DVD Review: FLASHFORWARD Season 1 A Lost, But Confused Treasure

Now that the first (and presumably only) series is available to buy on DVD, I thought it high-time to look back and see why FlashForward - a high-concept sci-fi show that captured my attention throughout the run on TV - was cancelled after only one season, and to see whether it is worth the cover price of the DVD release that has just arrived on shelves.

First off, a bit of a scolding for the DVD releasers: in the past I have been vocal in my dissent against volumised or serialised TV DVD releases, believing them to be no more than a cynical money-wringer and a giant show of disdain for the DVD and Blu-ray buying public. So when I learned that FlashForward had been given the same treatment during its mid-season break (another new tradition I deplore), I more than rolled my eyes. Now it turns out that Part 2 will never see the light of day, forcing those who paid to get the first half of the season now have to go out and buy it again as part of the complete boxset. That's just not on, as far as I'm concerned.

Ignoring the comparative slump towards the end of the first half and midway through the second half (and the infuriatingly unnecessary mid-season break), the sub-plots and narrative hooks all landed fairly squarely as intended. Certain aspects became rather silly, including the whole sauvant side-line that seemed more like a contrived addition to give Battlestar Galactica's James Callis a role to play with (which he did with rather too much aplomb as it happens), but by and large it remained a world away from being as spoiled as some critics may have you believe. There is certainly nothing like the same superfluous over-zealous flourishes and elaboration that marred part of Lost's run, and yet that show was quite rightly heralded on the whole as ground-breaking and enduringly memorable television.

So, why exactly was FlashForward cancelled? I think, generally speaking, FlashForward offered a lot more in terms of potential than it ever did in execution (apart from in all too brief flashes). On the strength of the excellent pilot, the show should have gone on to be incredible, but by the end of the twenty-odd episodes, it felt very much like it had outstayed it's welcome. That is the problem of such long seasons- story arcs end up being over-extended to the point that they encourage nothing more than mild apathy (especially the side and sub-plots meant to engage while Agent Benford and co tried to solve the mystery of the black-out before D-Day.

If you could possibly ignore the frustrations of the cliff-hanger ending being tagged on to an ultimately cancelled show, there is something to be said for the manner in which the finale did end. I liked the cyclical resolution, with the show being book-ended by black-outs, though it did ultimately feel (thanks to the realisation that I had no chance of learning anything) like I'd spent twenty odd hours learning nothing. The long-term storyline also made certain that casual viewers simply would not get on board, and despite the strong production values and appealing actors (though not necessarily strong universal performances) the loss of seven million viewers in America from pilot to finale spelled disaster.

And why did those seven million jump ship? I think the way the show dealt with its characters was the chief problem. There were just too many characters vying for focus (even Lost stuck to a small core of characters in the first season and gave each a sufficient amount of focus), meaning more compelling characters like Dimitir (John Cho) and Aaron (Brian F. O'Byrne) were pushed to the periphery, and the most awfully written character of all, Mark Benford (Joseph Fiennes) was given way too much focus.

Benford, played in a gruff, occasionally badly stunted fashion by Fiennes just doesn't have the enduring charisma needed to carry the series- oddly for a recovering alcoholic character, he also manages to be almost entirely unable to command any empathy or even sympathy. It isn't so much his lack of ability to deal with his demons, its just the impenetrable way Fiennes plays him, and it becomes increasingly hard to care about what happens to him at all. House shows exactly the value of having a troubled, anti-hero type of character driving the success of a show, and you sense there was something of an attempt at that here, making Benford a very modern protagonist, but it just doesn't work at all. The fact that the script offers about four or five other emotional hearts of the narrative robs Benford of the olive branch that might make him a redeemable figure- it is far more interesting to watch how the various other relationships in the show blossom than to watch his spiral and ultimately he becomes a disposable island in a sea of enduring relationships (all within a show that is all about the idea of human relationships at its heart). And for that to be our hero? Terrible decision.

If you can ignore that gaping hole in its centre, there is a lot to enjoy from FlashForward. The character relationships are all well-painted, and it is very easy to care about whether most of the characters are able to survive their fates as prophecised in their Flashforwards. In fact, it is that plot device (the idea of unavoidable fate) that holds the most focus throughout- catastrophically for the "who-dunnit" plotline somewhat- as the show engages on its most basic human interest level better than on any of its sci-fi levels.

The characters too are mostly enjoyable, with the notable highlights of Simon (Dominic Monaghan) and Dyson Frost- even if both of them are neglected criminally by the script eventually. Frost in particular could well have been the villain that made FlashForward more enjoyable, but he was stupidly disposed of way too early in the show's timeline to be replaced by a faceless organisation that just couldn't inspire the same kind of attention. And that's the big story of FlashForward at the end of the day- a series of good ideas undone terribly by a series of idiotic creative decisions.

In the end, FlashForward ended up being an oddity of suspenseful TV-making: robbed of any possible grace by the decision not to take up the option of a second season, the show limped towards its finale while remaining determined to succeed to its original agenda. As time began to run out on the elite FBI force, it became horribly inevitable that those fans who stuck with the show were going to be left unsatisfied, either by a cliff-hanger that would never be fulfilled or by an ending rewrite that would offer some kind of certain finality to the show's end.

All the great suspenseful, thrilling TV shows and movies (especially those under the sci-fi banner) are driven by one primary objective: one question that is posed at the start and answered at the end. Ignore the peripheral narrative embellishment and even character arcs, it is the production's fidelity to driving that primary objective and the success with which it sticks to the one question that determines how well a production is judged. Going back to Lost, at the basest level, everyone stuck with the show because they wanted to know exactly what was going on (that show was governed by a vague question mark rather than a specific question, which was its major charm), and with FlashForward the question is what caused the black-out.

The problem of course is that once it was cancelled, FlashForward was governed by an entirely different question: how much of the complex web of intriguing elements would the show be able to wrap up before the final curtain fell? That question, and the ominous suggestion that the answer would be "not enough" effectively spoiled everything else and relegated those other elements to no more than distractions.

Ultimately that cost FlashForward more than it could recover from.

Extras

This is the final insult. The story of Family Guy tells us that DVD sales can often be the catalyst for a cancelled show to be picked up for further seasons, so perhaps a little more care and attention could have been put into making this release really stand-out. Instead, we have a collection of pitifully short featurettes that aren't really worth the cover price, so short are they on actual substance.

Featurette: Architects of Destiny Featurette: Meet Yuko Featurette: Flash Forward On Set Featurette: Kangaroo? Interviews from the Mosaic Collective Creating Catastrophe: The Effects of a Global Black-Out Blooper Reel Deleted Scenes Audio Commentary on episode 11: "Revelation Zero" The Final Word

It may have now gone to the TV Room 101, probably never to be seen again, FlashForward is actually a series well-worth a watch if you didn't get the chance when it first landed on TV, and it is certainly more entertaining, and a whole world more imaginative than The Event. So my advice, ignore the third episode of the latter when it screens this coming Friday on British TV and return instead to FlashForward- it just might surprise you.

FlashForward Series One is available to buy on DVD now.