Mosaic Task Force

Episode 1.07 - The Gift - New Short Promo

2009-11-05T12:15:00.000-08:00

Episode 1x07 The Gift - Sneak Peek Promo

2009-10-31T09:03:00.000-07:00

Outside the Box - Interview w/ Joseph Fiennes, Sonya Walger, John Cho and Courtney B. Vance

2009-10-18T09:27:00.000-07:00

IGN Review - Episode 4

2009-10-17T07:50:00.000-07:00

Episode Rating 7.2/10

October 16, 2009 - A few reviews back, I brought up FlashForward's cursory use of Phillip K. Dick's notion of "pre-crime." It's not clear if this theme will ever get explored as fully as it should since this series has a habit of merely dipping its toe into the waters of metaphysical debate, but in "Black Swan" we get a glimpse into the interesting world of "pre-medicine." It's not as exciting as "pre-crime," but at least the show's doctors, Olivia (Sonya Walger) and Bryce (Zachary Knighton), take the time to sort of hash out their reasonings a bit more than our FBI pals. It doesn't make for the most scintillating of TV, since we're not really invested in their characters (or their patient Ned, for that matter), and most of the debate happens during long, boring walks down hospital corridors. But at least I felt like the show was attempting to dig into one of the hundreds of philosophical topics that it's unleashed in just three episodes.

Olivia refuses to treat Ned (Keir O'Donnell) based on the clues given in his flash vision because she stubbornly doesn't want to believe that these future visions are something that can be taken as fact. Bryce, however, is all about the saving and healing power of the flash visions. This loft stance actually helped fill in his character a bit more and make him a touch more appealing. Listen, everyone on this show still takes very ham-fisted "time outs" to talk in heightened tones about the ideas of hope and destiny - but if they actually decide to turn Bryce into a pioneering practitioner of "pre-medicine" then he could actually become interesting.

According to the episode opener, we're now only 14 days out from the black out. So everyone just ignore the dead crow graph. Maybe it was projecting future crow deaths. Like those crow graphs are apt to do. I have to say, I really liked the opening sequence in this one – with the bus driving into the lake set to Bjork's "It's Oh So Quiet." It's the most artistic thing that this show's done so far (well, that's worked anyway) and it gave the scene a great, detached feel. I think FlashForward could benefit from a more objective approach to this story. I feel like the fact that they try to hyper-personalize everything takes away from the story's ambition. The fact that we don't care about a lot of these characters, and aren't invested in their well-being, tends to make a lot of the scenes fall flat.

- ABC
Noh (Cho) and Benford (Fiennes) chillin' in Indio, yo.
I would like to comment on John Cho however. He's a very charismatic actor and he really does his best to make Agent Noh's actions believable and relatable. I'd much prefer to watch him that Agent Benford (Joseph Fiennes) – even though neither of them, 14 days out now, can figure out the easiest and simplest of solutions to their flash vision dilemmas. Why doesn't Noh just quit the FBI? There are big plays that these guys could make that could greatly effect a more agreeable outcome. Even Olivia thinks that transferring Lloyd's (Jack Davenport) son to a different ward will prevent her from inter-acting with him. But it's just like throwing a boomerang,and the son winds up back in her care. She's going to have to leave. If she wants things to change, then she's going to have to be the one who changes. Same with Noh. They have the ability to remove themselves, possibly, from their fate, but so far they're choosing not to.

Which brings us to the paradox. The future visions that the people are seeing of themselves are of themselves having been through the black-out. It's of versions of themselves who have seen their FlashForward visions of themselves being right where they are in the FlashForward vision. And yet they're still re-enacting the scene in the same way that they must have seen it before. Meaning Benford's future self must have known that he was going to end up right there, going over clues, drinking and about to be shot. And yet, he was there anyway. It means that Olivia's future self must have also already seen herself walking out and saying hello to Lloyd, but she's still doing it. It never ends actually. They're seeing future visions of themselves who've seen future visions of themselves. It's hard to believe that knowing the future won't change the outcome, especially when the knowledge is of you being in a specific place, doing a specific thing and feeling a specific way.

As far as the rest of "Black Swan" goes…Wedeck (Courtney B. Vance) is still wondering why anyone wants to do anything. "You want to go to Somalia?" Why doesn't the director understand the very investigation that he himself started? He started it based on Benford's flash vision. Noh even questioned his logic about it. Nicole (Peyton List) is back, but I find myself not really caring. She saw herself being drowned. If it turns out that it's just her getting baptized by the priest, I'll s*** in my hat.

The blonde terrorist lady, Alda (Rachel Roberts), is back and giving "heady," vague answers to dumb FBI question in an attempt to make this show seem cultivated and egghead-ish. For no reason she tells Benford about the Black Swan theory, and then she shares a needless parable of a young boy with a candle. Then she compared Benford to the young boy in the dark when really he was the old man asking questions to the young boy and she was the young boy, sitting there, handing out pithy philosophical nonsense.

And finally, we caught a glimpse of Lost's Dominic Monaghan, entering in as…someone; someone who calls Lloyd and reveals that they might have been behind the black-out. Either that or they were behind Battlefield Earth. I'm not sure. He only made reference to a "giant disaster."

SOURCE: IGN

Episode 1.04 Screencaps

2009-10-16T08:28:00.001-07:00

Screencaps by: TV Spoilers

Poll - Episode 1.04

2009-10-16T08:23:00.000-07:00

Behind The Scenes Promo

2009-10-15T08:35:00.000-07:00

Sonya Walger Interview - TV Guide

2009-10-15T08:33:00.000-07:00

If you thought Lost was a tricky show filled with twists and turns, FlashForward has a few mind games of its own to play. TVGuide.com sat down with a star from both ABC shows.

One of the many issues FlashForward raises is whether or not you can change the future. Sonya Walger's character, Olivia, finds herself struggling to make sure the glimpse she saw in her flash doesn't come true, because it would mean the end of her marriage to Mark (Joseph Fiennes).

FlashForward picked up for full season

What does the rest of Olivia's flash forward reveal? Can her marriage survive these circumstances? Walger discusses that and more. First, let's get the major Lost question out of the way ...

TVGuide.com: All right, when are you returning to Lost?
Sonya Walger: No idea. Not a clue. I don't even know if I'm in the last season.

TVGuide.com: Do you think Penny should die in the end?
Walger: Are you saying in a sacrificial way, Penny needs to die? I hope not because Penny's so great. There would be mass outcry, but you know what, they killed off Charlie, so anything can happen. I feel like her dad should be the one to bite it. I am not kidding.

TVGuide.com: Were you nervous about joining another mythology-heavy show?
Walger: No, not at all. It's funny, I didn't even think of Lost when I read that script. It sounds bizarre or naïve, but I really didn't. I read the script and I was so excited by the writing and by this character, by this woman who is complicated and says 'I hate you' to her husband when she means 'I love you.' She's a professional and a surgeon and a mother. I didn't see any similarities to Lost. I honestly still don't. I see them as big shows that have one big exciting event, the catalyst that gets it all going with an ensemble cast. I see that, but after that they just part ways. There isn't a mythology to FlashForward in the same way. There's not codes to decipher ... There's not islands moving and polar bears and smoke monsters, that's not in our show ... yet anyway.

Watch full episodes of FlashForward

TVGuide.com: Did you ever work with Dominic Monaghan on Lost?
Walger: This is the joke of me being a part of Lost, I haven't met three-quarters of that cast. I'm not kidding. I would be as star-struck as you would be if I met Matthew Fox. I actually only met Dominic on a photo shoot for FlashForward — that was the first time we met. He comes into play in quite a significant way in this show. I can't really tell you anymore than that. He's a good part of it.

TVGuide.com: We haven't seen all of Olivia's flash-forward. What can you tease about what we haven't seen?
Walger: In the flash-forward, the bit that you have seen is that Lloyd [Jack Davenport] gets up from the bed and gets a text message from someone. The person he gets a text message from is very, very unexpected.

TVGuide.com: Can Mark and Olivia's marriage survive this flash-forward?
Walger: Who knows? I think it's completely fascinating that just the ghost of this might be what undoes their marriage, or it might be what strengthens them and keeps them together. It might be the tension of it alone [that] drives Mark to drink. It's such an interesting idea that just the threat of something might be what leads you towards it. It may well be that they get to a breaking point and then say, 'No, this isn't happening to us. We're going to make this work.'

Lost and FlashForward star Sonya Walger weds

TVGuide.com: Do you have any personal belief in fate?
Walger: I don't really. The word fate doesn't really mean much to me in some ways. I think we make our own. Minute by minute you decide who you are and who you're likely to be. You make the choices hour by hour, just in the present. I don't believe there's some roadmap laid out that we're headed towards.

TVGuide.com: Give us a nice tease for what's coming up for Olivia.
Walger: She's going to be forced quite soon to deal with whether or not you can change the future. She keeps being reminded — evidence keeps being presented all around her — that you can't change it. Every time she thinks she's seen the last of Lloyd and that she's managed to avoid it, he keeps coming back.

Do you think FlashForward has more twists than Lost?
SOURCE : TV GUIDE

Tv Guide - Love Triangle Heats Up

2009-10-15T08:29:00.001-07:00

FlashForward's tense Mark/Lloyd/Olivia love triangle will come to a head on the Oct. 22 episode when third-wheel Lloyd (Jack Davenport) knocks on the door of married couple Mark (Joseph Fiennes) and Olivia (Sonja Walker), who saw a future glimpse of herself and Lloyd together as a couple.

“Mark’s not pleased to see Lloyd,” teases Jack, whose character arrives with the autistic son (Dylan) Olivia has been treating at the hospital. From his own flash forward, Dylan will immediately recognize both the house and Mark and Olivia’s daughter, and feels an instant connection.

“It’s a weird territory,” adds Joseph. “Lloyd and Mark can’t condemn each other at this stage for what hasn’t yet happened. Plus, you risk possibly manifesting the (infidelity) outcome as a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Source: TV Guide Magazine

New Promo Video

2009-10-15T08:27:00.000-07:00

FlashForward mystery: Was that a spaceship? - SciFi Wire

2009-10-14T13:56:00.000-07:00

Now that everyone has had time to catch up on the latest episode of ABC's FlashForward and debate what they saw, we figure it's time to take a closer look at the ending in Somalia where ... something .... appeared in the sky.

The scene takes place in an area where a whole bunch of people suffered a blackout similar to the flash-forward, but this one happened back in 1991. A small shepherd boy watches a bunch of flying crows suddenly die and plummet to the ground, crests a hill, and sees bodies all over the ground, followed by something with the appearance of a cloud that looks sort of maybe like a ship.

To figure out what it might be, we eavesdropped on the fan debate over on ABC's site and have pulled together the list of possibilities so far:

Some kind of ship: The cloud is a ship, human or otherwise. Or it's the trail from a ship. This alleged ship emitted something or dropped some kind of bomb or otherwise did something that killed that crows. It may even be a Nazi ship, since the whole episode dealt with that cagey old Nazi in prison. Although these are all interesting theories, consensus from the audience is that the cloud isn't a ship, mostly because that would seem too obvious.

A nuclear explosion: The cloud came from a nuclear, or nuclear-like, explosion. True, some kind of explosive something-or-other (or emissions from an explosion ... see EMP below) may well have caused the crows to die in Somalia, but we also know crows later die around the world, and no explosions are reported. This one seems unlikely too.

An EMP pulse or solar flare: These theories come up regularly but are shot down pretty quickly, since theywere ruled out by the characters themselves in the pilot. We guess it's still possible, and the first episode was throwing out a bit of misdirection, but it's not very dramatic or satisfying.

Discharge from the tower: The cloud-ship-thing is seen hovering over a strange tower, but could it have actually come from the tower? The theory here is that there may be some sort of plant or hidden complex underground housing ... er, something ... that caused the crows to die and the people to pass out. Or that the tower itself is emitting waves of something. Consensus seems to be the tower was just in the shot to give perspective, though.
It's a Higgs boson: In case you didn't know (we had to look it up), a Higgs boson is "a massive scalar elementary particle predicted to exist by the Standard Model in particle physics." Assuming the particle could be the size and shape of a cloud (doubtful!), this would certainly tie in to Rob Sawyer's book Flashforward, on which the show is based. No one lends this theory much credence, though, because the show seems to be taking pains not to repeat what happened in the book.

The inevitable Lost comparison: It's been noted by many that this "cloud" could be smoke, which is eerily similar to Lost's "smoke monster." Deliberate? Probably. Meaningful? Doubtful. There was no clankity-clank sound, after all.

The cloud is shaped like a crow: There is no actual theory here, but some viewers have noted that the cloud is vaguely shaped like a crow and a lot of crows die. We're including it just so we don't look foolish if there really is something to it.

Cloaked Goa'uld Death Glider: The cloud does bear a passing resemblance to the Goa'uld fighters from Stargate SG-1, but unless Richard Dean Anderson shows up as a guest star, we're going to have to say no.

Our best guess: None of the above. The cloud will almost surely turn out to be some kind of red herring, like most of the "clues" we've gotten so far. Or it's a nuclear crow ship that activates the tower, which in turn creates a Higgs boson solar flare on the island from Lost, where MacGyver is living in retirement.

SOURCE: SciFiWire

Music from the show

2009-10-13T10:29:00.000-07:00

Episode 104: "Black Swan"	First aired: October 15, 2009

Bjork, "It's Oh So Quiet"
A bus plunges into the lake.

Original Parliament, "Atomic Dog"
Ned walks into a club.

IKO, "Look What You've Done To Me"
Lloyd visits his old home at the Simcoe Residence

Episode 103: "137 Sekunden"

KC and the Sunshine Band, "Boogie Shoes"

Smashing Pumpkins, "To Sheila"

Jeff Buckley, "Lover You Should've Come Over"

Episode 102: "White to Play"	First aired: October 1, 2009

Nick Drake, "Place To Be"
Mark places the burnt doll crime scene photo on his board. Mark's car pulls up. He takes in the view. Olivia is cooking dinner in the kitchen while Charlie watches TV. Mark enters with a toy in his pocket for Charlie.

Episode 101: "Pilot"	First aired: September 24, 2009

Mos Def, "Quiet Dog"
Charlie is napping in her bed. You can hear music from down the hall. Nicole is having sex with her boyfriend Joel. Mark & Demetri conduct surveillance. Bryce pulls a gun …

Miss Eighty 6, "Goodie Bag"
The song is playing in Nicole’s car as she pulls up to Mark’s house.

Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers, "Islands In the Stream"
Dominic sits at his computer, watching a YouTube video of Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton, circa 1983, performing “Islands In The Stream” before a live studio audience…

Mojave 3, "All Your Tears"
Mark repairs the garage door. Olivia arrives and pulls into the garage. Mark and Olivia look in on Charlie.

Episode 1.04 - Black Swan - 2 Promo Videos

2009-10-13T10:23:00.000-07:00

How many episode will this season have?

2009-10-13T10:21:00.000-07:00

E! online has confirmed that this season will be 24 episodes long.

Poll - Episode 1.03

2009-10-09T09:38:00.000-07:00

Gabrielle Union - Interview

2009-10-08T09:18:00.000-07:00

FlashForward may have plateaued suspense-wise during its second episode, but the show will likely accelerate again following Gabrielle Union’s arrival on the series as Demetri’s (John Cho) fiance Zoey. Union spoke with Movieline about working with Cho and the plight of her character, who’s “flashforward” of April 29, 2010 seems to conflict with what we think we understand about Demetri.
The 36-year-old star of Bring It On and Love & Basketball confessed that Zoey’s psychic vision of April 29, 2010 has Demetri in it, which means that he might be misinterpreting his ominous-seeming “flashforward.”

“I have a ‘flashforward’ that’s a little different than his, as he doesn’t have one, and I’m insisting that he was in mine,” Union explained. “But I believe that we are getting married. I think that’s what I see.”

She quickly added, “The [producers] are Fort Knox-y. If you say something, they’ll track you down!”

She adds that Zoey is a particularly exciting character to play because she’s “a really smart character who is not in-your-face or a know-it-all.” Amid all the speculative science spouted by FlashForward’s characters thus far, Zoey’s career as an defense attorney may add street-smarts and levity to the show.

“I’d like to think she’s a little more realistic than the over-the-top, sort of fictionalized — how fictionalized characters are drawn. Like, she can’t have it all! She can’t be smart, and have a dude, and have good credit, or you know, whatever. She’s actually pretty balanced, normal, and highly functioning, which is rare for me to play, as she’s not completely neurotic.”

As for her TV husband, she says finally meeting Cho in person — after knowing him from the cheetah rides of Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle — proved refreshing.

