Flash Forward: Part One – Season One
DVD Reviews | Feb 22nd, 2010
Starring: Joseph Fiennes, John Cho, Sonya Walger, Jack Davenport, Brian F. O’Byrne, Peyton List, Dominic Monaghan, Courtney B. Vance, Zachary Knighton
Created By: David S. Goyer, Brannon Braga
Studio: Disney / Buena Vista
Buy on Amazon.com
Yes, Flash Forward is still airing their episodes. But since the show has been on hiatus since December, Disney & ABC felt people should catch up on the show on DVD in the meantime. Sure, that’s great & all, but who wants to pay for half a season? The series returns in March and will air ‘til the end of May on ABC. Besides the half a season DVD problem, Flash Forward tries really hard to become the next LOST and while I enjoyed most of the episodes; it’s no LOST.
Flash Forward is about a mysterious global event happening where everyone drops like flies for 2 and half minutes. They later wake up and released they saw 6 months into the future, on April 29th to be exact. Every single person who experienced a flash forward experienced something the exact same time, same day. Some people didn’t experience anything at all, which leads them to believe that they are dead, unconscious or maybe sleeping? A Los Angeles FBI unit heads the case on what caused the blackouts, and who’s behind it all.
Leading the investigation is Mark Benford (Fiennes) and Demetri Noh (John Cho). In Mark’s flash forward, he sees himself drinking again, in his office when a group of masked men come into the building ready to shoot him. He uses pieces from that flash forward to get the investigation going. Others begin to provide details on what happened as well. Besides that, you find out pretty much everybody’s flash forward that isn’t involved in the case: everyone from a babysitter to some random dude who comes in for questioning. Mark’s wife (Sonya Walger) appeared to be cheating on him with a strange man; Mark’s AA sponsor/friend Aaron (Brian F. O’Byrne) saw his dead solider daughter and was talking to her. Each person has seen something different and some believe the things will happen, others don’t. What the FBI is worried about is what caused it, who’s behind the blackouts and will it happen again.
At first, I though the show was really good and could have served as a replacement to LOST, now I’m not so sure. The quality of the show seems to be getting lower, and not as interesting as the first half. The gimmick of showing people’s flash forward is getting annoying as well. Pretty much every time someone mentions their flash forward, they have to show it like the audience doesn’t remember or something. It’s very annoying and I hope it changes in the second half of the season. We get it; we don’t need to see some guy’s flash forward with him taking a shit. Also, so what happens when April 29th comes, and people find out who’s really behind everything and why they did it? Are they going to go the 24 route and have a series of villains to go after? Just when you think it’s over, nope, and someone escapes and is really the master mind behind everything. To be honest, I don’t know how they are going to continue this show. I hope the show doesn’t drag on and on.
I don’t have a problem with the acting on the show and I like the actors & actresses. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll probably stick around until the end of the season to see what happens. I’m hoping the show goes back up in ratings and does better story-wise. I still think Fringe is my LOST replacement right now.
The first half of the season of Flash Forward has its ups and downs. I hope the season picks up more in the second half or I might bail if there’s a second season. I would like to keep watching to see what happens, but if they continue to do annoying little things, it might not be worth sitting through.
I would hold off buying this DVD because I believe there might be a full complete season in the works when the season is actually done. I really hope this isn’t a reoccurring thing with studios and they start releasing half of a season on DVD. It’s annoying, cheap and a scam to make more money. The DVD extras aren’t that special either. There’s 2 or 3 quick featurettes. You see how they did the opening scene in the show (cool) and then some lackluster preview for the second half of the season. I’d recommend just renting this or watching the episodes online at ABC.com instead of buying this DVD.
Features:
Creating Castrophe: The Effects of a global Blackout
Flash Forward: A Look Ahead
Audio:
ENGLISH: Dolby Digital 5.1 [CC]
Video:
Widescreen 1.78:1
Subtitles:
French, English
Bottom Line: A Decent show that has its moments, but has slipped in quality towards the end of the first half.
Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 430 mins
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating:
