FlashForward: "Future Shock" 5/27/10 - SERIES FINALE
- Thread starter Aragorn
- Start date
Sad to see this show go...
I'm with you, Borgminister. I've grown to like this show a lot, and I wish we'd get a proper ending, and it's apparent we won't.
That said, I'll be here tonight watching and commenting.
You know, looking back, it's hard to believe that I was excited as I was for this show. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the show for the most part, but in the coming years I know that I'm going to look back and paint the show with the same brush as Heroes: a show that took itself way too seriously and was locked into a single premise that they couldn't move beyond.
I am going to miss seeing Sonya Walger on my TV though. Two of her show canned in the space of a week, harsh.
That said, bring on the finale.
I am going to miss seeing Sonya Walger on my TV though. Two of her show canned in the space of a week, harsh.
That said, bring on the finale.
I'm going to say it didn't take itself seriously enough, with all the stupid subplots, dead ends that only served to waste an episode (Nazi prisoner, for example) love stories completely unrelated to the main threat. Nothing was wrong with this single premise, but the showrunners themselves locked themselves into a singular idea they couldn't move beyond.
I'm interested to see how this is going to play out. Don't worry though... ABC will probably reboot it for 2012 anyway! 
I liked the show, but I have to say that the premise really WASN'T enough for a continuing series. A single-season maybe, a mini-series most probably but NOT a continuing show.
^I think sometimes we're limited by the modern assumption that a show has to have a big unifying arc. This could've worked well as the kind of show they made in the '70s, where the basic premise was often just a loose framework for what was essentially an anthology series. Think about it. Everyone on the planet had a flashforward. That's countless different stories about how people's lives were affected by what they saw of their futures. Maybe instead of trying to run a bunch of those stories in parallel alongside this big conspiracy arc, and ending up with a rather cluttered and cursory result, they could've devoted each week to a different character story revolving around a set of guest stars, with the regular characters' search for answers being just a vehicle for bringing them into contact with those guest stars (cf. The Fugitive, The Invaders, The Incredible Hulk). Of course, the flashforwards would probably have to have been years in the future like in the original novel rather than just six months ahead, so that the heroes' investigation could be open-ended and never really lead anywhere. (But still give the appearance of advancing, like how The Invaders showed "architect David Vincent" gradually learning new things about the alien infiltrators without really varying from the crisis-of-the-week format.)
True, such an approach seems superficial when looked at as an overall narrative, and today's audiences probably wouldn't be satisfied with that. But in the '60s or '70s, the emphasis was more on the individual stories -- an anthology-like approach, as I said. And while I'm not seriously suggesting that FlashForward should've been done this way in 2010, it does seem to me that there was a lot of potential for telling individual character stories about the many ways people's lives could be affected by seeing the future, potential that was too often squandered by excessive focus on the various conspiracies and mysteries. It's a valid argument that shows in the '60s and '70s had too little arc, but I often think that modern shows err too far in the other direction.
True, such an approach seems superficial when looked at as an overall narrative, and today's audiences probably wouldn't be satisfied with that. But in the '60s or '70s, the emphasis was more on the individual stories -- an anthology-like approach, as I said. And while I'm not seriously suggesting that FlashForward should've been done this way in 2010, it does seem to me that there was a lot of potential for telling individual character stories about the many ways people's lives could be affected by seeing the future, potential that was too often squandered by excessive focus on the various conspiracies and mysteries. It's a valid argument that shows in the '60s and '70s had too little arc, but I often think that modern shows err too far in the other direction.
Heroes is much less excusable. FlashForward had a tricky premise that would be tough for anyone to pull off. Heroes should have been a slam-dunk. I can't think of any way to really guarantee that FlashForward could be an artistic and probably ratings success, but I could write a book on the subject in regards to Heroes, and probably have done the equivalent, right here.
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