Characters:

It is a big cast, so, this might be longer than normal: Joseph Fiennes is Mark Benford, special agent of the FBI, married to Olivia Benford (Sonya Walger), have one daughter Charlie (Lennon Wynn). Mark’s flash forward is that he is at the office, trying to figure out who’s responsible for the black out, his flash forward is hazy, because… he was drunk. He does see men in masks with guns trying to kill him. Olivia had a flash forward which involved another man, Lloyd Simcoe (Jack Davenport) who has an autistic son Dylan (Ryan Wynott), who was under Olivia’s care at the hospital where she is a doctor. Lloyd also has a flash forward about Olivia, except at first he doesn’t know the woman is actually Olivia because he never saw her face.

Demetri Noh (John Cho), Mark’s partner Demetri didn’t have a flash forward, in his case it means that he no longer will be alive at April 29, the day the whole world saw during the black-out. His fiancé Zoey Andata (Gabrielle Union) has a flash forward where she is on beach about to get married, but it turns out, it is not because of the marriage, but because of wake for Demetri. Stanford Wedeck (Courtney B. Vance) is Mark and Demetri boss at the FBI, his flash forward also is in the office building, fighting of men with masks. Dr. Bryce Varley (Zachary Kingston) is a colleague of Olivia, working at the hospital. He has cancer, he hasn’t told anyone, on the day of the black-out, he is about to kill himself, but when he wakes up from the black-out he has seen a future, in this future he meets a young Japanese woman, Keiko (Yûko Takeuchi, who passed away in 2020, suicide! RIP).

Janis Hawk (Christine Woods), also an FBI agent, she is gay, had never any intentions in getting a child but her flash forward shows that she is pregnant. She turns out to be a double agent, which was an interesting twist. Demetri “helps” Janis getting pregnant at a time he was certain he was going to die. Marshall Vogel (Michael Ealy), CIA, is her handler. According to Charlie’s flash forward, on April 29^th, Vogel tells another agent that Mark Benford, her father, is dead. Nicole Kirby (Peyton List), the babysitter for the Benford’s. She has a flash forward which seems to suggest she is being held underwater and she feels she deserved it. She is volunteering in the hospital, meets Bryce, they get close and they fall in love. When it turns out she kept something from him about Keiko, that Keiko was in the US, looking for him, after this, it’s over between them.

Aaron Stark (Brían F. O'Byrne), a former alcoholic, sponsor and friend of Mark Benford, who also was an alcoholic. Stark thought that his daughter Tracy (Genevieve Padalecki), while serving the military, died in Afghanistan, but in his flash forward he sees her alive in Afghanistan and he is with her. Simon Campos (Dominic Monaghan) is Lloyd Simcoe’s colleague. At first he and Lloyd believe that they are the ones responsible for the black-out, which caused millions of death world wide. It turns out their experiment did enhance the effect of the black-out, but they weren’t responsible. Simon is the man they saw walking in the stadium, when everyone else was asleep. He was awake because he was wearing a ring with a device in it called a QED (Quantum Entanglement Device). Last one I want to mention, who was a regular in the 10 episodes or so, is Al Gough (Lee Thompson Young, he too took his own life back in 2013! RIP). The cruel part of it is that also committed suicide in flash forward because he accidentally causes the death of a women, which he saw in his flash forward. He thought he could change the future by killing himself so that the woman will live.

The premise in short:

A mysterious global event causes nearly everyone on Earth to lose consciousness simultaneously for two minutes and seventeen seconds. During this blackout, humanity experiences a vision of their own life exactly six months in the future, which leads to global chaos and intense investigations. The premise explores questions of fate versus free will as people attempt to either fulfill or prevent the futures they witnessed. The narrative primarily follows an FBI task force in Los Angeles, led by Agent Mark Benford, as they try to uncover the cause of the event and determine whether or not a second blackout will occur. Via the Mosaic bord (internet website), people can input there flash forward experiences so that the FBI can try to figure out what has happened and who is responsible. In the series finale we see that Mark Benford figures out that another blackout is imminent, in less then 15 minutes after the world has been caught up by the first blackout which was April 29^th, 10pm. With the 2^nd blackout, People apparently experience flashforwards to varying future dates.

Based on a novel / TV show created by:

FlashForward is based on a novel by Robert J. Sawyer, the show was created by two very familiar names! Davis S. Goyer, some of his credits are: Dark City; Blade; Batman Begins; The Dark Knight; Foundation and many, many more. The other one is Brannon Braga, yes the Star Trek guru! He was the co-creator of Star Trek: Enterprise, other credits: Star Trek: The Next Generation; Star Trek: Voyager; a favorite of mine: Threshold; 24; Terra Nova; The Orville and many more.

My Thoughts:

The show isn’t perfect, Joseph Fiennes a capable actor, certainly, still, there is something about his acting, that puts me of for some reason, I cannot explain it, but I also had it with his character on The Handmaid’s Tale. But that is something that I have an issue with. There is an episode, mid-way through the season, where Mark Benford is waving a gun around when he is in Hong Kong. Yes, he gets suspended, but in reality, I think he would have been fired on the spot and very possibly also charged for what he did there. But on the whole, as I said, it is quite entertaining, the story keeps evolving, never boring, fast paced, just fun. It is such a shame it didn’t get a second season. It must be because the there weren’t enough viewers, or perhaps in combination with the cost of making FlashForward because I can imagine it was very costly to make. To me, there wasn’t a bad episode among them, I had great fun rewatching this, but what ultimately became the series finale, is, I guess, my favorite episode. It definitely delivers and the prospect of the fallout of the second blackout and possibly many more after that, was something I’d very much would have liked to see!

Final Word:

So, there you have it, 16 years after the final episode aired I have rewatched this for the first time. I don’t know why I never before purchased it on DVD. Perhaps because, at one time, I only bought TV shows on Blu-ray, it was my way of boycotting shows that only were released on DVD, which happened quite often in the last decade or so. Still, I am happy I did purchase it on DVD, even if it a used copy, it is well preserved by the previous owner, it looks like new. Now it is back on the shelve for at least 5 tot 10 years, but I do think I will take it of the shelf again at one point. Also thinking of purchasing the novel after this rewatch!