“I pretty much knew him from American Pie and Harold & Kumar,” she said. “He’s so smart, so funny, so in love with his wife and baby. It’s actually really endearing. People usually come to work and they complain, and he comes to work and just gushes. It’s a nice little surprise.”
Source: MovieLine

Episode 1.03 - 137 Sekunden - Short Preview

2009-10-04T07:50:00.000-07:00

Poll - Episode 1.02

2009-10-02T10:11:00.002-07:00

Episode 1x02 White to Play Screencaps

2009-10-02T10:11:00.001-07:00

Images are from : TV Spoilers

Chicago Now Interview With John Cho

2009-10-01T10:46:00.000-07:00

John Cho is dedicated to his new ABC series, "FlashForward."
The 37-year-old actor, known for playing stoner Harold in the "Harold & Kumar" movies, was up at 6:30 a.m. Thursday to kick off a day of phone interviews in support of the thriller, which airs at 7 p.m. Thursdays.
"I'm nude and in bed," he joked when I mentioned the early hour. "What are you wearing?"

Cho, who starred as Lt. Sulu in this year's hit reboot of "Star Trek," plays FBI agent Demetri Noh in "FlashForward." Noh and his partner are investigating the circumstances that caused everyone on Earth to black out for 2 minutes and 17 seconds and have visions of what they will be doing six months in the future.
Cho wouldn't give away anything about what the future holds for his character, but he did promise exciting things from the series. (And by the way, I was fully clothed.)
Don't miss the interview below, or a video sneak peek of this week's episode. Spoilers ahead? I don't think so--unless you aren't caught up with "FlashForward."

Congrats. You scored goo numbers with the premiere. Are you surprised at the show's success and at the fans and all the buzz?
You know, in a way I always expect everything I'm in to bomb. You're always kind of taken aback by success, I think. We allowed ourselves to celebrate a little bit and we breathed a little sigh of relief, but I feel like it's weeks 2, 3 and 4 that are really critical to us. To their credit, ABC publicity put together a great publicity campaign and we felt like people knew about it. I think the expectations were there to draw in a lot of first-time eyeballs. I think we have a strong show so I hope those people return in the coming weeks. I think that's the big test.
ABC did a good job of publicizing the show, but not giving anything away.
It's hard to keep a secret these days.
You've had that experience already with "Star Trek," didn't you?
Yeah, these last two projects I've been involved with have been high-level security, which is frustrating or annoying on a personal level because they're the only two projects I've done that people know about and ask about. Usually they're like, "What are you working on?" And I'm like, "Oh, it's a comedy about guys getting a burger," and I don't have to go any further because they're really disinterested. So, ironically, finally when people are interested I can't say anything.
Tell me about Demetri. Is it weird to be the only character who doesn't flash forward?
Yes it is. It's a little bit of a cast-wide guessing game, we're always trying to figure out what's going to happen to people.
So you don't know?
No.
Would you tell me if you did?
No.
What would Harold do in this situation?
He would panic, I think. He would panic and start constructing a bunker.
And would he smoke up?
Oh, is that where you're going? That's very clever of you.

Hey I try. So, in Thursday's episode, Demetri and Mark (Joseph Fiennes) go to Utah to interview a suspect. Is it that guy we saw in the video in Episode 1? Can you say?
I cannot say, and how dare you ask. [Pause.] It's going to be good. How's that?
That's great. Thanks.
Let me assure you of this: My experience reading the scripts mirrors watching episodes, really, because I don't know where the show's going [either]. There's a lot of excitement internally for us reading each script. I've been satisfied with how great the scripts are, but what's been a surprise is how much they're revealing in each episode. It really advances the end game. Each episode has kind of a bombshell every week. I've been surprised at how much they're giving away this early.
The flash-forward date is 10 p.m. April 29, 2010. If the series goes on to multiple seasons, will it show the longest six months ever?
We're going to switch formats and become a four-camera sitcom after April 29. It's going to be a comedy about two roommates in New York [and] one's messy. The writers, particularly creator David Goyer and the showrunner Marc Guggenheim, have a master plan that's very thorough. My understanding is that they pitched to ABC the first three seasons. They are very confident that if they get there they can accordion out accordingly.
Source: Chicago Now

Episode 1.01 Recap - TV Overmind

2009-09-29T11:21:00.000-07:00

Isn't it refreshing to see a pilot episode not titled "Pilot"? I was pleasantly surprised when FlashForward's first episode had a more creative and enigmatic title than "Pilot," unlike other shows in its vein, like Fringe and Lost. Of course, the title is the least interesting part of the episode.
I'd actually had the privelege of seeing the episode a few weeks ago, so tonight's airing was more of a rerun, but was no less exciting — it's one of the fastest-paced hours of television I've seen. And that's a good thing.

The episode starts off with Mark Benford awakening in an overturned car. There's the sound of shattering glass in the background, and he's got a nasty cut on his head. It's a surprisingly quiet environment for the scene of a car crash. He shimmies out of his seat in the car, sliding out the shattered rear windshield of the car. There's a body lying on the curb as he comes out, cementing the fact that we won't be dealing with a happy scene.

As he gets to his feet and walks around, there's Oceanic 815-reminiscent chaos surrounding him. People are screaming and running around, cradling dead loved ones and clutching at wounds. "Demetri!" cries out Benford, though he can't find who he's calling for — just a man covered in flames flailing about.

As the flaming man falls, we're treated to a pretty cool title sequence before being whisked away to four hours before, at the beginning of what looks to be "another beautiful day," according to the radio announcer. The sun rises over suburbia, and Mark Benford opens up his gun safe. Inside, in addition to his sidearm, is a note that says "You're a crappy husband. I hate you." Glancing over at his wife, Benford chuckles before grabbing his holster and badge.

He then goes over to sit down beside his wife, who is still asleep, on the bed. "I hate you too," he whispers, and they both chuckle. She reminds him about the garage door, but he's playfully "already forgotten," and instead goes to make breakfast for their daughter, Charlie, who is watching cartoons happily.

Benford leaves his house through the broken garage door, greeting the neighborhood cleaning crew as he goes. As he's walking out, Nicole, the Benford's babysitter, shows up in a Volkswagon. Benford asks her if she'll be able to stay an extra hour so that Olivia can work the late shift. She doesn't mind — she's got "studying" to do anyway.

A little while later, Olivia has woken up, and calls Bryce Varley, her co-worker. She leaves him a voicemail expressing her concern and annoyance at his failure to show up at rounds the previous day. And she has appropriate reason to worry, as a forlorn Bryce is actually out on a pier overlooking the Pacific. He looks over the ocean for a moment, watching some surfers. After placing his wallet and cell phone on the railing, he reaches into his satchel and pulls out a gun.

Meanwhile, Benford is attending an Alcoholic's Anonymous meeting. A man, Aaron Stark, is speaking to the circle. His daughter Tracy, who fought in Afghanistan, was killed in the war, and her remains, only identifiable through DNA, were brought back to the U.S., which prompted him to become an alcoholic. After the meeting, Benford chastises Stark for his lack of social skills; Stark has been procrastinating on calling Amanda, a girl recommended to him by Benford, who he has refused to call. Stark argues that he's Benford's sponsor, and should be riding him, not the other way around. Stark cracks, agreeing to call Amanda, even though "nurses freak him out."

Nicole is with a guy in the Benford's living room, and they're not doing any studying at all while Charlie is upstairs taking a nap. She thinks she hears Charlie upstairs, and tells the boy that he'll have to leave as soon as they're finished.

Meanwhile, Benford and his FBI partner Demetri are surveying a mysterious woman, who is meeting with suspected terrorists. While snapping pictures, Demetri complains to Mark about the song his fiance has chosen for their wedding, "Islands in the Stream," which he believes is very corny. Benford realizes that he can't remember what he and Olivia danced to at their wedding.

Aaron looks at a picture of his daughter before climbing up to repair a power line, while Olivia discusses her daughter with a fellow surgeon before an operation.

Benford and Demetri, meanwhile, shadow their suspects by car, conferring with Stan Wedeck and Janis Hawk back at headquarters. As Benford and Demetri tail the suspects, they're suddenly discovered. The suspects speed off with the FBI in pursuit, narrowly dodging cars. Well, some cars. Others aren't so lucky.

As everything builds to a head — Olivia goes into surgery, Aaron climbs the power pole, Bryce brings the gun to his head, Nicole and her boyfriend romance, and Mark and Demetri continue their pursuit — Mark is suddenly thrown into a different time.

What follows is one of the trippiest sequences ever. Mark finds himself standing in an office, surveying a bulletin board covered with photographs and notecards. Among the words he sees: Mosaic. He's drinking from a flask, and he quickly scribbles on a calendar notecard, "Who else knows?," noticing a friendship bracelet on his wrist. Red lasers shine in the distance, and Benford prepares himself, cocking his weapon and hiding as two masked men weilding guns enter his office. One of the men has three stars tattooed on his arm. As Benford watches the two from his hiding place, he is suddenly thrust back into the present, in the overturned car where we found him in the pilot.

He stumbles out, and searches for Demetri among the chaos. He's approached by a worried Asian man, who is pointing frantically to a gas tanker, which soon explodes. Benford, in the aftermath of the explosion, jumps atop a car and discovers that the disaster is all around him — the entire freeway has fallen victim to this crash. Even buildings burn with black smoke as a result of crashed aircraft.

Benford soon finds Demetri, who is disoriented but okay. They rescue a woman from a burning car, and Benford tells Demetri to call the office and see what happened.

Bryce, meanwhile, wakes up with a bump on his head. Everyone around him on the pier has passed out as well, and he heroically goes to rescue some beached surfers, all thoughts of suicide gone.

Nicole goes to check on Charlie, who tells Nicole that she had a bad dream, and also drops the title of the episode when she reveals she dreamt that there were "no more good days."

Mark finds himself unable to call Olivia, and assists Demetri in the arrest of the mysterious blonde terrorist. Demetri questions the woman, but she denies any responsibility for the blackout. A crowd of people, witnessing the event, begins to surround Mark and Demetri, asking what happened. Benford doesn't know, but a man tells him that he heard on his radio that the event happened in San Diego as well. Demetri convinces Benford to go after Olivia on foot, and he does so in a painful-to-watch slow-motion running scene.

As he walks through the streets among looters and a strange kangaroo, he stops to watch a news report in the window of a nearby "Voltage City," which confirms that the flashforward happened everywhere, which is repeated to us by a viewer. Jeez, we got it already.

While watching, Benford gets a call from Olivia, confirming that she's okay, and that Nicole said Charlie was okay. Original author of Flashforward Robert J. Sawyer can be seen walking behind her, trying to make a call as well. Olivia is overwhelmed with patients, so she can't talk very long, and hangs up on Mark.

The patient she hung up on Mark for is a young, eight-year-old boy, who had been hit by a car during the flash. She reassures the still-conscious boy as he's wheeled away, and he tells her "I know, Olivia." She looks in shock at the boy as he is wheeled away. She takes him into trauma and is able to narrowly save his life with Bryce's help, though she reminds him he's not off the hook for his absence the previous day.

At FBI headquarters, Benford talks with Wedeck about the blackout. Wedeck tells him that the FBI is still gathering intel. As the two walk, they are joined by an FBI agent played by Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane. He tells them that NASA has not found anything regarding the cause, and Wedeck sarcastically wonders if the Pope has chimed into the discussion.

Wedeck calls the FBI into a board meeting in order to "wrap their heads around" the blackout. As death toll statistics are discussed, it's mentioned that even the vice president was killed when Air Force Two went down. However, Mark is more concerned with what the flashes were, as opposed to their impact. He tells of his vision, and everyone else agrees that they had similar visions. They come to the conclusion that their consciousness moved forward in time. Benford shares the date in which his flashforward took place, April 29, 2010, and everyone agrees that this was the same date theirs took place in as well.

Demetri soon returns with the blonde suspect. She insists that she's not responsible for the blackout, and Demetri reminds her that she was still planning on killing thousands of people. As Demetri and Mark catch up, an agent runs up, saying that he has a way to confirm that the flashforwards correlate: to call the Scotland Yard agent Fiona Banks whom he saw in his flash. They do so, and the details match up perfectly, leaving no doubt that the flashforwards are actually a glimpse into the future.

A television reporter tells the world that human brains being scanned during the blackout showed active engagement throughout the two minutes, seventeen seconds, which were consistent with a waking experience. The reporters tell that all the visions are seeming to corroborate, like a "grand Mosaic" is being filled in. Mark takes notice to this, because Mosaic was the name of the project he was working on in the future.

He tells Wedeck about this, and Wedeck asks them what they saw. Demetri saw nothing, he says; he simply blacked out. Demetri is more concerned with the blonde suspect than the events of the flashforward. Janis was going for a prenatal sonogram. Wedeck was in a "meeting," (he was using the bathroom) and "just happened to glance down" at the newspaper's sports page, giving him both the date.

Demetri suggests compiling all the stories together, and Janis thinks to create a website to do so. Mark thinks this is what he was doing in his flashforward, and Wedeck agrees to set up an inter-agency task force, which Mark, Demetri, and Janis will run. Demetri is skeptical, but Wedeck tells them to do it anyway.

That night, Demetri and Mark work on setting up the bulletin board Mark was looking at in his vision. Mark has Demetri write down names and items he remembers on yellow notecards, including "D. Gibbons," "Baby doll photograph," "Blue Hand," and "Frienship bracelet."Mark remembers the men coming to kill him, and sketches the three stars in one of the men's tattoo, placing them up on the board. He wants Janis to compile a list of all the D. Gibbons in the world. Demetri, meanwhile, is worried that his lack of a vision means that he'll be dead.

Mark returns home, and speaks briefly to Nicole, who wants some reassurance. She thinks God caused the blackout, as punishment.

Olivia, back at the hosptial, is tending to the young boy, whose mother died in the blackout and whose father is Stanford professor Lloyd Simcoe, who they have been unable to locate. Bryce reveals to Olivia about his suicide attempt, but assures her that those thoughts are gone from his mind now, because his vision convinced him that he'd be still alive, and happy. Olivia reveals her vision wasn't so good — it depicted the end of her marriage.

Mark talks to Aaron about the flashforward, and reveals that he was drinking again. He knows Olivia would have left him if he'd relapsed, and he worries about this. Aaron tells him not to relapse. Aaron reveals that his vision showed him finding Tracy in some sort of desert tent. He has mixed feelings about the whole experience, but wants his vision to come true, even though Mark doesn't want his own to.

Mark repairs the garage door as Olivia comes home, because it was a "slow day." The two go up to visit Charlie before going to bed themselves. As they lie in bed, Mark shares his flashforward with Olivia, though he leaves out the part about himself drinking. Olivia is very reluctant to reveal her vision, but Mark insists multiple times, until she tells him that she saw herself with another man, who she didn't even know. She then leaves the bedroom.

Mark goes outside to sit on the swingset, and Charlie follows him out, telling him she had a bad dream. As the two sit together, she gives him a friendship bracelet, which he later will be wearing in his dream. She puts the bracelet on his wrist, and he stares up into the night sky, afraid of the inevitability that looms before him.

Meanwhile, Demetri is back at the office, talking to his fiance. He agrees to dance to "Islands in the Stream." Their conversation is interupted by Janis, who wants to show Demetri something. He gets up to go and look, and she shows him security camera footage from around the world at the time of the blackout. They all show the same thing, except for one tape of a baseball game. Janis zooms in to reveal everyone passing out, except for one man, who stands and exits the stadium, looking around as he does so.

"Who is he?" Janis asks. "And why is he still awake?"
Source: TV Overmind

Behind the scenes with Joseph Fiennes

2009-09-29T10:00:00.000-07:00

Sprint Customers Get Exclusive Content

2009-09-28T20:47:00.000-07:00

The FlashForward event that shook the world goes from global to mobile with Flash Ahead sponsored by Sprint. Go beyond the blackout to access bonus features that may include videos, photos or text messages.

Mark Benford isn't the only one trying to piece together a complex puzzle. Now FlashForward fans can take matters into their own hands as they explore and investigate this worldwide phenomenon.

Here's how it works:

A keyword will appear briefly within the trailer that runs during the end credits of each episode. Sprint customers text the keyword to 22288 to access the bonus content.

Look for a keyword each week beginning with the FlashForward premiere on September 24, 2009 and continuing throughout the fall. Anyone who misses the keyword during the Thursday airings can head over to ABC.com on Fridays to see the weekly keyword.

All keywords will be posted on this page in the order that they are revealed on-air. Unscramble the keywords and you may uncover a sentence that adds a surprising twist to the mystery!

Source: ABC

New Promo Poster

2009-09-28T20:36:00.000-07:00

Source : FlashForwardZilla

Courtney B. Vance and Christine Woods Interview

2009-09-28T20:34:00.000-07:00

As Director of the Los Angeles Field Office of the FBI, Courtney B. Vance has a role of authority as Stanford Wedeck on the new hit ABC drama series Flash Forward. In charge of the team investigating the cause behind the black-out that gave everyone in the world a two minute and 17 second glimpse into their future, Wedeck helps FBI Agent Mark Benford (played by Joseph Fiennes) start the Mosaic, in order to connect everyone's flash-forwards together.
During a set visit to their soundstages at Disney Studios, co-stars Courtney B. Vance and Christine Woods, who plays FBI Agent Janis Hawk, talked about what drew them to Flash Forward.

Q: After the flash-forward date of 29th of April happens, do you have any idea what will happen?

Christine: Honestly, I don't know.

Q: Are you trying to guess what's going to happen after that date?

Courtney: The way that it's structured, they can go anywhere. So, I'm at peace with my not knowing anything.

