seconds left to go). Speaking of which, the whole 'crows died' bit seemed pointless, certainly not worth letting the old Nazi fuck go, particularly since you'd think somebody would have noticed a mass animal die-off sooner or later; there are ornithologists out there who do nothing but study this kind of thing. I figure it'll factor in at some later point, but this episode did nothing to move the arc along. I did like that a bunch of FBI agents from the pilot turned up again here, suggesting recurring roles and a large cast, and it's always good to see Gina Torres get work, even if in an utterly discardable role, but otherwise, between the lack of plotting, the repetitive mindless gibbering about faith, and the dullness of the sideshows, it's a fairly sizeable dip in quality from the first two.
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
After what seemed like alot of buildup, the Nazi turned out to be pretty much a bust, IMO.
The 137 was just a swipe to implicate the Jews (like any good Nazi would do). The crows were more interesting....though still not mind-blowing or anything.
I gave this episode an 'average'. Not as good as the last two, but okay.
And no...I don't think they should have let the old coot out. Not for those lame-ass clues.
The 137 was just a swipe to implicate the Jews (like any good Nazi would do). The crows were more interesting....though still not mind-blowing or anything.
I gave this episode an 'average'. Not as good as the last two, but okay.
And no...I don't think they should have let the old coot out. Not for those lame-ass clues.
I gave it average. I wasn't as drawn in by this epsode and didn't care for the characters as much. However, it did tease with the idea that maybe some or all of the flash forwards are not necessarily set in stone.
I also wondered if Dimitri's (that's Cho's character, right - I'm sooo bad with names!) fiance is lying about her flash forward or she just assumed that it was him in the distance in her vision.
I was bothered a bit that D.Gibbons wasn't mentioned in this episode after the tease at the end of last weeks'. I wanna know now!
I also wondered if Dimitri's (that's Cho's character, right - I'm sooo bad with names!) fiance is lying about her flash forward or she just assumed that it was him in the distance in her vision.
I was bothered a bit that D.Gibbons wasn't mentioned in this episode after the tease at the end of last weeks'. I wanna know now!
Things really fizzled with this episode, after there was far more tension in the first two.
The actor who played the Nazi really chewed the scenery, but in a very annoying manner. I hope he won't be back, because I don't feel like seeing another stereotypical Nazi throwing American saying at people. It was just lame. I agree that the German government official was even more 2-dimensional, if that's even possible.
Not much character development, except tension between Mark and Janis over his decision to free the Nazi for his info. A little bit of development for Dimitri, as he struggled with hiding the truth that he learned at the end of last week's episode. The trouble in the Benfords' marriage plotline didn't go anywhere, but I am honestly glad it was left out of this episode. It's pretty obvious that Mark's suspicions are going to destroy the whole thing in the end.
It was completely unnecessary to have the scene with the fat pothead in his underwear. I mean, do we REALLY need to see that? Dear god.
It's not like it furthers the plot.
Seemingly a lot of throwaway roles on this show. I mean, they introduced the babysitter in the pilot, but she's been AWOL ever since. I guess she wasn't supposed to matter? We also had Gina Torres as some random character who just comes out of nowhere and serves no purpose.
I think that this show is starting to spread itself really thin. There are just too many characters to keep track of, and many of them don't really serve a purpose (or at least not yet). I don't really care about Mark's friend Aaron and his possibly alive daughter, at all. They give him and his ex-wife some screen time, but the plot thread seemingly goes nowhere when he finds out that the remains were confirmed as his daughter's. Where do they go from there? I can't think of anything except faked test results. I mean, I'm pretty sure that she is indeed alive somehow, but I can't get myself to care at all, just because it doesn't do anything for the story. This looks like one of those plot threads that isn't going anywhere for some time. It was also a little ridiculous that his ex-wife freaked out on him when he showed up in her bar, but seemingly had no problem after he admitted that he dug their dead daughter's remains up because of some dream. Ooookkk...
