Examining the FlashFoward Pilot

Is it worth watching another show every week?

BY COLIN ENQUIST

With all the hype built around FlashForward, how could I not watch the series premiere? 12.46 million viewers must have though the same thing! Plus the series is produced and co-created by David S. Goyer (The Unborn), who I adore. Goyer even wrote and directed the pilot episode. The series premiere of FlashForward fell on September 24th, 2009 (more on this date a little later!).

If you have been living in a media free world for the past couple of months or just ignored the constant push by ABC then I will quickly lay out the premise for you.

A mysterious global event causes everyone on the planet to simultaneously lose consciousness for 137 seconds. Many people worldwide see what appear to be visions of their lives six months (April 29th, 2010 to be specific) in the future. The event causes great catastrophe across the globe due to people blacking out while driving cars, airplanes or any other form of mechanical machinery that could kill someone if it were being run by a unconcious person behind the controls, while the people who survived are left wondering if what they saw will actually happen.

It seems the main protagonist will be Mark Bedford (Joseph Fiennes), a Los Angeles FBI Agent now tasked with leading the team to solve the mystery about the global event causing every person to black out. I am not going to even mention the rest of the large ensemble cast that has been put together because we have yet to even see many of the actors/actresses actually in the show.

Despite the show being billed as the next Lost, I never really expected the pilot to be so similar. The first 15 minutes are almost the same as the pilot to Lost. It opens with Mark Bedford, waking up, confused. Quickly we flash back to hours before, giving us a brief explanation of what Bedford has just gone through. Once we catch up to where we started, Bedford is helping innocents that have been injured. After a few more similarities the show takes off in its own direction. The creators of the show like Lost and if you were paying attention you would have noticed the Oceanic billboard (picture to your left!) in the background of one scene. I had to go back later to read what the sign actually said, “Perfect Safety Record”. The characters from Lost probably got a kick out of that!

I was not attached emotionally yet to any of the characters introduced during the first 35 minutes of the show and it felt like the show was just planning on laying out the global event without working any emotion into the show until further episodes. Of course that ending with Bedford and his daughter Charlie (Lennon Wynn) sitting on the swings tossed what I thought was going to be the weakness of the pilot out of the window. When Charlie handed her father a friendship bracelet, it hit me pretty hard. That one scene asks the big question about the visions themselves. Are they a self-fulfilling prophecy?

From wikipedia.com

A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true, by the very terms of the prophecy itself, due to positive feedback between belief and behavior. Although examples of such prophecies can be found in literature as far back as ancient Greece and ancient India, it is 20th-century sociologist Robert K. Merton who is credited with coining the expression "self-fulfilling prophecy" and formalizing its structure and consequences. In his book Social Theory and Social Structure, Merton gives as a feature of the self-fulfilling prophecy: Ie: when Roxanna falsely believes that her marriage will fail and fears such failure will occur that it actually causes the marriage to fail.

The self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behaviour which makes the original false conception come 'true'. This specious validity of the self-fulfilling prophecy perpetuates a reign of error. For the prophet will cite the actual course of events as proof that he was right from the very beginning.

In other words, a prophecy declared as truth when it is actually false may sufficiently influence people, either through fear or logical confusion, so that their reactions ultimately fulfill the once-false prophecy.

This could be one of the main themes surrounding the series, fate vs. free will. Can you change your future? This reminded me of a fable one of my teachers used to tell in class. The old fable deals with a self-fulfilling prophecy.

A man goes out to the marketplace in Mecca and encounters Death, who clearly recognizes him and gives him a meaningful look. The guy is sure that Death is soon going to come claim him, so he gets the fastest camels he can find and makes an all-day and all-night journey to Samarra. After his arrival, Death encounters him on the street and claims his life. "But," the man says, "I saw you in Mecca yesterday and was sure you would claim me there." "Yes, I was very puzzled by that meeting," says Death, "because Fate had decreed that I take you today in Samarra and I didn't see how that would be possible with you in Mecca yesterday."

Like any good show many questions were asked in this first episode to get you to stick around for the answer. While I do not expect any of these to be revelations we find out about anytime soon, some of the questions were very interesting.Fellow FBI Agent Demetri Noh (John Cho) doesn’t have a vision; he seems to think it is because he will be dead in 6 months. I do not buy that, it was proved at the end that someone did not black out, maybe he was conscious? It would explain how he got so far away from the car before Bedford found him. The biggest question would be the cliff-hanger ending. Who is the man at Comerica Park and why did he stay conscious?

I will stick around for a couple more episodes at least but I would like to feel more emotionally involved with the characters. The premise of the show is captivating; it won’t keep me around just based on that though. Premiering on 9/24, the show seems to be considered in real time as the event prophesizes something to do with 4/29 in 2010. Does this mean the season finale is that day? I am intrigued by the prospect of a show basing events on a current timeline. Also 9/24 flipped is 4/29, am I looking into this a little much? What did you think about the show?