Christine: I speculate on the grand scheme, "What caused this? Why did this happen?" But, I really mostly want to find out about Bryce (Zachary Knighton), or what happens to another person.

Courtney: Yeah, what is Simon (Dominic Monaghan) about? What is Lloyd (Jack Davenport) doing here? There's a little clandestine meeting going on.

Christine: And, I want to know how everybody knows each other.

Courtney: Yeah, is this General Hospital? Did everyone meet at the hospital? Why are we at the hospital all the time?

Full Interview Here

Source: IESB

Webcast Q/A with David Goyer and Marc Guggenheim

2009-09-25T09:25:00.000-07:00

FlashForward Ratings - Does Very Well

2009-09-25T09:18:00.000-07:00

Source: TV By The Numbers

Episode 1.02 - White To Play - Promo

2009-09-25T09:16:00.001-07:00

Episode 1 Screencaps of Flashes

2009-09-25T09:10:00.000-07:00

Suspect 0:

LOST Numbers:

Reference to Orange:

Source: TV Spoilers

Poll - What did you think of Episode 1 "No More Good Days"?

2009-09-25T09:07:00.000-07:00

What is your opinion on the first episode?(survey software)

FlashForward Series Premiere Tonight

2009-09-24T07:49:00.000-07:00

The show premiere's tonight at 8:00 PM est on ABC in the States and A Channel in Canada. For your countries premiere time and channel check out TVCountdown

AICN - Good Rundown of the Show with Newspaper Reviews

2009-09-24T07:29:00.000-07:00

It’s a lot like the beginning of “Lost,” is it not? Guy wakes up confused and gradually discovers and deals with the cinematic mayhem has risen up around him. There’s even a difficult-to-explain kangaroo subbing for the “Lost” pilot’s polar bear.

So that first part with the wreckage and the corpses? Well-copied.

But the “FlashForward” pilot was adapted not by super-successful writer-director J.J. Abrams, but by Brannon Braga (creator of “Star Trek: Enterprise”) and David Goyer (writer-director of “Blade Trinity”), who previously created CBS’ “Threshold.” Which was not remotely as good or as successful as “Lost.”

Once the mayhem is dealt with viewers may start to notice two other major things that distinguish “FastForward” from “Lost”:

1) Everybody on screen is catching on to what’s going on a lot more slowly than the audience is. Which gets boring. And annoying.

2) None of the show’s many characters (or their flashforwards) is terribly interesting or engaging. At the end of the “Lost” pilot you were dying to know not only what was going on with Smokezilla and that bizarre French radio signal but also what the deal was with handcuffed Kate and evasive Charlie and the vaguely sinister Locke. Even less mysterious characters like Shannon and Hurley were so entertaining in their own ways that viewers were excited at the prospect of spending more time with them as well.

Less problematic for “FlashForward” is the fact that the “Threshold” series creators apparently took a couple liberties with the the sci-fi novel by Robert J. Sawyer, in which, thanks to a super-high-energy experiment gone wrong, everyone in the world passes out and experiences two minutes and 17 seconds of his or her own life 21 years in the future.

The TV version of the premise, maybe slightly less brimming with potential, puts the flashforwards only several months ahead, and nobody knows what caused them. In the final minute of the pilot we are given a clue of sorts, and it makes for a great ending. If you’re impatient and don’t mind spoilers you can find how here.

The date everyone flashes forward to, April 29, 2010, is a Thursday, and a key new episode of “FlashForward” is currently slated to air on that date. If this series gets that far against “Survivor,” “SNL Thursday,” “Bones” and “Vampire Diaries,” that episode will likely NOT be the season finale, according to Goyer.

In the flashforward experienced by the Joe Fiennes FBI character, the Fiennes character is seen investigating the cause of the flashforward. But even though everyone learns the exact future date and time of the two-plus minutes their memories will capture, no one in the flashforwards makes an effort to surround themselves with useful ballscore tables and/or stock market charts. So apparently the flashforward event paradoxically changes the timing of -- or eliminates -- the big communal flashforward. Or something.

“Lost” vet Dominic Monaghan is not in the pilot but does turn up, I believe, as a superscientist in episode two. If you watched the clip above you may have recognized the doctor is embodied by Sonya Walger, who plays Penny Widmore on “Lost.”

Insufferable “Family Guy” mastermind Seth MacFarlane, who cameos in the pilot as an FBI man, is a horrible distraction. He uses for his “FlashForward” role the same obnoxious deejay voice he uses to play the dog in “Family Guy.” Let’s try to keep his particular brand of unfunny confined to Fox, shall we fellas?

I’m setting the DVR for episode two, but this pilot does not convince me “FlashForward” is season-passworthy.

Time Magazine says:

… I wish more attention had been paid to fleshing out the characters and generally bringing a fresher voice to the dialogue. (Someday, I want someone to bring a cool high-concept like this to a producer like Jason Katims, who can play it out realistically through rounded characters, as he did on Roswell.) … Do I Want to Watch Another Episode? Absolutely. But please work on making these folks as appealing conscious as they are unconscious.

USA Today says:

From its unsettling opening image to its startling final shot, FlashForward could be the best network movie you'll see this year. Now let's hope it's an equally good series. … may not keep you hooked for years or even months, but chances are good tonight's episode will bring you back next week.

The New York Times says:

… begins in such a spirit of bracing suspense that I am challenged to recall another pilot that lured me so quickly into addiction. … has the sobriety and charge of the best, early days of “24” but builds its tension more gracefully and feels reluctant to be get subsumed by its own philosophizing. And like “Battlestar Galactica,” its has a presumed message that is humanistic and uplifting: No single messiah can save us; it takes a village to save the world.

The Los Angeles Times says:

… a decent but not brilliant beginning. … Given the subject, it's almost appropriate how unusually difficult it is to get a fix on the show. The pilot is melodramatically eventful, though the dialogue can sound phony. But the show could go either way -- be kind of great or pretty awful, depending on what comes next, how the writers plan to explain this thing and whether we are going to have any fun on the way to the explanation. … we have seen a lot of doctors and FBI agents on TV -- four of the main characters work for the bureau -- and spent a lot of time on the streets of Los Angeles. We may need more than parlor tricks to take us out of that all-too-familiar world. My crystal ball remains cloudy on this matter.

The Chicago Tribune says:

… Elements that generally work in the two-hour pilot's favor -- a big budget, a flashy central concept and a handsome ensemble cast -- also work against it because those are the hallmarks of several ABC pilots that have crashed and burned in their debut seasons. … What "FlashFoward" lacks, at this point, is a Sawyer or a Hurley; don't look to this serious pilot for wisecracks or regular-Joe wisdom. …

The Washington Post says:

… Immediately apparent from the premiere of "FlashForward": The questions may prove more satisfying than the answers, a bad sign. … "FlashForward," with lots of flash-cut editing (oddly offset with long, slow dialogue scenes) and some eye-pleasing special effects, seems a show very much of today and today's version of tomorrow and maybe even tomorrow's version of today. But if it were a little less ditzy and a little more clear-cut, it might stand a better chance of seeing tomorrow itself.

The San Francisco Chronicle says:

… enormously entertaining and there's mystery galore here, with an expansive cast, an unexplained phenomenon and the tantalizing premise … Here's hoping it stays strong and compelling as it heads to April 29.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says:

… suspenseful, disaster-filled entertainment. But will what comes next be as entertaining? If only we could flash forward to find out. …

The Newark Star Ledger says:

Ambitious but not terribly engaging … An interesting idea, but placed in the middle of a bland cast of characters (including Joseph Fiennes as an FBI agent and Sonya Walger as his doctor-wife) and execution that lacks much urgency. …

The Boston Herald says:

… Every season there seems to be one water-cooler show everyone ends up talking about. “FlashForward” is it: Get in on the first episode. …

The Boston Globe says:

… Tonight’s episode is dramatic and well-paced, unfolding ominously and quickly explaining the issues at hand. The problem, of course, is the future. What “Lost’’ had on its side was a desert-island setting, plus a sprawling and quirky ensemble cast with a range of back stories to spin. … “FlashForward’’ is a good idea, and while that’s no guarantee of a good series, the first hour gives us reason to hope.

Variety says:

… Strictly grading the pilot, it's an intriguing, mind-bending concept that's mostly well executed, with a built-in payoff cleverly timed to coincide with the May rating sweeps. The bottom line is after one hour, there's a solid desire to see more, but not such wonderment as to proclaim unwavering fealty until the show peers a little farther down the road. …

The Hollywood Reporter says:

… The investigation of this consciousness-shattering global phenomenon is assumed by the Los Angeles bureau of the FBI, which is a little like giving Mr. Kotter's science class responsibility for checking out global warming. (In Sawyer's book, particle physicists tackled the issue, but when was the last time you saw one of those on TV?) … Well-cast and full of expensive-looking special effects, "FlashForward" should hook a respectable number of viewers with its combination of surprise and suspense. …
Source: Ain't It Cool News

TV Guide Preview Video

2009-09-24T07:24:00.000-07:00

Short New Promo

2009-09-24T07:21:00.000-07:00

NY Times - Fearing a Future They’ve Seen

2009-09-23T17:36:00.000-07:00

If the world were to expire sometime before Friday, the debate between free will and determinism would trace its history from the Greeks, through the battles between Augustine and Pelagius, Erasmus and Luther, the writings of Hobbes, Hume and William James, ending effectively with the questions posed by big-budget American serial television. In the years since 9/11, producers have found rich thematic material in the arguments for and against preordination, resulting in series like “The Sarah Connor Chronicles,” “Lost” and now “FlashForward,” which begins in such a spirit of bracing suspense that I am challenged to recall another pilot that lured me so quickly into addiction.

Joseph Fiennes, Lennon Wynn, center, and Sonya Walger in a scene from “FlashForward,” based on a science fiction novel.

Loosely based on a clunky science-fiction novel of the same title by Robert J. Sawyer, “FlashForward” (starting Thursday on ABC) imagines a global blackout in human consciousness — lasting precisely 2 minutes 17 seconds — when billions of people around the world experience visions of their lives six months into the future. Specifically they’re seeing themselves on April 29, 2010. And while “FlashForward” seems to avoid (at least so far) the geeky pretensions of “Lost,” which invite so much circuitous decoding, the date hardly seems arbitrary as it carries the symbolic weight of historic incident.
It’s tempting to go down the rabbit hole; this is, after all, a post-“Lost” world and who could resist the temptation? April 29 is the day Joan of Arc, after receiving visions calling her to divine mission, relieved the siege of Orleans. It is also the anniversary of the riots over the Rodney King beating in Los Angeles, where “FlashForward” is set amid the mayhem, looting and fires that transpire in the immediate aftermath of the collective expulsion of memory. In one sly turn during the premiere, crowds stampede into the streets with Circuit City boxes, as if that bankrupt consumer electronics company hasn’t suffered enough.
Again, the reference seems almost purposeful. “FlashForward” is similarly a behemoth, a drama on network television, and yet one primed to exalt the hold of new media. The Web and its spirit of collectivism are immediately deployed to guide the F.B.I. agent Mark Benford, played by the appropriately moody Joseph Fiennes, through his efforts to unravel what happened. Benford and his colleagues quickly set up a Web site — Mosaic — to allow visitors to post details of their futuristic visions so that agents can analyze them and extract clues.
Like so many contemporary television thrillers, “FlashForward” works just as powerfully as a domestic drama as it does as a mechanism of apocalyptic intrigue. Benford is a recovering alcoholic, devoted father and husband of an attractive, hard-working doctor (given to us by Sonya Walger, Penelope on “Lost”) who has clearly tested her commitment in the past. During their lapses in consciousness, each is privy to unsettling images of their relationship half a year hence, and the question remains (as it does for all the characters in the ensemble cast) whether the outcome is fated or subject to change depending on their ministrations.
The Benfords have an unusually pretty nanny who quietly wears a cross, which implies where she will stand theologically in the debate. After dallying with her boyfriend on the Benfords’ sofa (while in charge of the couple’s young daughter) on the day of the blackout, she extrapolates from her own perceived deviance that the bizarre cataclysm might be God’s punishment for an immoral world.
“FlashForward” has the sobriety and charge of the best, early days of “24” but builds its tension more gracefully and feels reluctant to be get subsumed by its own philosophizing. And like “Battlestar Galactica,” its has a presumed message that is humanistic and uplifting: No single messiah can save us; it takes a village to save the world.
FLASHFORWARD
ABC, Thursday nights at 8, Eastern and Pacific times; 7, Central time.
Created and written by David S. Goyer and Brannon Braga; Mr. Goyer, Mr. Braga, Marc Guggenheim and Jessika Borsiczky, executive producers. Produced by ABC Studios.
WITH: Joseph Fiennes (Mark Benford), John Cho (Demetri Noh), Jack Davenport (Lloyd Simcoe), Zachary Knighton (Bryce Varley), Peyton List (Nicole Kirby), Dominic Monaghan (Simon), Brían F. O’Byrne (Aaron Stark), Courtney B. Vance (Stanford Wedeck), Sonya Walger (Olivia Benford) and Christine Woods (Janis Hawk).

Source: NY TIMES

Great 15 Min Promo Documentary

2009-09-23T07:20:00.000-07:00

The documentary features David Goyer and deals with issues that may/will be present in the show.

AMC TV Interview With Robert J. Sawyer

2009-09-22T11:11:00.001-07:00

Q: FlashForward was originally optioned as a movie. Now it's a television series. Do you have a preference either way?

A: To be perfectly blunt, if we last longer than one season I'll make more money off of a TV series than I would off of a film. So I think a TV series is a marvelous idea. Also, the comparison is often made to Lost. Well, here's the difference: Lost has 40 people on one island affected by the event. We've got 7 billion people on five continents. So of course we've got a bigger canvas and more stories to tell.

Q: Why was only one of your characters, Lloyd Simcoe, incorporated into the series?

A: The only character by name that makes it over is Simcoe. The central conflict in the marriage between Sonya Walger and Joseph Fiennes's characters in the TV series is directly the same conflict of Lloyd and Michiko in my novel. The central story of John Cho's character -- the guy who has no vision of the future -- is directly the central story of Theo, one of the characters from my novel. Do I care about search and replace on names? Not in the least. Do I care about the thematic integrity of the material, that it actually explores in depth the kinds of issues I raise in the book? Yes, and it does.

Q: Executive producer David S. Goyer has repeatedly stated that FlashForward is not science fiction. Do you think that's an important distinction to make?

A: We've learned that people will happily put their rear end in a seat for two hours to watch a science fiction movie, but they won't watch again week after week. Thanks to George Lucas, science fiction in the visual media has been indelibly identified as escapism for adolescent boys. You look at Battlestar Galactica: Wonderful series, on a really good week it had 875,000 viewers out of 315 million people. We will die as a primetime network broadcast series if the same percentage of people decide they want to watch FlashForward. So what had to be done was make sure people don't see science fictional tropes -- they don't see robots, aliens, flying cars, what have you; and instead see the compelling character drama.

Q: One of the big series mysteries is what actually causes the event, which in your novel is explained right away. How do you resolve that?

A: In my book it's on Page 1! The reality is that it may or may not follow the book. You know the phrase in computer science, "RTFM," read the eff-ing manual? We've gone to pains to make clear that my novel FlashForward is not necessarily the eff-ing manual for the reveals that are going to happen in the series.

Q: You compared FlashForward to Lost right away -- something the producers seem more reluctant to do. Why is that?

A: There's a double-perception of Lost amongst the general public: Those who have stuck with it from the beginning absolutely adore it. Those who rightly or wrongly lost faith that the creators did have a coherent conclusion in mind are afraid of being burned again. I don't think they are going to be burned by Lost. But the producers have given an enormous amount of thought to how this season and subsequent seasons will play out. I stand here to tell you that the mythology is worked out in detail, that there will be a payoff not only in each episode and each season but also at the end of the series, and that nobody will walk away from this shaking their heads.

Q: FlashForward correctly predicted the Large Hadron Collider would be turned on in 2009. Your new novel, Wake, is about the Internet becoming sentient. Is this a cautionary tale?

A: No it's exactly the opposite. Everywhere you look, the foregone conclusion is we're hosed. Computers are going to take over, and there's nothing we can do about it. And I freely admit some of my previous novels have taken that position. But I came to realize that almost nobody was writing about a possible road map to a future in which humanity might survive with its essential dignity, individuality and humanity in tact, despite the advent of superior intelligence. So the WWW trilogy -- Wake, Watch and Wonder -- are designed not to be cautionary tales, but possible road maps for an uplifting future in which we survive the coming advent of intelligences greater than us.
SOURCE: AMCTV

Microsoft, ABC Team on FlashForward

2009-09-22T11:09:00.001-07:00

Microsoft has scored an elaborate multiplatform ad buy from ABC, which is promoting its upcoming sci-fi series FlashForward with a major assist from the software giant’s company’s video game assets.

The digital ad blitz, which sources said is valued at several million dollars, kicks into high gear this week with a wide array of ad placements on Microsoft’s Web, mobile and gaming platforms. The full first act of the FlashForward pilot has been available since Sept. 10 on Xbox Live—the online subscription platform where 20 million Xbox owners congregate, download movies and TV shows, and play online games.

