"Paul Levinson's It's Real Life is a page-turning exploration into that multiverse known as rock and roll. But it is much more than a marvelous adventure narrated by a master storyteller...it is also an exquisite meditation on the very nature of alternate history." -- Jack Dann, The Fiction Writer's Guide to Alternate History

Friday, October 23, 2009

Drunk FlashForwarding in 1.5

Well, the Yankees lost tonight, after coming back and gaining the lead, and that was frustrating, but FlashForward 1.5 came on strong after a talky middle and posted one of its best endings since the premiere, and that was good to see indeed.

The crux of this episode is the reliability of Mark's flashforward vision. Why does he recall only a part of the 2 minutes and 17 seconds, when others seem to recall the full course of their flashforward? The answer is that Mark, off booze for seven years, was drunk in his flashforward.

Courtney Vance puts in his best performance so far as Mark's boss Stan Wedeck. He at first is furious that he's risking his career on a drunk flashforward, but he doesn't pull back the investigation, and in fact just tells Mark to keep his mouth shut as Stan takes the project funding he has pressured the President to provide.

There's a sharp 24-ish flavor to this (likely from Brannon Braga), as we see a President wheeling and dealing with dangerous political adversaries, and a Chinese team of assassins who almost take out Mark, Demetri, Vreede, and Stan, and in a parallel attack badly wound Janis. She looks as if she could be dying in the street - but given the truth of the flashforwards so far, someone is bound to come and save her.

She has a provocative story, too - a lesbian lover, Numb3r's Amita (Navi Rawat), in Washington, DC. It looks as if not only Heroes but FlashForward is picking up on The L Word this year, which risks making this theme a little trite, especially when brought in out of left field. But in Janis's case, it has the benefit of making the pregnancy she saw in her flashforward even more interesting.

Janis also discovers some strange towers in the area of the 1990s blackout ... Lloyd Simcoe will likely know more about ...








6-min podcast review of FlashForward

See also FlashForward Debuts and Oceanic Airlines as a Portal Between FlashForward and Lost and 1.2: Proofs and Defiance of Inevitability and 1.3: Conficting Visions and Futures and 1.4: FlashForward Meets Shaft and House

Listen to 40-minute interview with Robert J. Sawyer






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2 comments:

Nick Leshi said...

I was so glad to hear that Robert Sawyer, author of the book FlashForward is based on, will be writing an upcoming episode. I'm curious to see if he adds any elements from his book that the TV show abanadoned.

Paul Levinson said...

From what Rob told me in his interview, I think the episode will be following the television bible for the series pretty closely. But you're right - it will be great fun to see what Rob does with it!

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