FlashFoward: "Blowback" 3/25/10 - Grading & Discussion

[Anwar]

The Remar character might just be arrogant enough (or brave enough) to not have guards for his home since he thinks all his real enemies are either being dealt with or under surveillance. He wasn't counting on Aaron being able to take out the guy they had watching him.

Lloyd became a little less sympathetic this episode, he kept an important piece of information secret. He can hide behind "I'm worried far MAH BOY!" but that doesn't cut it.

Aaron, well I'm willing to wait to see just what the Jericho secret is before I come down on his story. As it is, I'm entertained by the "Papa Wolf" rampage.

 

[Hober Mallow]

Dominic was much better on LOST as Charlie--this FF role just is an ill-fit---everytime he tries to act tough I just laugh.

I agree. He's trying his best, it just seems like a mismatched role.

Monahan originally read for Sawyer on Lost, and if you've seen some of the footage from the season 1 DVD/blu ray, it's a lot of the same stuff from him. Even the producers said they couldn't take him seriously like that.

As for the series itself... I've sort of dropped in status from regular viewer to casual viewer. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but the show just isn't gripping me. Judging from the terrible ratings from the last few weeks, it's not going to be around much longer anyway, and that makes it even harder to want to invest into the characters.

 

[Checkmate]

I find it humorous that the best action in the show is coming from an alcoholic electrician going all Bourne Identity in a show revolving around the FBI. But that's really the only thing that's entertaining me here. Which is a shame. They had some really good casting and the premise has tons of potential, but the execution is absolutely wretched. People need to realize you can't recreate the magic of Lost intentionally, and you certainly can't do it by drawing shit out just for the sake of drawing it out. And that's where Flash Foward fails.

 

[Hober Mallow]

People need to realize you can't recreate the magic of Lost intentionally, and you certainly can't do it by drawing shit out just for the sake of drawing it out. And that's where Flash Foward fails.

This.

It's like they had a presmise, they had the endgame built into the flash fowards themselves, but the countdown to the flash forwards coming true was something they didn't put a lot of thought into.

I almost didn't watch after the pilot, not because of the quality of the story, but because the network was downright insulting to my intelligence. They'd show a scene with a kangaroo, then cut to a break, where the network would show the scene again, slowed down, and an announcer would say, "Remember this scene! It's a very important clue!" Sheesh, don't just tell me the clues, because then watching the show is about as passive an experience as TV can get.

About all I can really say about this series is at least it's better than V.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

And what kind of CEO of a mercenary/security company can't afford to have guards?

That's what got me. Evil Blackwater CEO Guy's remote mansion has less security than your average day care center. Presumably he realizes that he has a few enemies. Bearded alkie shouldn't have been able to get within a mile of the place. The guards at the gate would have heard that paper-thin cover story and blam, that's the last we hear of bearded alkie.

The Remar character might just be arrogant enough (or brave enough) to not have guards for his home since he thinks all his real enemies are either being dealt with or under surveillance.

Convenient Hollywood Rationalization #237. Collect them all!

No mercenary outfit is going to worry about being exposed for doing dirty deeds, that's what they're hired for. They are connected to government at the highest levels precisely to do dirty deeds, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan. Aaron's problem is completely phony.

Yup. Blackwater's still around. They changed their name to something like "Zeo"* but everyone knows it's still them. They don't give a shit who knows what about anything. That's the problem with most of these conspiracy plotlines outta Hollywood. The bad guys act like they actually care that some schlub from a newspaper has oooh "found them out!!!"

*A 1.5 second Google search turned up the right name: Xe. Shows you just how "secretive" they are. The next pack of evil defense contractors can use Zeo if they like, though. I won't charge royalties!

People need to realize you can't recreate the magic of Lost intentionally

You can get closer than the attempts we've seen, though:

1. Cast mostly good actors, mostly who look good wearing next to nothing.

2. Make sure they wear next to nothing on a regular basis.

3. Give them colorful yet simple, easily-understood personas that have some intriguing little twist to them (the "Arab terrorist" who seems like a nice, smart guy; the "redneck hillbilly" who could be a troubled, sensitive soul with a dark past; etc.).

4. Toss something mysterious, bizarre and scary into the story every 20 minutes or so, just when the audience might start feeling bored.

5. Make sure your mysteries are vague enough that you can wrangle them into a semi-coherent plotline later on when you figure that shit out.

6. Make sure there's some big thing that all the characters need to accomplish, or else. On Lost, it was "survive" and then "get off the island." This needs to be introduced in the premiere episode. I'm seeing way too many shows lately that think a long-termed serialized story means you shouldn't introduce the point of the story until episode eight or so. The best way to kill your show is to make the audience wonder what the point of the story is.

The Lost imitators haven't come close to mimicking even that list of basic items. Hitting all those points would not even remotely guarantee a show like Lost, but at least it wouldn't bore everyone into changing the channel.

 

[stj]

When the stories were more about people whose heads were messed up by their visions of "the" future, it didn't matter that so many of these characters are sketchy or unpleasant. What they do would define the previously undefined ones, and the interest of the dilemma outweighs the unpleasantness of their company.

Number one example being Mark, who wants his vision to come true so that he can save humanity from the next blackout (which is also, be the hero,) but doesn't because he loses his wife. That dilemma is interesting, making Mark interesting, even if he is depressive and bad tempered and generally full of himself in his personal dealing with coworkers.

But the newly retooled version has thrown all sanity to the winds for sensationalism. My feeling is that if I'm going to watch melodramatic BS, I want to watch something like Sanctuary where I actually like the characters capering around on screen.