On the series’ premiere date (Sept. 24) Microsoft’s in-game ad group Massive will serve Flash ads within 12 Xbox video games, including the mega hits Guitar Hero 5, Madden 10 and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10.

Also that day, ABC will have a major presence on the MSN portal that includes a homepage takeover ad on MSN.com, a branded Flash site on MSN TV and ad placements that will envelop the content on MSN’s celebrity channel Wonderwall. In addition, Microsoft has built ABC a custom mobile site to promote the show, and will also run ads on its mobile portal.

Plus, users can sign up to receive text alerts prior to the premiere and can download Flash-themed phone wallpaper.

The multifaceted campaign is said to make up the bulk of ABC’s digital effort to tout the much-hyped Flash. The deal—stewarded by ABC’s agency Wieden+Kennedy—marks the second major win for Microsoft, which landed a similar buy for Discovery’s Deadliest Catch in April.

Keith Lorizio, vp of U.S. sales, Microsoft Advertising, said the company’s ability to deliver young male gamers who are likely to be drawn to the sci-fi show, was crucial. “We have a multi-screen user experience, and we have scale on all three. Xbox is absolutely a differentiator.”

Mike Benson, executive vp, marketing, ABC Entertainment Group, said ABC typically expects 3-5 percent of users exposed to a promotional campaign online for a new show will actually tune in. Given the young male audience of the Xbox, they are shooting for 10-15 percent. “As we all know, audiences have become incredibly fragmented,” said Benson. “For a show like Flash Forward…We actually think that with Xbox, we’ll get a deeper, more engaged audience that will spend a lot of time with it.”

Source: MediaWeek

FlashForward - Gets Picked up by over 40 more countries

2009-09-22T11:07:00.000-07:00

Disney's freshman drama "FlashForward" has been picked up by 10 broadcasters in the Asia Pacific region, covering some 40 countries.

The series toplining Joseph Fiennes and John Cho was acquired by terrestrial broadcasters Seven (Australia), TVB (Hong Kong), Media Prima (Malaysia), TVNZ (New Zealand), MediaCorp. (Singapore), ABS-CBN (Philippines) and by payboxes Fox International Channels (covering Southeat Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan), Zee Cafe (India), OCN (Korea) and Singtel (Singapore).

The series premieres in the U.S. on Sept. 24 on ABC.

In keeping with major U.S. suppliers' recent moves to time the launch of their shows abroad as close to U.S. debut as possible, Disney is working with Seven Down Under to facilitate launch there on Sept. 28 and with MediaCorp. in Singapore to go to air Oct. 4.

In addition, Fox International Channels will begin beaming "FlashForward" on dates staggered around Taiwan and all SE Asian markets, launching first in the Philippines on Star World (Dec. 10).

A catch-up TV service for "FlashForward" within 12 hours of the local telecast will be available in Oz and in Singapore as part of a strategy to ensure the widest audience possible.

No word on the pricing for the series was available, though top-tier U.S. dramas can rake in as much as $1 million per episode from all their terrestrial and pay TV deals combined. Racking up so many deals ahead of U.S. launch -- and ahead of the MIPCOM program sales bazaar in Cannes Oct. 5-9 -- suggests that the show has momentum and is getting decent license fees.

Rob Gilby, senior vp and managing director of Disney's TV unit in the Asia Pacific region, described the series, not surprisingly, as "the buzz show of the new U.S. TV season": "With the show's global themes and relatable characters, our partners have been aggressively marketing 'FlashForward' as a key show in their programming schedule."

To reinforce the importance of the overseas market for "FlashForward," Jessika Borsiczky, one of the executive producers of the show, will be on hand at MIPCOM to talk to other prospective buyers about the plans for the show's evolving story lines.

Earlier in the week, Disney announced deals for the show with free and pay TV broadcasters in 12 territories across Europe and the Middle East.

Source: Hollywood Reporter

EW - 4 New Photos With Quotes From The Actors

2009-09-21T12:06:00.000-07:00

”I’m just waiting to see how he cracks and if he will crack. He’s got a lot on his shoulders. That’s the downside of the flash forward. He thinks he’s onto it but maybe he’s completely wrong.”

”It’s not good. But I’m used to fearing for my future as an actor.”

”It’s ambitious and attempting to be something big. There’s a slight pressure with that. But I think it stands alone as its own.”

”I think sci-fi people are, if anything, going to be disappointed by the lack [of sci-fi]. It’s really really human, aside from the one major event. I’ve always been interested in how human beings deal with each other in a crisis, from a global crisis to a personal crisis. That’s really brought to the fore in this show.”

Source: EW

'FlashForward' comes with 'Lost'-like expectations

2009-09-21T11:24:00.000-07:00

"FlashForward," ABC's new drama built upon a simultaneous mass blackout of humanity, has already spawned predictions about its inevitable success and even drawn comparisons to "Lost."

To David S. Goyer and Marc Guggenheim, creator and executive producer, respectively, the friendly buzz has created a definite upside -- and a downside. As the producers of other once highly touted, would-be hits like "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," "The Nine" or "Pushing Daisies" can attest, heavy expectations can overwhelm and crush a budding show.

"Actually, it's a triple-edged sword," said Goyer, whose writing credits include "Batman Begins" and its sequel, "The Dark Knight," as well as the popular "Blade" films that featured Wesley Snipes as a heroic, haunted half-vampire. "On one hand, it's great because people are seeing the value of a big-scope show like this ... [but] it's always easier to be the underdog than the heir apparent."

Added Guggenheim, who wrote "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" and was a key producer on several television series, including "Eli Stone," "Brothers & Sisters" and "CSI: Miami": "The buzz is so great, we think, 'What do the numbers have to be to satisfy the expectations?' The bottom line is, all we can do is create a show we would want to watch."

Like that of "Lost," the premise of "FlashForward," premiering Thursday at 8 p.m., is fantastically surreal, but has enough grounding in the real world to be taken seriously. On a seemingly normal day -- Oct. 6, 2009 at 11 a.m. Pacific time -- everyone around the globe suddenly loses consciousness for 2 minutes 17 seconds. During this state, people see glimpses of their own future -- April 29, 2010, at 10 p.m. Pacific time, to be exact.

As the show unfolds, people begin to chronicle their "flash forward" visions, which are then posted on the Web and become known as the Mosaic Collective. For some, the visions are comforting. For others, they are deeply disturbing. And some don't see anything at all, which is particularly unnerving. (Meanwhile, the main characters begin to ponder their destiny, whether it can be changed -- and what consequences changing a destiny might have.)

In attracting the new season's spotlight, Goyer and Guggenheim face a situation similar to one confronted last year by J.J. Abrams and other producers of Fox's "Fringe." While many thought that the supernatural-tinged thriller would be an instant hit, the series, while attracting a loyal audience, fell far short of blockbuster status. On the other hand, CBS' "The Mentalist," which launched without much fanfare, became the season's top new hit.

If the "FlashForward" producers are stressed out about the challenging road ahead, they weren't showing it during a recent lunch at Burbank-based Walt Disney Studios, where the show is filmed. The shorter, tattooed Goyer and the taller, more strait-laced Guggenheim expressed confidence in their project, and interacted like old friends even though they had never met before they teamed on the series.

In the show's production office, hidden from most others working on the show, is a large chart mapping out developments and stories for the first season . . . and beyond. Said Goyer: "There's stuff only Marc and I know. No one else."

The expectations aren't the only outsized thing about "FlashForward." The large multicultural cast combines film stars (Joseph Fiennes from "Shakespeare in Love," John Cho from the latest "Star Trek"), with TV veterans (Courtney B. Vance from "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" and Dominic Monaghan from "Lost"). The series films on one of the most massive sets on the Disney lot (the movies "Pearl Harbor" and "Pirates of the Caribbean" were also shot on the set).

Much of the buzz surrounding the pilot can be traced to a climactic twist that sets up future episodes (don't worry, no spoilers here). But Goyer and Guggenheim say "FlashForward" is much more than clever turns and gimmicks.

"If people are only tuning in for what caused the blackout," Goyer said, "then we've failed."

Unlike "Lost," where mysteries are often answered with even more elaborate mysteries, the producers of "FlashForward" promise to provide clarity -- and some answers early in the season. What they hope to set up in subsequent episodes is a wide arena in which to explore a predicament felt across all cultures -- the pull and power of destiny.

"Everyone has seen a glimpse of their future, and they can either fight it or confront it," Goyer said. "That's the theme of the show."

Source: LA Times

`FlashForward' banks on star power

2009-09-21T11:22:00.000-07:00

In the Pulitzer Prize-winning play "August: Osage County," currently being performed in L.A., one of the characters cracks no one would get out of bed if he knew what the future held.
In ABC's "FlashForward," which debuts Thursday at 8 p.m., the whole planet knows where they are going to be six months ahead of time: on April 29, 2010, to be precise.
The premise of one of the most anticipated new fall series is that everyone in the world has blacked out for two-minute and 17-seconds and has had a vision - a flash forward - to the same time six months ahead.
The visions mean different things to each person - one character about to get married sees nothing while another on the verge of suicide sees himself alive. But for them all, the question is: Are the visions inevitably true?
"We've basically broken our series regulars down into three categories," said executive producer David Goyer, whose writing credits include "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight."
"A third of them fear the future, and they are trying to do everything they can to fight it. A third of them, their futures are aspirational, and they are trying to do everything they can to make it happen. And a third of them are kind of agnostic because they just don't understand what it means, and they are trying to figure it out."
"FlashForward" stars Joseph Fiennes ("Shakespeare in Love") as an FBI agent Mark Benford, whose vision of the future had him looking at a
bulletin board filled with clues about the unexplained disturbance; that makes him the right man to investigate the phenomenon.
Joining him on the team are two other agents played by John Cho (Demetri Noh) and Christine Woods (Janis Hawk) with Courtney B. Vance as their boss, Stan Wedeck.
Gabrielle Union is Noh's fiancee and a criminal defense attorney. Also on the series are two former "Lost" actors - Dominic Monaghan and Sonya Walger, who plays Benford's surgeon wife, Olivia, who has a vision of herself with another man.
With a large ensemble cast - 11 series regulars and numerous guest stars planned - the series opens the door (make that doors) to numerous story possibilities, both forward and back. It also opens the door to comparisons to "Lost"; the network is hoping that fans of the hit ABC's Emmy-winning series will get hooked on "FlashForward" as well.
"The primary reason why we're on ABC is I'm an enormous, enormous fan of `Lost,"' Goyer said. "I just thought it was such a genre-breaking, bold show, and it proved to me ... that you can do a show with a large ensemble cast ... tell a big, kind of cinematic story. `Lost' traffics a lot in shades of gray, different shades of morality, which is something I find really interesting."
While Monaghan sees similarities in the two shows - large ensemble casts, very ambitious storylines - he sees distinct differences at the same time.
"I don't think necessarily we're dealing with something as deeply rooted in a mythology that needs to be solved. I think this is a show that is, not necessarily to use the word "simplistic," but is probably not as sophisticated in that deeply rich mythology as `Lost' is."
"FlashFoward" is based on the Robert Sawyer novel of the same name that was in the works before "Lost" and producers are hoping that viewers will find it easier follow.
"As a viewer, I really like to feel that the storytellers know where they're going," Goyer said. "We constantly talk about the obligation we have towards our viewers to really figure it out and know where we're going."
For Fiennes, he's happy for the "opportunity to get off a horse, out of a flouncy shirt" and play "a guy that wears a gun on his hip and some cuffs on the back of his belt," referring to all the period films he's done in his career. The British actor is also excited by the complexities of the script.
"I love the idea that (the characters) contradict themselves," Fiennes said. "There's this impending doom. They seem to judge each other before these dates arrive. There's no absolute - it's not set in stone."
The London-born Walger adds that it's "utterly compelling to play somebody who thinks of herself one way ... and then to have that undone by a vision of yourself being the unfaithful one in the family home."
Goyer says the producers made a decision early on not to tell the actors a lot about where their characters are going because they didn't want it to affect their performances.
"Hitchcock used to do that with a lot of the actors he'd work with, you know," he said. "In `Shadow of a Doubt' ... he'd tells Joseph Cotten, `Just go look out the window.' And Cotten had no idea what he was looking at, but you would look at him in the movie, and it's amazing. That was sort of the pact we made."
One thing we know is that April 29, 2010, is not the end of the show - at least if it's a big enough of a hit.
Producers say they've loosely plotted out five seasons, and won't say what the significance of the spring date is, only that it's "one of the mysteries of the show."
April 29th happens to be a Thursday night; so Fiennes says it's no mystery as to what he'll be doing - "tuning in."
Source : Pasadena Star News

NY Post - The new 'Lost'

2009-09-21T11:20:00.000-07:00

‘If you saw a glimpse of your future, what would you do?” asks David Goyer, executive producer of ABC’s FlashForward.
Well, if you’re on “Flash Forward,” you might end up dead. What lies ahead is the central question of this tantalizing new series, based on the novel by Robert J. Sawyer.
In the first episode, the human race blacks out for two minutes and 17 seconds. Chaos reigns as planes, trains and automobiles remain perilously in motion. FBI agents Mark Benford (Joseph Fiennes) and Demetri Noh (John Cho) wake up from their respective blackouts in the middle of a grim crash scene in downtown Los Angeles. A motorcycle is pinned under an overturned car. A corpse lies face-up on the asphalt.

ABC

Joseph Fiennes and John Cho on location in downtown Los Angeles.

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Benford and Noh immediately go into rescue mode, but they’re still confused about what they’ve seen. During the blackout, everyone sees exactly where they will be in six months. As a result of his vision, Benford realizes he will play a central role in figuring out why the flash forward happened. While Benford initiates his investigation — and wrestles with personal demons — others spend their time trying to avoid the future.
“It’s the kind of thing that could get sci-fi and weird very quickly,” says Sonya Walger, who plays Olivia Benford, Mark’s wife, a surgeon. “But [the producers] are so smart to have this one convulsive electric shock that happens globally. After that, it’s just human responses to that event. It’s like 9/11 to the power of one million.”
The long-married Olivia flashes forward to see herself with another man, whom we meet at the end of the episode.
“Olivia is working hard to not bring about her future, because her future is the end of her marriage,” says Walger. “At the end of the pilot, she tells her husband what she’s seen. I found that fascinating. We’re so used to seeing women lie to their husbands on TV.”
“Flash Forward” has been compared to ABC’s sci-fi hit, “Lost,” on which Walger also stars, but the two shows differ structurally and dramatically.
“What ‘Lost’ does with its flash forwards is something narrative,” says Goyer. “In our world, it’s literal. The people literally flash forward.”
“What’s difficult is for us to make sure that we’re being consistent in the way this world operates,” says Marc Guggenheim, another executive producer on the show. “We have to remember, ‘Oh yeah, that character can’t do that now because we have to put him in China in six months.’ ”
To track their stories, the show producers have what Goyer calls a “massive meta board,” that measures 30 feet long and 10 feet high.
“It charts every series regular and every recurring character across every episode and it charts the theme of every episode. It’s like the war room at the Pentagon,” he says.
“We planted some very bold flags in the pilot,” Goyer explains. “By the end of the first season, we’re going to see whether these specific futures come true. We’ll catch up to that date we’ve flash-forwarded to. We really can’t tread water for that long.”
In fact, Goyer and Guggenheim say they have mapped out not only the entire season, but the entire show.
“I don’t think there’s ever been a network show that’s been this planned out, except maybe ‘Babylon 5,’ ” says Guggenheim. “I was a huge fan of that series. I was always impressed by the level of obvious planning that had been put in. In our show, the proof is in the pudding — you can see it in the elegance of the way the story pans out.
“We’re doing it in a way that people will find unexpected. Unlike a show with a mystery at its core, we’re providing answers a lot sooner than other shows of this kind have done in the past.”
Source: NYPOST

Wall Street Journal - Art of the Cliffhanger

2009-09-18T10:11:00.000-07:00

BURBANK, Calif.—Writers on the new television series "FlashForward" work in a room with the window blinds drawn tight. They don't want to risk anyone peeking into their office on the sunny Walt Disney Studios lot here.

A drama about a blackout that gives the entire human population a quick glimpse six months into the future, "FlashForward" debuts on ABC on Thursday. The main characters try to figure out what caused the blackout while some attempt to avert their own vision of the future. ABC has bet big on the show from David S. Goyer, co-writer of the "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight" movies, and starring British actor Joseph Fiennes.

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ABC
John Cho and Joseph Fiennes, who play FBI agents Demetri Noh and Mark Benford, in the premiere of ‘FlashForward.’

The program uses one of the oldest dramatic techniques and attempts to stretch it to new heights—the cliffhanger. The show's goal is to leave the audience in suspense at the end of each episode and even before almost every commercial break.

Television cliffhangers are rare these days. In recent years, networks have been reluctant to launch shows with narratives that stretch from one episode to the next. Such programs don't bring in as much revenue in reruns as shows like "Law & Order" and "CSI" that wrap up neatly in an hour. Serialized episodes must run in sequence, making a lucrative syndication deal less likely, network executive say. Plus, they're more expensive to produce, with large ensemble casts and on-location shoots.

