Flashforward 1-4 (spoilers)

[ewx]

Episode 1

• There's some nice camerawork in there, e.g. when Bryce Varley is considering his end.
• A lot of the first episode must have practically written itself: the junior (of course) fed sees nothing, the senior one sees himself investigating the flashforward, his wife sees herself with another man ... the list goes on, ending of course with the one mysterious man who didn't pass out. The obvious big questions are articulated: how and why did this happen, is the future seen a certain one or merely a possible one?
• The devastation after the flashforward seemed a little overdone. Chaos on the roads is plausible enough and one helicopter hitting a building is fair enough, but exactly how many helicopters were there actually in the air along the line of a single road? (And how did did keepers falling asleep for a couple of minutes cause zoo animals to escape? Thought the kangaroo is probably there to make you wonder if animals had the same experience and if not why not.)
• The story is, at least initially, bounded: the date of the visions from the future is known, requiring the story to get there rather than rambling on indefinitely. Personally I'm inclined to see this as positive though of course,

Episode 2

• More nice photography, e.g. the shot of the helicopters over suburbia from directly above.
• Mark's boss's story is entertainingly horrible l-)
• Varley is shaping up as the philosopher of the show:
  “Everything's going to be OK, Mr Simcoe”
  “How can you be so sure?” “I've seen the future.”
• Mark is letting the vision guide the investigation. There's a real risk here that's he not analyzed, which is that he's heading down a path to the endpoint of the vision, not to the reality behind the flashforward.
• “He who foresees calamities suffers them twice over” is attributed to one Beilby Porteus, an Anglican bishop and leading abolitionist.

Episode 3

Either Noh's fiancee is lying or at least one of their visions (and the phone call he got) is false or profoundly misleading. Does he have a twin brother perhaps? Aaron's vision seems to be inconsistent with the grave evidence too (assuming he didn't lie about it). Noh + girlfriend have inconsistent memories of how they got together too - perhaps the point is simply that future memories are inconsistent too!

According to Wikipedia, Kabbalah = הלבק = Kuf Bet Lamed He = which by the Gematria rules is 100+2+30+5 = 137. So Geyer's explanation is possible. A causal loop is inadequate justification for liberating Nazis, Benford needs to get a grip on himself.

There seems to be a giant neuralizer in southern Somalia. The Ganwar region may be fictitious (or at least the web hasn't heard of it!) Geyer's claim about the significance of a ring on the left thumb doesn't find any online support either.

Episode 4

• Another reminder of the destruction when the flashforward happened; I wonder if there'd be really that much chaos?
• Ned Ned is quite entertaining l-)
• If the FBI can't get some help from the CIA... obviously they hire a computer hacker. I'm surprised they didn't figure out they were in a TV program. But how does Alda Hertzog come to have internet access while she's locked up? I can't say she came across as quite as threatening as she was probably supposed to though.
• “So maybe it's not as sexy as dead poultry in Africa...” l-)

Characters

Name	Actor	Description	Relationships
Mark Benford	Joseph Fiennes	FBI agent	Husband of Olivia Benford Father of Charlie Benford Colleague of Demetri Noh
Olivia Benford	Sonya Walger	Doctor	Wife of Mark Benford Mother of Charlie Benford Apparent future lover of Lloyd Simcoe Colleague of Bryce Varley Operated on Dylan Simcoe
Demetri Noh	John Cho	Junior FBI agent, apparently doomed	Colleague of Mark Benford
Bryce Varley	Zachary Knighton	Formerly-suicidal doctor	Colleague of Olivia Benford
Lloyd Simcoe	Jack Davenport	(Self-described) annoying parent	Father of Dylan Simcoe Apparent future lover of Olivia Benford ?Unwilling co-conspirator of Simon
Dylan Simcoe	Ryan Wynott	Injured autistic child	Son of Lloyd Simcoe Saved by Olivia Benford
Charlie Benford	Lennon Wynn	Winsome child	Daughter of Mark and Olivia Benford Saw D. Gibbons in vision and didn't like him
Stanford Wedeck	Courtney B. Vance	Assistant Director FBI LA Field Office	Boss of Mark Sanford and Demetri Noh
Alda Hertzog	Rachel Roberts	Terrorist
D. Gibbons		Obscure hacker/bomber	Telephone interlocutor of suspect 0 Killer of Pigeon local cop
Suspect 0		Awake during the flashforward	Telephone interlocutor of D. Gibbons
Simon		Sinister guy on phone	Tells Lloyd Simcoe they're responsible for the “greatest disaster in human history” (presumably the flashforward).

Comments

[stephdairy.livejournal.com]

It's an entertaining show, certainly, but it's so slow and gets only slower when the characters have their American TV angst moments. Also I have this horrid feeling it's going to be red herring after red herring and the whole will make no sense.

(S) (also not convinced everything would spontaneously explode if people zonked out for a couple of minutes)

[(Anonymous)]

what you saw where explosions caused by airplanes (large and small ones), helicopters, jets etc
a lot of vehicles are up in the air above such cities like LA or for example NY....and a lot of these are not on autopilot because they are going down to an airport or are coming up from one
then add all the crashs in traffic and you get the amount of "explosions" (as you know a car won't explode even if you ignited it's fuel....exploding cars allways have explosive charges in them....if a car could explode like they do in movies then everybody would use a bike)

Its a great show, the puzzle fits together perfectly. But it will be tough for people with a short

[(Anonymous)]

Has everyone figured out that Lloyd Simco is Olivia Bedfords relative, likely her brother? Its kind of obvious he is not going to be her lover.