Following the success of the first airing of FlashForward, fans throughout the country are quickly becoming enthralled with ABC’s newest sci-fi drama.  Thought provoking and often heart pounding as it is, the show requires audiences to question the basics of fate, and in their search, to consider how permanent it is.   No more than several weeks into the season, the show has made a name for itself as a program that indeed will call up the most speculative side of audiences, while at the same time mastering their emotions in providing laughs and tears within every hour.
          Trapping fans everywhere, FlashForward creates the idea of what might happen if the entire world blacked out for two minutes and 17 second-each one witnessing the future.  Each character within the show receives their very own flashforward when the blackout occurs–all of them witnessing the same moments, six months in the future.  Some however, see nothing at all, leading to the presumption that they simply do not have a future- and that come the next several months, they will die.
           The show supports a capable ensemble cast, circled entirely around agent Mark Benford, as played by Joseph Fiennes (better known for his stage work, and as Shakespeare in “Shakespeare in Love”). It seems that casting directors have hit the jackpot of somewhat obscure but talented actors, as it also features Commodore Norrington of Pirates of the Caribbean (Jack Davenport as Lloyd Simcoe), Star Trek’s Hikaru Sulu (John Cho as Demetri Noh) and even Zachary Knighton (better known as Hitcher’s Jim Halsey) as the loveably optimistic attending, saved from the clutches of suicide by his flashforward.  Full of talented newcomers and complex characters the show skillfully provides a range of audiences with someone to love.  Among them includes Benson’s daughter, Charlie, as the almost unbearably adorable victim of a foreboding flashforward, that’s seems to indicate a dangerous future for the girl.   

FlashForward’s first several episodes strongly pursues the emotion of general panic. They do not forget that approximately 20 million people have died in the aftermath of the flashforwards, and proceed to delve right into potential causes of the phenomenon. When the entire world blacked out everyone saw something different, but so far only Benford’s insightful view of what his investigation might look like come April 29th proves to be of use.
Although each character receives his or her moment as it were, the initial focus, thankfully was on the crisis at hand, as that soap-opera feel that some of the more personal flashforward is saved for the smaller moments.  

Having set up the premise of Flashforward’s founding’s, writers plunge right into the plot. And at first they stay true.  Developing magnificently, the plot around the source of the flashforward has unfolded to include possible leads.  Of specific interest comes the character Simon, as played by Lost’s Dominic Monaghan.  Simon’s mysterious knowledge of the flashforward’s and his dark claims to have started it give viewers an inside look into the evil motives the phenomenon might have had.  Meanwhile, Benson and his section of the FBI battle to receive funding to continue their investigation, as it is based entirely on individual’s flashforwards. Eventually however, they are granted funds and the search continues for evidence.  Soon the crew is alarmed to find each one of the pieces of evidence they saw they would have six months from now are quickly falling into place in their case files. Items of particular interest include a possible occurrence of the blackout before the world wide one, and the inexplicable death of crows during the event.  Filled with numerous cryptic clues the case has ballooned to include dangerous criminals as several of the detectives are attacked, one even critically injured.   Stakes are certainly rising as the season progresses and the pace of the show suggests a nothing-short-of-epic finale.   Writers have even promised to actually reach April 29, 2009 before the season closes, so as not to follow in the footsteps of their previous hit, Lost and its season of filler, leaving audiences on edge.

Unfortunately it seems the shows fast pace cannot last, as some of the more recent plot lines have sidelined fully into scandalous pasts, forgetting the doom  of the future. Crumbling marriages, marriages that are struggling to start in the first place, long lost daughters, alcoholism, autism, missing loves, forbidden loves, and scandalous affairs— all provide a seemingly unnecessary superfluous feeling to a show advertised as being jammed packed with action. While it is likely that each of these things may come into play later (much later) at the moment they provide frustrating filler for those interested in how exactly everyone in the world passes out for 2 minutes and 17 seconds and sees the future. In forgetting the specific choice their audience makes not to watch Grey’s Anatomy an hour later, writers of Flashforward risk losing their sci-fi, action loving audience to a smaller, softer romance loving body.
           Fortunately the wait is bearable for the moment as Benford’s case has spiraled, taking in new tips that lead him and the team into a mysterious night club, in which all members are bent on killing themselves. Here, FlashForward has tackled an essential theme in questioning the value of life, on a specific, intriguing level. The club itself and the suicide of characters force audiences to question what they would do if they knew the future wasn’t livable for them- or if there wasn’t a future at all. Would they continue on? Even still, everything is based on a flexible reality. Will it happen? Can I trust what I saw with my own eyes? Or did I even see it?  Perhaps the most significant theme however, exists in the form of a question so frequently asked through literature and movies. Do we control our own fate? All of FlashForward’s characters have witnessed their future, but can they change it? Was it Flamingo go pool or another nightclub?
By recreating the age old question in a new, exciting light, the now seasoned writers of FlashForward have begun an exceptionally enticing series, that’s future, it seems is entirely based on whether or not they stay true to what their viewers want to know. As each episode brings new questions, it’s easy for writers to ignore some of them, and instead favor more gossip-worthy developments, as they have already begun to do in some areas. If however, they stay away from these underlying plot lines and focus on what they’ve succeeded in building (a compelling, new look into the age old question of fate) the show has the potential to indeed become the next Lost. 

 As of December 4^th, however, the show has taken a four month hiatus, forcing an anxious audience to wait out the result of what was certainly an unexpectedly fast paced closer, to a intriguing beginning. FlashForward’s future however, is just as foggy as the flashforwards themselves; can they keep to the plot? Or has their fate already been decided?  Tune in March, 4^th to predict for yourself.