"FlashForward" aims to join a small group of hit serials like ABC's "Lost" about plane-crash survivors stranded on a mysterious island and Fox's "24" about a day in the life of counterterrorism agent Jack Bauer, played by Kiefer Sutherland. "24" became one of Fox's biggest hits when it premiered in 2001. ABC hopes "FlashForward" can replace "Lost," which begins its sixth and final season early next year. The eighth season of "24" starts in January.

Required Reading

Executive producer David Goyer requires "Flash Forward" writers to read everything from Japanese poetry to Austrian philosophy. Here's a selection of the books that shape their vision of the show:

"Labyrinths" by Jorge Luis Borges
"The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost
"Siddhartha" by Herman Hesse
"The World As Will and Representation" by Arthur Schopenhauer
"The Tale of Attaf from the Arabian Nights"
"The Myth of Oedipus"
"Japanese Death Poems" by Yoel Hoffman
"Philosophical Investigations" by Ludwig Wittgenstein
"The Dancing Wu Li Masters" by Gary Zukav

These programs attract a dream television audience, says Stephen McPherson, ABC's president of entertainment. Intensely loyal fans discuss the series online, buy DVD box sets and tend to watch episodes in real time since they want to find out what happens next as soon as possible. "These shows lend themselves to a very different kind of extended experience," Mr. McPherson says.

Cliffhangers have become more intricate in response to the growing sophistication of audiences who have seen so many over the years. Also, viewers can record and replay episodes to search for clues or discrepancies. A proliferation of Web sites that publish spoilers can ruin endings by posting them before they air.

It's the "seat-belt conundrum," says Damon Lindelof, co-creator and executive producer of "Lost." Sophisticated audiences would roll their eyes at a character driving over a cliff as he tries to unbuckle his seat belt, Mr. Lindelof says.

To guard plot secrets, each "FlashForward" script has a made-up title and is watermarked so that if a page gets into the wrong hands producers can trace it to the source. Actors, cast members and producers are referred to by code names that can change weekly. (Mr. Goyer went by "John Lennon" this summer.) At casting sessions for extras, aspiring actors can end up reading fake dialogue or auditioning for roles that don't exist. Actors receive directions to on-location shots as late as midnight the night before. Temporary street signs to help cast members find the shoot use fake titles, a strategy that has led to some actors getting lost.

Other shows have used an array of tricks. "Lost" producers shot three versions of a scene in which plane crash survivor John Locke lies in a coffin. They didn't drop the shot into the finished episode until the last minute. They code name some scenes with Jewish bread. "The Bagel" was a scene in season one where 10-year-old crash survivor Walt Lloyd is abducted. The second season finale was "The Challah."

Hollywood is full of tales of scripts leaking out. Howard Gordon, an executive producer of "24," says fans rifled through the trash at an old pencil factory in Chatsworth, Calif., where "24" is shot, looking for scripts. They found a handful of pages and posted plot secrets online. Someone stole a "daily," or a version of the script handed out on set on each shoot, out of a "Lost" producer's mailbox. It ended up online, too.

If a secret gets out, producers try and manipulate the information to create confusion and suspense. The "FlashForward" creators have set up a Web site called Truth Hack, which includes the work of fictional journalist Oscar Obregon, who is investigating the world-wide blackout. His posts provide clues, and plenty of misinformation.

Showing Suspense

Some current and recent television series that teased, and won, viewers.

"FlashForward" actors typically do not know what will happen more than a couple episodes in advance. Actor John Cho, who plays FBI agent Demetri Noh, says he regularly corners writers to ask if he is the evil mastermind, a popular theory on fan blogs. Mr. Fiennes says he feels like a "junkie knocking on the production door to ask what will happen."

It is tougher today to pull off an iconic TV cliffhanger like the 1980 "Who Shot J.R.?" episode of hit drama "Dallas." Actor Larry Hagman, who played oil baron J.R. Ewing, says fans offered him $150,000 to reveal who shot his character. Unfortunately, the writers kept it a secret from him until a couple of days before the revelatory episode was shot. "I was willing to sell the information," he said in an interview. "That's what J.R. would've done."

"Dallas" creator David Jacobs says the surprise ending came about by accident. At the last minute, CBS ordered an additional four episodes of the show which meant the writers had to quickly come up with a way to stretch the storyline without losing viewers, he says. "The writers just looked at each other and someone said, 'Let's shoot the son of a bitch.' "

Cliffhangers became popular in the 1920s in silent short films that ran in installments before a feature-length movie started and often ended with the hero tied to train tracks or literally hanging from a cliff. The term first appeared in the late 1930s and referred to melodramas that left characters in physical peril.

Television Classics

From Hitchcock to a snow globe, some moments that left viewers wondering.

Everett Collection

Alfred Hitchcock Presents

1955-65

After directing films for three decades, Alfred Hitchcock applied the same suspense and twisted endings to this series which he hosted. Evil often prevailed in the end, a revolutionary shift in the traditional TV landscape.

Everett Collection

The Fugitive

1963-67

Accused of killing his wife, Dr. Richard Kimble flees Lt. Philip Gerard and searches for the one-armed man who he believes committed the murder in this nail-biting series that marked one of the first times a serialized TV drama ended each episode with a cliffhanger.

Everett Collection

Dallas

1978-91

The 1979-80 season finale became a moment in television history. An unseen gunman shoots oil baron J.R. Ewing, who is rushed to the hospital in critical condition. At the start of the next season, 83 million people tuned in to find out "Who shot J.R.?"

Aaron Spelling Prod./Everett Collection

Dynasty

1981-89

With almost every main character at the wedding of Amanda Carrington and Prince Michael of Moldavia, a military coup breaks out. Revolutionaries open fire, leaving about 60 million viewers wondering until the next season who survived.

NBC/Photofest

St. Elsewhere

1982-88

In one of the most talked-about cliffhanger resolutions, Tommy Westphall plays with a snow globe in the series finale. Inside, viewers see a replica of the St. Eligius hospital where the show takes place, leading them to believe the entire series took place in Tommy's mind.

Paramount/Everett Collection.

Star Trek: The Next Generation

1987-94

Trekkies held their collective breath in the third season when Patrick Stewart's Captain Jean-Luc Picard was captured and turned into a member of a fictional race of cybernetic organisms or cyborgs.

The cliffhanger was a natural fit for TV shows trying to get viewers to return each week. "In a movie, the audience is already captive and you don't have to vie for their attention to keep coming back," says Glenn Kessler, co-creator and an executive producer on FX's drama "Damages."

Almost every cliffhanger fits into one of three basic categories: a character is in jeopardy, a character does something unexpected, or something shocking is revealed. Mr. Gordon, the "24" producer, says he favors cliffhangers that reverse preconceived notions. In the show's first season, for example, Jack's wife, Teri Bauer, believes she is searching for her teenage daughter with another concerned parent. The man turns out to be a kidnapper impersonating a suburban dad. The writers dreamed up the cliffhanger and then wrote the story to lead to its crescendo. "We try to find the last possible thing that can happen, the most surprising thing that can happen and then we retrofit the story around that," Mr. Gordon says.

Serialized shows are increasingly taking advantage of changes in how viewers watch television, namely that more viewers record episodes, network executives say. By 2014 as many as 42% of all U.S. homes with a television are expected to record programs, up from 26% in 2008, according to forecasts by Magna, a unit of IPG Mediabrands.

"Battlestar Gallactica," a critically acclaimed but low-rated series that aired on NBC Universal's SyFy channel until it ended last March, used DVD sales to fuel its following and released a special-edition DVD just days after one broadcast. "You-gasp-and-you-tremble-and-you-reach-for-the-next-disc is just as good as you-gasp-and-you-tremble-and-you-wait" for the next episode, says co-executive producer Jane Espenson.

Shows like "Damages," "Lost" and "24" drop clues, or "Easter eggs," as TV writers call them, into episodes that flash on screen for mere seconds. Writers say they know fans will record shows and watch again to hunt for clues.

In the first episode of "FlashForward," a kangaroo hops across the wreckage on a Los Angeles street. The kangaroo is a clue that will return in upcoming episodes, the writers say. The writers also stick clues in props that viewers who pause scenes can spot. "FlashForward" features a giant, messy bulletin board in the office of Mr. Fiennes's character, FBI agent Mark Benford. In the first episode, Mark posts a card on it that says "D. Gibbons." D. Gibbons is a shady character not fully revealed until the 18th episode, writers say. A version of the board hangs in the writers' room to help them track clues.

Mr. Goyer, who wrote comic books as well as movies, and his wife, Jessika Borsiczky Goyer, began talking about turning Robert J. Sawyer's 1999 novel "Flashforward" into a television show eight years ago. HBO helped them develop the series but dropped it before production began. A spokeswoman for HBO says the cable channel decided "FlashForward" would be a better fit on a broadcast network. ABC picked up the project.

Cliffhangers require writers to work farther in advance than typical television shows. They plot out the narrative arc of an entire season to set up the suspense and then resolve it, Mr. Goyer says. Changes may come up as long as the momentum continues to build to the overarching cliffhanger that takes viewers into the next season. They completed seven scripts before shooting started on "FlashForward" in July.

On a hot August afternoon, nine writers on "FlashForward" sat around a small conference table with a pile of highlighters and colored pens to write an episode that wouldn't run until the winter. The walls of the room were covered in dry-erase and corkboards with index cards color coded to correspond to the show's 10 series regulars. The cards are filled with scribbling of character attributes like "self doubt," or plot developments like "goes to kitchen" and "bored, drinking, masked killer."

They needed to write a cliffhanger ending for episode 10, which isn't slated to run until December—right before a three-week break for the winter holidays. "If we're going to be off the air for that long, we want to build up and have a lot of very dramatic stuff happen in this episode," co-creator and executive producer Mr. Goyer said.

It would call for top-secret plot developments. Those are posted on a corkboard hanging in the writers' room that Mr. Goyer calls "the megaboard." At night it is shuttered behind another board and locked.
SOURCE: Wall Street Journal

Courtney B. Vance Interview

2009-09-18T10:05:00.000-07:00

Source: MovieWeb

ABC Preview Features FlashForward

2009-09-18T09:56:00.000-07:00

Dominic Monaghan Quotes

2009-09-18T09:54:00.000-07:00

Dominic Monaghan made a splash at Comic-Con in San Diego over the summer when it was revealed he would be joining the cast of ABC's upcoming FlashForward, but couldn't say a lot about what he'll be doing. He offered up a wee bit more this week when we visited him on the show's set in Burbank, Calif.

"Yeah, I can't tell you a huge amount," Monaghan (Lost) said. "I play a guy called Simon who is linked through story lines with Jack's [Davenport] character, Lloyd. He's a very smart, intelligent scientist, and we begin the relationship with him under the impression that he knows more than he is giving away."

The trailer suggests Simon may know the reason everyone in the world has blacked out for 2 minutes and 17 seconds, during which time they each have a glimpse of their future six months from now.

"He's almost a kind of reveal, in a way," Monaghan says. "Obviously, Joe [Fiennes] and Sonya [Walger] and John [Cho] and Jack kind of are telling the story in the initial episodes, and my character, Simon, is kind of in the wings a little bit, kind of waiting, kind of a reveal.

He'll gradually be trickled in as the show picks up some steam."

For his part, Davenport said that his character, physicist Lloyd Simcoe, is the only one taken from Robert J. Sawyer's novel, on which the show is loosely based. "That's right, he is the only character from the book," Davenport said. "Yes, because obviously there has to be some kind of scientific explanation for all of this, and there's a lot of science in the book, and the character is a scientist."
But is he the same guy?

"He's similar in the sense that his profession is the same, but obviously, what [series co-creator] David [Goyer] has done is extrapolated from the novel in a way that the connections between the characters are much broader and much wider than they are in the novel. You follow multiple storylines in this in the way that, in the novel it's pretty much a single line."
FlashForward debuts Sept. 24 and will air Thursdays at 8 p.m.

Source: Syfy

Overview Of Pilot

2009-09-17T10:57:00.001-07:00

We also had the opportunity to check out the pilot episode of Flash Forward. It was cool. They had us in a huge room with a bunch of T.V.s set up so you had a feel like you were sitting at home. It wasn’t set up like the panels at Comic-Con but still pretty cool. We sat through the whole episode and let me tell you, it was AWESOME! It has alot of the things that LOST fans would like: conspiracy, immediate chaos just like the LOST pilot, intriguing characters, a good initial set up so it sucks you in immediately. We left already talking about who is involved with who and what we think will happen next. Flash Forward, without giving away too much of what you already might have seen in the trailer, is set in the L.A. area. In it, the whole world blacks out for exactly 2 minutes 17 seconds (numbers again, LOST fans!). While the world blacks out, people have visions into the their futures in those 2 minutes they are blacked out. Meanwhile, the world goes on and there is mass chaos when everyone awakens because people were blacked out and couldn’t prevent it. Things like airplane crashes, to surgeries gone bad because surgeons were blacked out, to the gardner passing out while mowing the lawn and countless car crashes. It is a very interesting premise and I hope it doesn’t go the way of Fringe, which face it. It had potential, but sucked after the pilot. Flash Forward stars Joseph Fiennes, John Cho, Dominic Monaghan, and Sonya Walger, the last two LOST alumni aka Charlie and Penny. Sneak peek courtesy of Hulu.

Source: Geekly Rant

David Goyer: Everything you need to know about FlashForward

2009-09-17T10:52:00.000-07:00

David Goyer, co-creator of ABC's buzzworthy sci-fi series FlashForward, wants to let you know that everything you know is wrong.

That is, everything you think you know about his new series, which he is executive-producing with Brannon Braga and Marc Guggenheim, based on the book by Robert J. Sawyer. Goyer spoke with us on the show's set on the Disney studios lot in Burbank, Calif, on Monday, along with stars Joseph Fiennes, Dominic Monaghan, Jack Davenport and others.

In the series, everyone in the world blacks out for 2 minutes 17 seconds, during which time each person has a glimpse of the future and their lives on a specific date: April 29, 2010. The show's characters will spend the bulk of the first season figuring out what will come true and whether they can alter the predictions.

Here's Goyer's and the other's list of things FlashForward is and a few things it isn't.

FlashForward debuts Sept. 24 and will air Thursdays at 8 p.m.

1) It's not Lost 2. This is the biggest bugaboo the producers have to deal with, though they themselves have said they're flattered by the comparison.

"I think, really, aside from the fact that it's big and cinematic and there are a lot of characters, I think as soon as people see the episodes the comparisons will stop," Goyer says. "Although I love Lost."

Former Lost cast member Monaghan, who plays Simon in FlashForward, agrees. "Look, it's inevitable that when you do a show that's on the same network with the same kinds of aspirations, it's going to be compared to Lost. I think very quickly it will set out its own footprint, and people will understand the distinctions between the two worlds. So, for me, it's not a huge thing or problematic."

2) It is big and cinematic. In the pilot, we see the near-destruction of Los Angeles, massive car crashes, a helicopter slam into a building and a jet fighter crash into a city street. Footage previewed for us on Monday revealed even more big set pieces, including the sinking of a city bus into a park lake in the middle of Los Angeles.

"We really are telling, in some ways, like, a 24-hour movie, in a way," Goyer says. "My aim is to sort of do what I do best, which is really welcome these characters into your home, really dig deep into them in a way that you really can't do with movies. I have a lot of respect for what [Lost and Fringe creator] J.J. [Abrams] does. I think he goes for it. I think his shows, they don't feel like cheesy TV shows."

Goyer adds: "If you look at this season as a whole, not all the pyrotechnics happen in the pilot. ... We definitely did some things in the first eight episodes already that I don't think people have ever done on television before. I love it when they say, 'You want to do what? We don't do that on television.' And I say, 'Well, we're not shooting this like a TV show. We're shooting this like a feature, so suck it up.' Sink a bus. Right, they're like, 'You can't do that with real people.' And I'm like, 'Well, we're doing it, so let's figure out a way to do it.'

3) It's not a science fiction show.

Really?

"I mean, there's one [sci-fi gimmick], the flash-forwards," Goyer says. "The audiences won't know for a couple of years what the ultimate cause of them were, so I don't think it really matters."

Beyond that, says co-star Davenport, who plays physicist Lloyd Simcoe (the only character carried over from Sawyer's book): "The high-conceptness of this is kind of gotten out of the way very quickly. The event occurs, and then we're kind of left with the repercussions of it. The phrase that David used was an intimate epic, and I thought that was very elegantly put. And it is that because one of the things that we find we can't when we get new episodes is the parameters of the stories is sort of unlimited. You basically have 6 billion people with knowledge about their futures. You can do anything you like with that."

(Between us, it really is a science fiction show in the same way Lost is, but we'll give them the benefit of the doubt for now.)

4) It's the story of one man's struggle to avoid a hellish future. Joseph Fiennes' FBI agent Mark Benford, whose life is going well, catches a glimpse of himself back on the bottle, divorced from his loving wife, obsessively tracking a case and targeted for execution by unknown assassins. And that's just in the pilot.