There's also the seemingly irrelevant male nurse who tried to off himself in the pilot, but is now completely alright. He also had no lines in this episode, after a couple last week. Why do we need these characters?
Another downside to a show like this is that when you have a new show, you need to get viewers hooked fast before you lose them. But the way this show is set up, there isn't likely to be any payoff for some time. I really think they need to show that there is some kind of urgent threat to this whole blackout soon, or the viewership is going to slide. Right now people are just looking for clues, which is alright, but it could go on the whole season.
Also noticed a large goof: At the end of the episode when Janis found the mention of a massive crow die-off in 1991 in Somalia, the file says that the CDC asked DHS for more funding. Except that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) only came into existence in 2002....
The actor who played the Nazi really chewed the scenery, but in a very annoying manner. I hope he won't be back, because I don't feel like seeing another stereotypical Nazi throwing American saying at people. It was just lame. I agree that the German government official was even more 2-dimensional, if that's even possible.
Not much character development, except tension between Mark and Janis over his decision to free the Nazi for his info. A little bit of development for Dimitri, as he struggled with hiding the truth that he learned at the end of last week's episode. The trouble in the Benfords' marriage plotline didn't go anywhere, but I am honestly glad it was left out of this episode. It's pretty obvious that Mark's suspicions are going to destroy the whole thing in the end.
It was completely unnecessary to have the scene with the fat pothead in his underwear. I mean, do we REALLY need to see that? Dear god.
It's not like it furthers the plot.Seemingly a lot of throwaway roles on this show. I mean, they introduced the babysitter in the pilot, but she's been AWOL ever since. I guess she wasn't supposed to matter? We also had Gina Torres as some random character who just comes out of nowhere and serves no purpose.
I think that this show is starting to spread itself really thin. There are just too many characters to keep track of, and many of them don't really serve a purpose (or at least not yet). I don't really care about Mark's friend Aaron and his possibly alive daughter, at all. They give him and his ex-wife some screen time, but the plot thread seemingly goes nowhere when he finds out that the remains were confirmed as his daughter's. Where do they go from there? I can't think of anything except faked test results. I mean, I'm pretty sure that she is indeed alive somehow, but I can't get myself to care at all, just because it doesn't do anything for the story. This looks like one of those plot threads that isn't going anywhere for some time. It was also a little ridiculous that his ex-wife freaked out on him when he showed up in her bar, but seemingly had no problem after he admitted that he dug their dead daughter's remains up because of some dream. Ooookkk...
There's also the seemingly irrelevant male nurse who tried to off himself in the pilot, but is now completely alright. He also had no lines in this episode, after a couple last week. Why do we need these characters?
Another downside to a show like this is that when you have a new show, you need to get viewers hooked fast before you lose them. But the way this show is set up, there isn't likely to be any payoff for some time. I really think they need to show that there is some kind of urgent threat to this whole blackout soon, or the viewership is going to slide. Right now people are just looking for clues, which is alright, but it could go on the whole season.
Also noticed a large goof: At the end of the episode when Janis found the mention of a massive crow die-off in 1991 in Somalia, the file says that the CDC asked DHS for more funding. Except that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) only came into existence in 2002....
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She was in the lengthy season preview broadcast with the pilot (at least it was here), so she'll pop up again, though I imagine she's recurring and not a main.
I like large casts of characters, myself, but I agree that some of them seem purposeless right now, just sucking up space. I don't mind having a lot of people at the FBI, because they have functional support roles, but we need to be invested in a character if we're to care about them and not their contribution to the overall plot, which certainly isn't the case for a lot of the hangers-on (and some of the leads, quite honestly).
At the end of the episode when Janis found the mention of a massive crow die-off in 1991 in Somalia, the file says that the CDC asked DHS for more funding. Except that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) only came into existence in 2002....
Bah, VCR ate this. Uh... alternate timeline?
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
Aaron said he was having the body's DNA compared to what the military had on file. It appears that a military cover up is going on here. For some reason they don't want the world to know that the girl is missing/captured in the Middle East.
This storyline is more interesting to me than Mark's future marriage problems.