"We're going to see a man taken to the brink, taken to the extreme," Fiennes says, adding: "Everything's beautiful, and it's great, ... and then suddenly the world comes crashing down. ... We're going to see him being ripped apart, tested. ... And it's really about the moral boundaries that you're prepared to cross, or you're having to confront, in order to change the future, change the outcome of what you see."

5) It's not a procedural. Though it deals in part with the FBI investigation of the flash-forward phenomenon, and several of its main characters are agents, the show won't dwell on the cop elements or case of the week, a la Fringe. Other characters are doctors; still others are everyday people.

"It's very much about human relationships," Davenport says.

6) It's not like anything you've ever seen on television.

Seriously.

"What it is is a very ambitious story with a lot of layers and a lot of plot twists and a lot of interesting things happening in it," show runner Guggenheim says. "What it's not is an impenetrable Byzantine puzzle box."

As if to underscore the show's oddness, Goyer screened a few other clips from the first four episodes on Monday: One highlighted a very broad humorous exchange between the otherwise world-weary FBI agent Benford and his FBI handler Stan Wedeck (Courtney B. Vance), whose flash-forward takes place in the bathroom. Another showcased a grim telephone exchange between John Cho's Demitri Noh (Benford's partner) and a mysterious woman (played by 24's Shohreh Aghdashloo) in Hong Kong, in which she warns Noh that he will be murdered on March 15, 2010. (Goyer confirmed to SCI FI Wire that Aghdashloo will be a recurring player in FlashForward.)

A third clip goes back to the day of the flash-forward, in a park in Los Angeles, in which everyone falls to the ground in slow motion, backed by the quirky music of Bjork's "It's Oh So Quiet."

"We picked those three scenes to kind of show you the different gambit of the things we will be doing in the show," Goyer says. He added: "There are scary moments, there are, we hope, funny moments, heartbreaking moments, thoughtful moments, sexy moments. So we just decided to pick three different kinds of scenes."

(Click on the images of the show's sets below for larger versions.)

SOURCE: SCIFIWIRE

Marc Guggenheim Interview

2009-09-17T10:41:00.000-07:00

2 New TV Promo Trailers

2009-09-15T11:06:00.000-07:00

New Cast Photos

2009-09-15T10:46:00.000-07:00

Source: http://www.flashforward.pl

New Interview With Gabriel Union

2009-09-11T10:43:00.000-07:00

The highly anticipated and much talked about drama series Flash Forward premieres on September 24th on ABC. When the world's population is given a glimpse of their future due to a mysterious global event, it forces everyone to come to grips with whether their destinies can be fulfilled or avoided.
With a cast made up of such talent as Joseph Fiennes, John Cho, Courtney Vance, Sonya Walger and Dominic Monaghan, among others, Gabrielle Union jumped at the chance to work with them, as well as producing partners David S. Goyer and his wife Jessika Borsiczky Goyer. While talking to press, the actress mentioned the unusual nature of working on a show that is shrouded in so much secrecy, even for the cast themselves.

Q: Since you're not in the pilot, who do you play on the show?

Gabrielle: I play Zoey. She's Demetri's (John Cho) fiancé, and a criminal defense attorney.

Q: Will viewers get to see your flash forward?

Gabrielle: Yes. I would say it's life-affirming. Take that as you may. I'm not a great liar, so they just don't tell me anything. I was getting information, literally seconds before I was filming.

Q: How is it to work on something so secretive? How can you even go about developing your character?

Gabrielle: I think they instinctually chose actors who embodied what they were looking for. Right before action, they're like, "Oh, yeah . . ." And, you're like, "That changes everything! Why didn't you tell me that before?" Obviously, it can be a little daunting, not to have information to prepare with, but I think it's all done purposely and, strangely enough, beautifully. I've seen it with other actors, with me having information that they don't have, but they're instinctually doing what is right, for the moment.

Q: Are you not allowed to talk to each other about the characters then?

Gabrielle: Sometimes my character is a little bit more informed than another character, maybe based on something I have seen or not seen.

Q: Would you want to know what goes on in your life, six months ahead?

Gabrielle: That's why we have psychics, and I'm obsessed with watching Crossing Over with John Edwards. We want to know. We want to have some sort of insight into what's going to happen. I've been tempted to go to psychics, over the years, when I've been up for a job. You're like, "Can somebody just tell me? I don't want to wait through the weekend." But, it takes the fun out of it. When I have gone to see psychics, I'm waiting for signs and I'll turn somebody crossing in front of my car into something else. So, I think we're in charge of our own destiny, and we make it with our choices and decisions. I think you can effectively and pro-actively alter your own destiny.

Q: Do you think that's what this show says?

Gabrielle: I hope so, but I don't know. That would be daunting for humanity, if you already knew what was coming. We'd all be addicted to psychics, and there would be a line out the door because someone is just giving you all the information. What I think is interesting about life is that you have no clue. Every interaction could be the one to change your whole life. Uncertainly is the beauty of living.

Q: How has John Cho been to work with?

Gabrielle: I'm obsessed with Harold & Kumar, so I thought that's who I was working with. He's so funny, so smart, incredibly sexy and he brings really interesting perspectives to things I had never thought about. He's got a really interesting take, on a lot of things. It's nice to work with people who aren't your carbon copy. That gets really, really boring, after awhile.

Q: Had you been looking to do another hour drama?

Gabrielle: I was looking to work, and I don't get too choosy, when the mortgage is due.

Q: Without really knowing anything about the show or your character, what was it that hooked you?

Gabrielle: I had taken a meeting with ABC and we wanted our relationship to continue. I really enjoy them, as a company, and they've been freakishly supportive of me, so they were just looking for a right fit. And then, by chance, the next day, the Goyers called them and were like, "Do you think she'd ever be interested in returning to television?" They were like, "How crazy is that? We just met with her about that very thing."

And so, the next day, I met with them. They were like, "We can't tell you a lot, but we love you and we will write for you, and we want you to be a part of this," and I was like, "Yeah!" It was kind of like Match.com. You just don't really know what you're gonna get, but you want to leap at the chance because the possibility is awesome and exciting. So, that's all I had to go on, along with meeting them. I liked them, and that's pretty much been what's guided my decisions, the last few years, certainly with television. I wanted to work with Frank Spotnitz (for Night Stalker), Daniel Sackheim (for Life) and now the Goyers. I'm really happy.

Q: Were you looking for an ensemble show?

Gabrielle: Yes. After Nightstalker and Life, I didn't have much of a life. When you don't have a big cast, you work a lot. I love working, but when I work 16, 19 or 20 hours a day, my dogs stop recognizing me. I want to have a life, but I also want to work. I couldn't have asked for a better situation.

Q: Do you know what will happen once you get to this date of April 29th?

Gabrielle: We don't know what happens. Has this ever happened before? We're going to explore what caused it. Could it happen again? Did it happen before and we missed it? We don't know how this will all unfold.

FLASH FORWARD premieres on ABC on September 24th

Source: IESB

Fall Preview - FlashForward

2009-09-11T10:37:00.000-07:00

Premiere: Thursday, Sept. 24, 8-9 p.m.
Competition: Survivor: Samoa, The Vampire Diaries, Bones, Parks & Recreation
Cast: Dominic Monaghan, John Cho, Joseph Fiennes, Sonya Walger, Courtney B. Vance, Gabrielle Union
Status: We've seen the first episode.

Should you watch FlashForward? Read on...

Where were you on April 29, 2010? Maybe you can't remember your future, but the characters on ABC's enigmatic new series glimpse theirs when they black out for two minutes and 17 seconds. After awakening to the chaos—freeway collisions, plane crashes, rogue kangaroos—resulting from this "global event," they must confront how their "flashforward" visions will influence how they act in the present.

Comparisons to Lost (also on ABC) are inevitable—FlashForward is a time-bending, mythology-oriented story told from the perspectives of individual characters in a huge ensemble cast—but both are exceptionally unique. Maybe it's more accurate to call Lost the wingman for FlashForward. If it weren't for Lost's success, ABC probably would not be as committed—financially and creatively—to this new epic series.

But the network has invested in the cinematic visions of show runners David Goyer and Marc Guggenheim (the creative forces behind Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, X-Men Origins: Wolverine and The Green Lantern). Blockbuster movie stars like Joseph Fiennes, Dominic Monaghan and John Cho are equally inspired by the ambitious concept—which, Goyer revealed to us, just "gets bigger and bigger and bigger."

As Fiennes (who stars as FBI Special Agent Mark Benford) says, "It stirs up a great conversation about predestination...if you could see a future that wasn't so beautiful, would you want to avoid it? Would you want to change it?"

"Those who change their futures," he added ominously, "do so at their peril."

Verdict: Watch (and DVR for Easter eggs)

Source: E Online

Two Brand New Promo Trailers

2009-09-11T10:33:00.000-07:00

First Look at Dominic Monaghan

2009-09-01T09:00:00.000-07:00

Trailer featuring a scene with Dominic Monaghan.

New Sneak Peak

2009-09-01T08:57:00.000-07:00

New sneak peak tv trailer.

USA Today Article

2009-08-31T06:29:00.000-07:00

By Bill Keveney, USA TODAY
BURBANK, Calif. — The FBI agent and his wife's apparent future lover just miss crossing paths in the hospital hallway. They don't meet, but what if they had?

Would it block his wife's path to infidelity? Or would it guarantee it?

The underlying question — can you change your future? — is at the heart of ABC's FlashForward (Sept. 24, 8 ET/PT), among the most-awaited new fall TV series, and one that some are calling the next Lost.

The premise centers on a two-minute, 17-second blackout that strikes the world's population, followed by crashes, deaths and other disasters that result from the global unconsciousness. During the blackout, almost everyone has a vision — a flash-forward — six months ahead, to April 29, 2010. 10 p.m. PT, to be exact. Some are welcome, and some, including the wife's vision of the lover, are not.

The task is to find out what happened and if the flash-forward prophecies will, or must, come to pass.

"We are the only species that thinks about the future," says executive producer David Goyer, whose writing credits include Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. "It's the blessing and curse of being human."

Joseph Fiennes, who plays FBI agent Mark Benford, centers a team assigned to solve the blackout that includes partner Demetri Noh (John Cho); colleague Janis Hawk (Christine Woods); and their boss, Stanford Wedeck (Courtney B. Vance). They and the other characters, including Benford's surgeon wife, Olivia (Sonya Walger), share their visions, but viewers see only bits and pieces at first, leaving twists and turns to be explored.

And "some people lie about their flash-forwards, so it's a little misdirection happening," Vance says. "It leaves the writers enormous latitude to tell stories."

Of fall's new shows, FlashForward most closely fits the definition of the serialized epic, a sweeping tale mixing action, suspense, mystery, romance and melodrama. "It's a buffet," executive producer Marc Guggenheim (Eli Stone) says. "To reach the widest audience possible, you need to have that spice. You have to have that wide variety."

The best current example of the big, bold serialized mystery: ABC hit Lost. Fox's 24 incorporates many of those elements, though each season is self-contained. Fox's paranormal Fringe tries to temper its serialized elements, mixing long-term story with shorter, weekly ones. And ABC launches a remake of alien-invasion serial V in November.

The challenging format tends to demand more dedication from viewers, who may not want to make the time commitment, especially when there is no guarantee a show will reach its conclusion. It includes many recent failures, some of them noble, such as The Nine and Jericho, and even critically acclaimed successes Lost and 24 have hit bumps. NBC's Heroes, which tries to balance serialization with stand-alone volumes, was a big early hit but has since slumped.

Quick answers to questions

Goyer and Guggenheim say they are making the show as they want to, but their customized format — many character stories that wrap up in one episode, quick answers to major questions and a simplified but not dumbed-down mythology — also may make it appeal to a broader audience and casual viewers. "It's not that kind of show where if you don't catch it at the beginning you'll be lost," Vance says.

At the same time, more devoted fans will be rewarded with numerous little clues and hidden references. "You'll come across the true genius that is David Goyer, which is these Easter eggs," Fiennes says. "There's so much information that you could certainly go crazy trying to work it all out."

As another viewing incentive, Goyer promises to resolve virtually all questions raised in the pilot by this season's end. "We made the commitment very early on to answer some big questions and have some reveals very early. The audience will be surprised at some of the cards we turn over that early."

ABC has an interest in series that are "something epic in scope but also really emotional," network executive vice president Suzanne Patmore-Gibbs says. Characters must be at the core, she says, whether the serialized program is Lost,Grey's Anatomyor FlashForward.

Goyer likes mixing large and small. "One of the things I like to do is take a big, broad subject matter and see if you can work it through this intimate prism with characters who humanize what would normally be what some would call an E-ticket ride. I think we were able to do that with the Batman movies, and I feel that's what we're doing here."

He and Guggenheim are Lost fans, citing the Emmy-winning hit's groundbreaking nature as one reason they thought ABC would be a good place for their series. ABC hopes Lost fans connect with FlashForward.

"Lost is ending this year and hopefully going out with a bang. There's an audience base that's going to be craving another nuanced experience, and it would be nice to win some of those audience members," Patmore-Gibbs says. But she and others point out large differences between Lost and FlashForward, which was inspired by Robert Sawyer's novel of the same name and in planning before Lost was created. (The TV series veers far from the book, producers say.)

"It's not like we're going to unearth layers and layers that are more sci-fi or layers and layers of mythology. So I think it's easier to access in some ways," Patmore-Gibbs says.

Walger, who has had a recurring role on Lost, considers it "a huge compliment being (mentioned) in the same breath as Lost. (But) I think the similarity begins and ends with big ensemble casts."

FlashForward has a large, diverse ensemble — 11 series regulars, including Lost's Dominic Monaghan, and guest stars from around the world — that opens the door to many individual stories, both professional and personal. To be a TV series rather than a movie, FlashForward had to be about more than blackouts and flash-forwards, says Cho, who also visited the future in this year's Star Trek film.

"We couldn't hang our hats on that big concept. It had to be about relationships and how it affected everyone's lives. That, to me, was the hook," he says.

On the largest soundstage on the Disney studios lot, one usually reserved for feature films, some character stories — and bits of police and medical drama — are intersecting at Olivia's hospital when Mark and his FBI colleagues arrive. She has just saved a series regular who was injured in an attack resulting from their investigation.

"Mark has this guilt, but at the same time he feels vindicated that the clues are paying off," Fiennes says.

The 'what-if?' element

Of FlashForward's many elements, those involved with the series say science fiction may be the least. It also happens to be a genre label that turns off some viewers who might otherwise give a series or movie a try.

The show's science-fiction component is limited to the blackout and flash-forwards, if that, the producers say, with Goyer suggesting the ultimate cause may not even be in the realm of that genre. He describes the look forward as a "what if?" rather than science fiction, akin to Scrooge's glimpse of the future in A Christmas Carol.

While FlashForward's characters see bits of the future, Goyer and Guggenheim know it all, as in how the series ends.

"In a post-Lost world, when you take a pilot to the networks, they ask, 'Do you have any idea where it goes?' " Goyer says. "As a viewer, I would feel frustrated if the show creators don't know where they're going."

They have plotted the series out, a difficult task when it isn't known how long it will run. Goyer says they have loosely planned it for five seasons, could tell it in three, if necessary, or could "accordion it out" to run longer than five. Besides the ending, they say they know how the penultimate season concludes.

"They have had a destination in mind the whole time, knowing how hard it is when you don't," Patmore-Gibbs says. She notes Lost has benefited from having a fixed ending point, though no one suggested FlashForward might follow a similar plan.

The series can expand on a character or story if it breaks out in a big way. In the pilot, Benford encounters a kangaroo on a downtown L.A. street after the blackout. "It was something intended as a grace note. I didn't expect it to get quite the response it has," Goyer says. He and Guggenheim have made sure the Australian interloper will return.

"We've altered stuff along the way, as we've refined and gotten a better handle on things," Guggenheim says. "Something happens in the 11th episode of the show that had been planned for Episode 18, or even later."

But what happens after Season 1's last episode? If FlashForward answers nearly all the questions in the pilot by the season's end, what will be left for next year?

"I hope people ask that," Goyer says. "In some ways, I can't wait to get there. It's going to be more exciting than Season 1."
Source: USA Today

Promo Photos From The Pilot

2009-08-29T08:19:00.000-07:00

Photos Uploaded By: Tv Spoilers Center

Sonya Walger Interview

2009-08-29T08:15:00.000-07:00

IGN TV: FlashForward has a pretty bold concept. What was your reaction to it initially?

Sonya Walger: Oh, I flipped for it. I thought it was just such an outstanding piece of writing. I rang my agents immediately and was like, "How do we make this happen? What do I have to do? I'll audition for anyone you need me to audition for. I will jump through any hoops. I just want to play this part."

IGN: How would you describe your character?

Walger: Olivia is a strong, complicated woman who's a working mother. She's a trauma surgeon and a loving wife. She's devoted to her work and trying to make time for her kid. Olivia's plate is full long before the flash forward happens I think.

IGN: [FlashForward Executive Producer] David Goyer has said he plays things pretty close to the vest as far as not telling you guys what's going to happen. Do you try to get him or the other writers to reveal anything?

Walger: Not really, unless I really need it – unless I feel like I can't play the scene without a particular piece of information. But otherwise, I'm very happy just to go with what I have. There's enough on the page – the scripts are so well written. There's plenty to play, without needing to pry more secrets out of them.

IGN: Now that you've filmed a few episodes, has it been interesting to see how they've begun to lay out these puzzle pieces, aiming towards the place we saw you in in your flash forward?

Walger: It's wonderful. It's so exciting. So exciting watching the show spread out in such unexpected ways. The ripple effect of these premonitions and where they take us is really wonderful.

IGN: You've said you really don't know what role you may or may not play in Lost this year. It being the final season, are you hoping to be able to give Penny some kind of closure?

Walger: Oh, I'd love to! I'd absolutely love to but I would fully understand if they can't work it out. So either way…

IGN: I wanted to ask you about the Lost episode, "The Constant." I know I'm not alone in thinking that's one of the very best episodes of the show. When you were filming it, did you know it was something special?

Walger: Oh, it was such a great script. It really was. And Jack Bender directed it so beautifully. But I had no idea that it would turn out as well as it did and no idea it would turn out to be an episode that people responded to so warmly. I'm delighted and honored to have an episode that gets singled out.

IGN: With Desmond and Penny, there aren't that many scenes featuring the two of you throughout the entire course of the series, and yet I think many fans would say that's among their favorite relationships on Lost. I assume that has to be very gratifying.

Walger: Sure! It's lovely. It's lovely to think that people are invested in that way in our characters. Because you say, it's not like we had a lot of screen time, but it's been fun!

IGN: On FlashForward, have you had any scenes with Dominic yet?

Walger: No, not yet.

IGN: On Lost, you were involved in another very memorable moment – Charlie's death – but I assume you didn't even shoot anything with Dominic [Monaghan] since Penny was only on the video screen.

Walger: No, I met him for the first time on FlashForward!

IGN: I assume that's another case where you hear from Lost fans about how meaningful that "Not Penny's boat" scene is to them.

Walger: Yeah, I've heard that a lot – about how important and seminal that scene was. It was lovely to meet him, but it was just like meeting any other actor. It was a nice introduction! [Laughs]

IGN: Having originally signed on just for a single episode guest appearance on Lost, has it been a strange ride, entering into this world with such a rabid fanbase and such a dense mythology? I'm guessing you are asked questions you would have no way of knowing the answer to.

Walger: Yeah, sure, but honestly it's been fine. I've been quite protected from the whole Lost phenomenon, because I'm not one of the core cast. So I haven't had to do the press junkets that they have. If I deal with questions, it's just from someone in the street, and it's always lovely to have people want to come up and talk about the work. So I've been pretty protected from the whole thing.

IGN: Are you getting prepared for the fact that FlashForward is likely to be one of those show that will have fans asking so many specific questions?

Walger: Listen, if we have an 18th of the success that Lost has, it will be a lovely thing. I won't complain! It will be great.

Source: IGN

2 New Promo Videos

2009-08-29T08:11:00.000-07:00

Two new promo trailers.

David Goyer Talks Flash Forward

2009-08-27T10:00:00.000-07:00

Batman and Blade scripter David S. Goyer has a new TV show this fall. On Flash Forward, a global disaster causes everyone to see a vision of their lives on April 29. The premise is fantasy, but it was inspired by real life tragedy.

“I had this experience,” Goyer said. “I was in France immediately after 9/11. It's definitely baked into the DNA of this show. I never had this experience where there was this enormous outpouring of sympathy, A, for being American, which doesn't typically happen in Paris. I would be in these bistros, in these bars, and I would have complete strangers crying and coming up to me and hugging me and holding me and talking about where they were and what they were doing. What were they doing when 9/11 happened? I thought, obviously, it was horrendous, but it was also, for this one moment, for this brief period of time, this profoundly kind of connecting experience for a lot of the world. And so we were trying to also go in that direction with this. I mean, you will have people in our show, you could walk into a bar a total stranger. ‘What did you see?’ And these people might start talking to each other because everyone on this planet, 6.8 billion people, experienced it. And that's this, also, kind of wonderful thing that brings the whole world closer together.”

Some of the futures are not so pleasant. One man sees himself descend into alcoholism while his wife sees herself in love with another man. “Look, I think that one of the primary reasons why people come to drama is for conflict, and I think that lots of marriages in real life have lots of issues they deal with: responsibility, infidelity, A, B, and C. And to me, one of the interesting things about this is this show hopes to kind of traffic in the gamut of human experience.”

Once everybody realizes they all had visions of the same day, they get down to business right away of piecing together April 29. It doesn’t take even the entire first episode for the world to be on board with this high concept.

“I mean, look, that's the razor's edge that the show traffics in, but the thing that we say to the actors all the time, and we talk about this in episode 2, in episode 3, in episode 4, and onward. It's not like these characters were watching a movie. They had a sensory experience of what happened. So whatever they saw, if they were cold, if they were hot, whatever they heard, whatever they were emotionally feeling was real to them. So when Olivia comes back from that moment, she had genuine feelings of love for this other man, and yet she can't escape it. It was real. And the same for Joe when he's drinking. I mean, he's been sober for seven years, but he had that physiological feeling. I think that's the more interesting aspect of the show, honestly. I mean, I think that the kind of mayhem or the high jinks is cool, but what I'm hoping people will really tune in for is the kind of meat and potatoes of just how people are wrestling with all of these things and the gamut of human experience in John Cho.”

The big question week to week will be: can they change the future they saw? “That, again, is part of the heart and soul of the show and the debate and where I think a lot of the drama and suspense can be mined, is whether, if you saw your future, what would you do about it, and can you change it? And we've basically broken our series regulars down into three categories. A third of them fear the future, and they are trying to do everything they can to fight it. A third of them, their futures are aspirational, and they are trying to do everything they can to make it happen. And a third of them are kind of agnostic because they just don't understand what it means, and they are trying to figure it out. Now, maybe fighting it is what causes it to happen, or maybe trying to cause it is what causes it not to happen. I mean, that is sort of what the show is about.”

Source: CanMag

New TV Promo Trailer

2009-08-27T09:47:00.000-07:00

Another new trailer with a few new scenes.

New Promo Videos

2009-08-25T14:35:00.000-07:00

Two brand new promo videos.

Q/A With The Stars Of The Show

2009-08-25T14:25:00.000-07:00

Cast members answer questions.

New Promo Photos

2009-08-22T08:53:00.000-07:00

A bunch of strange new promo photos.

New Promo Poster

2009-08-19T18:29:00.000-07:00

Interview With Marc Guggenheim Executive Producer

2009-08-19T18:24:00.000-07:00

FBI agent Mark Benford is in the middle of a high speed car chase when all of the sudden, he blacks out and sees eerie and unfamiliar visions of himself in the future.

When he awakens on the street in a scene of mass confusion, he finds out the whole world went unconscious at the same time for two minutes and 17 seconds, and they all saw a glimpse of their own life six months from now.

What the visions mean and what people do with the knowledge of their own future becomes the driving force behind the new ABC show FlashForward, which premiers September 24, 2009.

"The premise of the show, I thought when I first heard it, was incredibly thought-provoking and imaginative," said Marc Guggenheim, executive producer for FlashForward along with David Goyer and Brannan Braga.

Starring Joseph Fiennes (The Escapist) as Mark Benford and John Cho (Star Trek) as his partner Demetri, FlashForward also has two alumni of the ABC show Lost in lead roles, with Dominic Monaghan as Simon and Sonya Walger as Mark's wife, Olivia.

Besides borrowing from Lost's cast, FlashForward's mystery-filled style is so similar to ABC's other serialized ensemble thriller that creators recognize it will invariably be compared to Lost. But that's not necessarily a bad thing, Guggenheim said.

"We’ve learned that we have to write the show in what we keep calling a 'post-Lost world,'” Guggenheim said. "We recognize that shows that come after Lost have to basically write for an audience that is really familiar with the clues and the conventions and mythologies that Lost perfected. So it’s kind of like learning to play basketball or joining the NBA once Michael Jordan has been in the game. He changed the game. Lost changed the game. So we’ve just come into the show knowing that the game is changed and we’ve written and produced the show accordingly."

However, the show's producers also emphasize that they do know where this series is going and how it will end – something that Lost viewers were beginning to question when that show's story seemed to be stretched out to fill more seasons.

"This show is different from LOST in that respect," Guggenheim said. "We plant a very firm and deep flag in the pilot that by the end of the season our characters will catch up to their futures. They’ll catch up to April 29, 2010. In fact, they’ll catch up to April 29, 2010, on April 29, 2010. So as a result, there’s no treading water. You’re not gonna see the six months of story be stretched out into six years of story.

"We ask a lot of questions, but you’ll start getting answers very, very, soon and very, very, quickly. So there’s this constant feeling as you go through the first season of payoff and a constant feeling of the plot is actually developing," he said. "You’ll get that huge payoff by the end of the first season."

Yet there is the potential for the series to stretch its finite story into an extra season or two. While Goyer has stated that it will take a minimum of three seasons to tell the complete story of FlashForward, he also left the door open for more seasons because there are potentially seven million people who experienced flashes of their future -- all with unique stories to tell.

"We don’t mean that there are billions of years of FlashForward. Neither David nor I want to overstay our welcome," Guggenheim said with a laugh. "It just means that unlike Lost, where there are a limited number of people on that island, and unlike Grey’s Anatomy, where there’s a limited number of people working at the hospital, every person on the planet had a flash forward, and all of those people have potential stories to tell."

One way that FlashForward is similar to Lost is that even small details from the pilot are clues to the bigger mystery – something that should attract fans who like paying attention to details.

"There’s meaning behind everything," Guggenheim said. "Nothing is put in the show randomly. There are 'Easter eggs' throughout the pilot and in pretty much all the episodes since the pilot. Everything has some sort of significance and everything has some sort of payoff. In some cases, you’ll get the payoff within the first 10 episodes. In other cases, you won’t get the payoff until the very last episode of the series. But everything that has been selected in the show is intentional and has had thought put behind it."

For example, Guggenheim confirmed there is an answer for why the world blacks out for exactly two minutes and 17 seconds. There's also meaning behind why April 29, 2010 is the date people see.

"There are answers to questions that you don’t even know are questions," he said. "[There are] things that are being laid in that you won’t even recognize the significance of until deeper into the seasons and deeper into the series."

Guggenheim credits this clue-weaving technique to the "comic geek cred" of the show's creators -- Goyer as a former comic book writer and co-creator of The Dark Knight, and Guggenheim as a current writer for Amazing Spider-Man and co-writer of the script for the upcoming Green Lantern film.

"Here’s the thing. David and I are both geeks. I mean, in all honesty, we both – we love comic books," said Guggenheim. "We love it when other people give that kind of attention to things. So one of the very first things David and I bonded about was our love of geek culture and those sorts of elements, whether it be a comic book, TV series, a movie, whatever. So we certainly brought that to the show. And that’s one of the many, many fun aspects of working on it."

Another similarity to Lost is the big-budget quality of the pilot's special effects and production.

"The effort honestly, is to make cinema-quality everything, from visual effects to the way it's shot, to the way it’s written, to the way it’s acted," Guggenheim said. "I think that this show really raises the bar in terms of how good a TV show can look.

"We’re constantly pushing the envelope and we’re constantly spending every dime that ABC gives us," the producer said. "And in some cases, a little bit more. But the goal really is to provide as close to cinema-like experience as possible."

But even with the big cinematic effects and strange underlying mysteries, the show is really about the struggle of average people to understand the visions they've been given of what will happen in their futures.

"It’s 100 percent a character-based show," Guggenheim said. "I mean, it’s basically a character drama. It’s set against this big scope. And yes, it has mystery elements to it, but at the end of the day, all the mystery elements are all about illuminating our characters and their specific problems.

"I think the TV shows nowadays, especially on broadcast television where you’re not going after such a niche audience as you are on cable, you have to be able to have a canvas big enough to tell that kind of size story that can go in all those different directions and can hit all those different types of notes," he said. "It’s just too competitive for viewers to do it otherwise."

Source: Newsarama

New Promo With A Couple New Scenes

2009-08-18T12:08:00.001-07:00

Source:The Odi

New Short Promo

2009-08-13T09:51:00.000-07:00

Gabriel Union Interview

2009-08-13T09:46:00.000-07:00

Gabrielle Union joined the cast of ABC's upcoming sci-fi thriller series FlashForward after the pilot and told us that she'll play a criminal defense attorney engaged to Demetri Noh (John Cho). She said the pairing of her African-American character and Cho's Asian-American character was deliberate.

"The cultural differences with our families, not only blending families in the middle of a recession but blending families that come from different cultures and races and backgrounds, will definitely be explored," Union said in an exclusive interview last week in Pasadena, Calif. "And, I love John."

In the series, based on Robert J. Sawyer's SF novel, everyone in the world blacks out for 2 minutes 17 seconds, during which time each person has a glimpse of the future and their lives on a specific date: April 29, 2010. The show's characters, played by Joseph Fiennes, Sonya Walger and others, will spend the bulk of the first season figuring out what will come true and whether or not they can alter the predictions. Union said her scenes with Cho focus on their relationship.

"[I've shot] a lot of time with John," She continued. "We have a really good relationship. I'm so glad that they're showing two people of color with, like, a really ... loving and nurturing relationship. I haven't really seen that on TV, and certainly not in an interracial relationship, very loving and sweet in a genuine sort of way." (Major spoilers ahead!)

In the pilot episode, one flash forward saves a character from suicide. Others characters worry that their own futures include a relapse into alcoholism or an end to their marriages. Union's not telling what she sees.

"It's life-affirming, that's for sure," she teased.

Cho's character sees nothing in his flash forward, leading him to believe he doesn't make it to April 29. So far, this has not affected his relationship in early episodes, Union said.

"Well, he has not shared with me his flash forward, so ignorance is bliss at this point," Union said.

Union came to FlashForward because of her previous relationship with ABC: She starred on the short-lived Night Stalker and guested on Ugly Betty, so the network wanted to get back in the Gabrielle Union business.

"They've been incredibly supportive," Union said. "A lot of people give lip service to, 'We want to increase diversity,' and then you just never see any people of color. They actually really mean it. If one thing doesn't work out, they come up with more opportunities. So they're like, 'We want you back in the family,' and by chance, the next day, the Goyers [executive producers Jessika Borsiczky Goyer and David Goyer] called them and they were like, 'Do you think Gabrielle would ever be interested in returning to television?' They're like, 'Funny you should ask. We just talked to her about this.'"

Since FlashForward has a long-term mythology that the creators are guarding closely, it's one of those shows where even the actors don't get information beyond the script they are shooting. That creates a challenging work environment for Union.

"It's more hard that we are given very limited information, to the point where filming a scene, I think I have all the information I need," she said. "We do a take, and they're like, 'Oh, nobody told her.' Then they whisper it in your ear, and I'm like, 'Oh, OK, that changes everything.' So I'm literally getting information on a need-to-have basis. That's more challenging. Literally, they tell me on a need-to-know basis."

FlashForward premieres Sept. 24 on ABC.

Source: Scifi Wire

More From David Goyer

2009-08-12T09:36:00.000-07:00

One of the most anticipated new genre shows of the fall is the adaptation of Robert J. Sawyer’s best-selling novel, “Flash Forward.”

As the premiere gets closer, executive producer David Goyer has been promoting the series and giving fans a better idea of what they can expect when the series debuts in September. Goyer spoke to critics during the recent ABC presentation at the TCA tour, saying that the show is an “ensemble” piece with at least 11 regular characters when the action begins.

In the series, every person in the world blacks out for 2 minutes and 17 seconds, during which time everyone has a vision of the future—April 29, 2010, to be specific—and the show’s characters begin to piece together what happened.

Goyer said that one of the first things fans will notice is the show isn’t going to “just tread water” waiting for April 29.

“It will become abundantly clear within the first four episodes that’s not what we’re doing. We try to sit down and think “What would the audience expect or not expect?” and, again, as viewers, “What would we want to see?”,” he told SciFi Wire. ” I would be annoyed if a show like this just treaded water, so we make some very bold moves in the first few episodes.”

“We are going to be telling a lot of sometimes an A, B, C and D story,” he continued. “Not every character will be in every episode, but the promise we made to the network is every episode you would at least see more of one of our cast member’s flash-forward, and you would see a new character’s flash-forward.”

Goyer added that he and the writing team have a three-year plan for the series. He said the team wants to “swing for the fences” instead of playing it safe. He also said it was important to make sure the pay-offs for the audience are mapped out and reached.

“They’re certainly going to get a lot of answers by episode 13,” Goyer said. “I also know that Steve and the rest of the group at ABC have shown an enormous confidence in us and have extended an enormous amount of commitment to the show. So, look, if you’re not going to try to be ambitious, what’s the point? Yes, shows get canceled, and some of my favorite shows have been canceled, but I think that’s like saying I had a bad date, and I’m never going to date again.”

“Flash Forward” debuts in September on ABC.

SOURCE: Slice of SciFi

Pittsburgh Post - FlashForward similar feel to LOST

2009-08-12T09:32:00.000-07:00

PASADENA, Calif. — ABC’s “Flash Forward,” a new serialized Thursday night drama, has been dubbed “the next ‘Lost,’” and there are similarities.

A large international cast tells an unfolding story that begins with a cataclysmic event: Everyone on the planet blanks out for a little more than two minutes. During that time the characters flash forward and see a few moments from t heir lives on a specific future date: 10 p.m. on April 29, 2010. Some like what they see in the future, others do not.

Is the future they see their destiny? Can they change the future? And why does a kangaroo — a stand-in for the “Lost” polar bear, perhaps? — hop down a Los Angeles street after everyone awakens? These are questions viewers will be left to wonder about after the pilot airs at 8 p.m. Sept. 24.

“By the end of the first season, most of the questions raised in the pilot … will be answered,” said executive producer David S. Goyer (”Threshold”). “The cause of why the blackout happened, that’s our background radiation mystery for the whole series.”

“Flash Forward” follows an FBI agent (Joseph Fiennes, “Shakespeare in Love”) and his partner (John Cho, “Star Trek”); the agent’s surgeon wife (Sonya Walger, “Lost”) and assorted other characters. “Lost” veteran Dominic Monaghan will have a role in “Flash Forward” beginning sometime in the first six episodes after the pilot. Details of his character, Simon, remain under wraps. He said the show is less mythology-driven than “Lost.”

Although there have been recent TV seasons with a plethora of serialized shows (”The Nine,” “Day Break,” etc.), this fall “Flash Forward” has that space largely to itself.

“We have only succeeded when we’ve been ambitious and taken chances and pushed the limits,” McPherson said, naming “Desperate Housewives” and “Lost” as past high concept successes. He emphasized the importance of a portfolio approach that mixes big shows such as “Flash Forward” with smaller projects. “For me, there’s so much great drama out there, you have got to be ambitious. You have to break through the clutter.”

SOURCE: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

National Post Article

2009-08-11T09:20:00.000-07:00

Every so often, a new TV show comes along that's so eye-filling, so visually startling and so emotionally gripping that it feels like a tectonic shift may be about to occur in the popular culture.

ABC saved the best for last, unveiling its pilot episode of the secretive, big-budget futuristic thriller FlashForward, based on the novel by Canadian Robert J. Sawyer.

In an age when broadcast TV faces across-the-board cost-cutting and scaled-down ambitions, FlashForward represents a throwback to an earlier age. Not since the pilot episode of Lost has a single hour of network TV looked -- or felt -- more like a feature film.

FlashForward, about a two-minute, 17-second blackout that affects every person on Earth, is full of suspense and unanswered questions. Based on its initial screening, though, it's also full of genuine, human emotion.

FlashForward is more than just a futuristic What If' tale. In a notably buzz-free fall season, it's a reminder of just how powerful the medium of TV can be, how it can move a mass audience to tears, laughter and excitement by turns.

FlashForward is, quite simply, the most eye-filling, heart-wrenching pilot episode of a new network drama series since Lost -- and it gives us all hope that this may not be such a bad fall TV season after all.

Source: National Post

Interview With Story Creator Robert Sawyer

2009-08-10T09:26:00.000-07:00

Upcoming ABC series FlashForward is about people who see the future. But there's no futurism in it. Robert Sawyer, author of the novel that inspired the series, said the show's producers felt they could sell science, but not the future.

Speaking to us at WorldCon science fiction convention in Montreal, Sawyer explained why the show (featuring John Cho, pictured here in a publicity shot for FlashForward) changes his novel in one significant way. The characters get a glimpse only six months into the future, rather than the two decades they get in the novel. Sawyer says executive producers David Goyer and Brannon Braga chose to do that for a few reasons:

One rationale is pure economics: you don't have to make the future world. But it's also about audience. For example, here's the difference between Battlestar Galactica and Lost. Lost gets 10 million viewers and Battlestar Galactica rarely tops 1 million, even if Battlestar Galactica is arguably a better show. And that's because as soon as audience sees robots and aliens, it dries up. They tune into other channels. Not showing the future on FastForward allows the audience to build.

Sawyer is a creative consultant and what he calls an "unofficial science consultant" on the ABC series. "I've been very impressed by how well-informed David [Goyer] is about science, and how important it is to him," Sawyer said. I asked whether the show would revolve around an experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, the way the novel does, and he was mum on that point. But he did offer a hint: "They needed a science consultant for the show, so that tells you something about what's going to happen."

Mainly, though, Sawyer is happy with the writing on the show. He enthused:

I've seen most of the pilot and it's fabulous - it has the look of a motion picture. I don't expect the episode I write to be on the Hugo Awards ballot; I expect the pilot [written by Goyer and Braga] to be on the ballot.

Source: i09

Interview With Producer David Goyer

2009-08-10T09:15:00.000-07:00

What is Gabrielle Union [NBC's Life] playing on FlashForward?

Goyer: She plays the character Demetri's [John Cho] fiancee. She plays a criminal defense attorney. She's a very significant character. You'll see her five or six times in the first 13 episodes. She's got a pretty interesting story arc herself.

You have such a large ensemble, what is the role of guest stars on the show?

Goyer: Big. We have, I think, 11 series regulars, and already six or seven recurring characters. We have some really exciting guest stars that we've lined up that unfortunately we can't announce yet, but they're pretty cool.

Is there a rhythm to giving out reveals, peppering them out without giving too much away?

Goyer: Yeah, yeah, but I will say, I think some people assume that because we've said April 29th, we're just going to tread water until then. It will become abundantly clear within the first four episodes that's not what we're doing. We try to sit down and think "What would the audience expect or not expect?" and, again, as viewers, "What would we want to see?" I would be annoyed if a show like this just treaded water, so we make some very bold moves in the first few episodes.

The pilot balances present day and flashes-forward. What is the format going to be week to week?

Goyer: Look, it's an ensemble show. We are going to be telling a lot of sometimes an A, B, C and D story. Not every character will be in every episode, but the promise we made to the network is every episode you would at least see more of one of our cast member's flash-forward, and you would see a new character's flash-forward.
You say you have a three-year plan. You also had a three-year plan for Threshold. Are you still confident about thinking that far ahead?

Goyer: I like shows that are ambitious, so why not swing for the fences?

Do you have assurance for the viewers if they invest half a season, they'll at least find out how it's supposed to end?

Goyer: Well, they're certainly going to get a lot of answers by episode 13. I also know that Steve and the rest of the group at ABC have shown an enormous confidence in us and have extended an enormous amount of commitment to the show. So, look, if you're not going to try to be ambitious, what's the point? Yes, shows get canceled, and some of my favorite shows have been canceled, but I think that's like saying I had a bad date, and I'm never going to date again. You have to keep swinging for the fences. ...

How much action will there be week to week? The premiere is pretty epic.

Goyer: It's going to vary. Episode two has a lot of action. Episode four has a lot of action. There's a ton of action in 10, 11. It just varies. ...

You've done TV before. What is different about this experience?

Goyer: I'm personally having the most fun I've ever had in my life on a project. The concept of the show is very personal to me. It's allowing me to write about a lot of things that are important to me at this stage in my life, so it's interesting. One of the things I like to do best is take a big-scope kind of genre movie, but tell it in a really personal way. I think we were able to do that with Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, and in our own way that's what we're doing with FlashForward. I don't know, this is my most favorite things that I've ever worked on.

What are some of those themes?

Goyer: I think future responsibility, who we are: Is our destiny baked in from the time we're born, or can we change it? I had a couple of experiences in my own life where I think it seemed like I should've gone A and I went B, and I'm just really fascinated by the people that make choices that take them in an unexpected direction. I'm just fascinated by paradigm shifts, personal paradigm shifts. It's funny, I [worked] with Alex Proyas in Dark City and things like that. Do we have a choice in who we become, or is it predestined? ...

What's a big door you wish you'd gone through?

Goyer: I can give you an example of one door I didn't go through that I am happy [about]. I was all set up to be a homicide detective in Detroit instead of a screenwriter, and I'm really glad I'm not.

How many episodes will you write and direct?

Goyer: I directed the first two. If we go a full season, I'll probably end up directing about five. I'll probably end up writing about—I mean, I'm involved in all the episodes, but I don't know, seven or eight of them first season.
Source: SciFi Wire

New ABC Promo Trailer

2009-08-08T10:42:00.000-07:00

Another new promo from ABC. There is a ton of new footage so check it out.

Casting News

2009-08-05T09:27:00.000-07:00

Thesp Keir O'Donnell ("Wedding Crashers") has joined the cast to the ABC drama "FlashForward." He joins an ensemble that already includes Joseph Fiennes, John Cho and Sonya Walger.

The thesp was most recently seen in "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" and has just been added to the cast of "The Runaways," starring Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning.

Source: Variety

New Trailer And Behind The Scenes

2009-08-05T09:12:00.000-07:00

Brand new trailer features some new footage. There is also behind the scenes with one of the Writers David Goyer.

Seth MacFarlane Talks FlashForward

2009-08-02T12:48:00.000-07:00

Gabriel Union Joins Cast

2009-08-01T19:51:00.000-07:00

Gabrielle UnionGabrielle Union is joining the cast of ABC's exciting new fall drama, "FlashForward," in a recurring role as Zoey, a criminal defense attorney who will have a romantic arc on the show.

"We're thrilled that Gabrielle is joining our cast," said executive producer David S. Goyer. "When we met with her, we immediately knew she was our Zoey. She's witty, soulful and beautiful. I've been wanting to work with her for a long time."

What would you do if you were given a glimpse of the future? Would you accept what you saw and live life to its fullest, or would you do everything in your power to change your destiny? In "FlashForward," when the world's population is given a glimpse of their future, it forces everyone to come to grips with whether their destinies can be fulfilled or avoided.

"FlashForward" premieres Thursday, September 24 (8:00-9:00 p.m., ET) on the ABC Television Network.

SOURCE: StarPulse

Scoop from Producers and Star Joseph Fiennes

2009-07-26T09:17:00.000-07:00

Source: Tv Guide

JOSEPH FIENNES (Mark Benford)

Rumor is that after the series catches up to the first flash
forward on April 29, 2010, there will then be subsequent flash forward into the future to keep the premise going.
Yeah, but maybe I shouldn't be giving that away. But it will
occur again. I think at the end of each season, all the characters will get another flash forward to deepen their storylines.

The actress who plays your wife, Sonya Walger, (Lost's Penelope), just got married in real life. What was her wedding gift?
Her gift was working very late on set the night before. That's
all we offered her.

Your character is a police detective, and the flash forward shows
glimpses of a crime board with photos, clippings and scribblings of clues. How much do you know about what's up there?
Everything is a clue to how it happened. I know the stories behind about twenty percent of what's up there. Everything on that board will lead us to who's behind this.

Which images have jumped out to you?
There's some beautiful images of a black swan, which is very
startling. There's a curious man with a widow's peek and very thick glasses and a very intense look. There's some beautiful paintings of serpents and weird-headed animals. It's going to get quite surreal.

What's your theory behind what caused the flash forward?
My theory changes by the minute. I don't know if it's sort of
a tectonic globalvshift, but I have come to the conclusion that there are people behind it.

Have you ever had a deja vu moment in your own life?
Constantly, but I read a paper in a science journal that completely debunked the idea of deja vu. Actually, it's a little glitch in your brain. It's already taken place but somehow you get a cross wire and it makes you feel like you've seen something way in the future.

Well maybe that's the secret behind the series.
(laughs) Maybe.

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER DAVID GOYER

Dominic Monaghan is saying we have to wait until episode six or seven to see him.
Maybe not. He may appear in the show before people realize he's
in the show. We cast him before we shot the pilot.

What can you tell us about Dom's character?
Simon is a genius, He went to college when he was 14 years old.
He's a very conflicted character. He's very much the opposite of Charlie on Lost. People are going to see a different side of Dominic Monaghan, which is something he was pretty excited
about. Charlie was a boy, Dominic plays a man in this show.

Was that something he specifically wanted?
Yes. And it's what we wanted as well.

Does Simon have a last name and a wife and kids?
Those are plot points I can't reveal. There are many mysteries
surrounding his character.

Joseph Fiennes told us that after the series reaches the first flash
forward on April 29, there will be another flash forward.
Well, what I'll say is the cast doesn't know much about where
we're going and we've also deliberately leaked some misleads.

Everyone seems focused on the kangaroo seen hoping around the streets of downtown L.A. after the incident occurs. I assumed he'd just escaped down the hill from the L.A. zoo. Is there more to this creature?
That could be a possibility, but I will say the kangaroo will be
back. The kangaroo has a story.

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER MARC GUGGENHEIM

Any new character's coming on board?
We will meet Dimitri's (John Cho) fiance, Zoey—the one
he talks about in the pilot. We're going to meet her in episode three. She's an attorney. [Editor's note: The character will be played by Gabrielle Union.]

Can a wedding happen in light of the incident?
They've been talking about their engagement since before
the blackout. We will deal with this issue head-on directly in episode three when me meet Zoey and see her flash forward.

An other new characters?
We know who is going to play Mark's (Joseph Fiennes)
mother. It's an actress we've already reached out to who is interested in doing it. If you look carefully in the Benford house you'll see pictures of her. She's already in the set dressing.

Dominic Monaghan Talks About Show

2009-07-26T09:10:00.000-07:00

After weeks of rumors, Lost's Dominic Monaghan has come out of the closet as a new cast member on ABC's fall series, FlashForward. He breaks his silence to TVGuideMagazine.com.

Your character is named Simon. Does he have a last name?
Can't tell you. But I can say he's the joker in the pack. A little hard to predict. He's a snappy dresser, capable and cocky. And he's a man, not a boy.

At Comic-Con, they showed a quick clip of you in a scene in a police station. Can you describe what we saw?
Simon's in cahoots with Jack Davenport's character [Lloyd Simcoe]. Joseph Fiennes' character [Mark Benford] is beating up Jack's character and saying,'Who do you work with? Who's your partner?' and Jack's saying 'I'm not going to tell you that.' And then I walk in and say, 'You know what? I'm not scared of you guys. It's me.' So he's a cocky son-of-a-bitch.

When will that scene air?
I'm not sure. But I think I start on the series around episode six or seven.

What appealed to you about FlashForward?
I read the pilot and didn't think there was anything in particular that I could do in the script. I liked it. But my agent said, [the producers] really want to meet you. They asked what I wanted to do and I said, 'I want to play someone who's the opposite of Charlie,' because that's what I did after I finished "Lord of the Rings." Charlie was the opposite of Merry. It's important for me to continue to show the audience I can't be put in a box.

How many episodes will you be in?
I'm a season regular so I'm in the show for however many episodes they make this season.

You recently had breakfast with Lost producer Damon Lindelof. Were you discussing your return to the show?
Damon and I are friends, and he has some projects he's going to be doing in the future. Lost has got only one year left. That was just a time when we hung out.

Well, would you want to go back if you were invited?
Sure. You can't close doors in this business. It's just not how you do it. I would never say I wouldn't do it.

Do you know the secret behind how Lost ends?
I know some stuff, sure. Coming to the end of the season, Damon's been a little bit freer with some information. But I don't know everything.

Talk more about the possibility of returning to Lost.
I think they closed the door well on my character, and I would only go back based on the door opening in a way that complements my character. There's a few things that they would need to do. Damon and I talk a lot about the romance and legacy that Charlie's left behind. If he were to come back, this would be the final chapter. We would need to jump through a few more hoops before we get there.

Source:TV Guide

Extended Promo Trailer

2009-07-25T16:06:00.000-07:00

Dominic Monaghan Official Joins Flash Forward

2009-07-25T10:39:00.000-07:00

Source: The Live Feed

“Lost” alum Dominic Monaghan is joining the cast of ABC’s new fall drama, “FlashForward,” the network confirmed Friday at Comic-Con.

There had been speculation that Monaghan would be added to the action drama ever since he was featured in the “ABC House” promo campaign this spring despite the fact that his character on “Lost” had drowned.

ABC has been so high on “FlashForward,” slated to premiere Sept. 24, that it began airing promos for it during “Lost” before the show was officially picked up to series in May.

Based on Robert J. Sawyer’s novel, the Joseph Fiennes-starring series chronicles the aftermath of a global event in which everyone blacks out for 2 minutes, 17 seconds and has mysterious visions of six months into the future.

Co-starring on the series are John Cho, Jack Davenport, Courtney B. Vance, Sonya Walger , Brian F. O’Byrne, Christine Woods, Zachary Knighton and Peyton List.

Aside from “Lost,” Monaghan is also known for his role as Hobbit Meriadoc “Merry” Brandybuck in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. He recently appeared in “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” and guest starred on “Chuck.”

The series executive producers are David S. Goyer, Brannon Braga, Marc Guggenheim and Jessika Borsiczky Goyer (”Revelations”).

Comic Con News

2009-07-23T19:59:00.001-07:00

According to UGO.com there are two ARG's sites that were presented at Comic Con. The first be jointhemosaic.com and the second one being truthhack.com.