gridoon2018 Start with an intriguing premise, explore its philosophical implications and sci-fi paradoxes (is it possible to change the future or are our efforts to change it already part of it? do people see things as they happen, or do they make them happen because they see them?), add a pinch of quantum physics (does observation shape reality?), sprinkle with action, humor, romance, drama, twists and conspiracy theories, and you get this gripping, compulsively watchable show. It has 22 episodes, but it never feels like it's grinding its wheels; if anything, it needed more. Well-acted by all, with Courtney B. Vance the standout with his quietly commanding voice. It boggles the mind that it didn't get a second season - the executives shut it down at its prime. *** out of 4.

SnoopyStyle Due to an unexplained phenomenon, the entire world's population blacks out for approximately 2 minutes and 17 seconds, and almost everybody sees a glimpse of life 6 months into the future. An elite FBI task force is formed to investigate.This is high concept sci-fi that devolves into chaos as more gets revealed. It lasted one season for 23 episodes in total. It became chaotic after the winter break. I would have liked to see if the show could recover some of its original tension in a second season. The other problem may be the large cast. It tends to dilute the emotional tension of each individual character's storyline.

rich-stryker I am so engrossed in this program I can't wait to watch the next episode. I really want to blitz the whole series instead of watching ones-and-twos at a time. The characters are OK and the acting is nice but the storyline is what has gripped me from the beginning. Apparently, the show diverges from the actual book thus making it different enough so that you can read and watch without being disappointed. I really appreciate the fact that it is a one season series because that means the same writers are on the show and the whole story can be watched in near relative time to the plot.Keep up the good work.

MrGKB ...but am not surprised that it turned out to be a flash in the pan. Production values were good, most of the casting/acting was tolerable, and the script/dialog wasn't nearly as bad as various mavens on this site have suggested, but ultimately David S. "Threshhold" Goyer's latest creation still couldn't surmount its flaws. The core concept is intriguing: a brief planetary blackout of consciousness during which most everyone experiences that time span in the future--and why some don't is, of course, a key feature of the main theme of the event, the dichotomy between free will and predestination.The major weakness, I think, was Goyer's decision to kowtow to the demands of LCD audiences of serial drama and veer too far from the source material, a 1999 novel by Robert J. Sawyer, a well-respected Canadian genre author. Too many (often extraneous) characters are introduced into the mix--the plot is shifted to focus on an FBI investigation into the origin of the phenomenon and its possible recurrence, with the mystery compounded by an overly elaborate conspiracy that is never satisfactorily resolved (or even explained)--and the result is a diffusion of interest in those characters. The primary leads suffer from being morally suspect in ways that lessen sympathy for their dilemmas, and most of their precognitions are dealt with in a facile manner that has no root in genuine character development. A sacrificial suicide toward the beginning of the story establishes that the future everyone has seen is malleable, but a number of characters make no real effort to alter what they perceive as probable negative outcomes. Cases in point would be the girl who saw herself drowning, the alcoholic FBI agent who saw himself falling off the wagon, his loyal wife who saw herself all cozy with another man, and the partner who saw nothing at all."Flashforward" smells of desperately wanting to become another "Lost," in essence, with multiple threads of mystery that could be exploited over an extended period of time. I suspect this was not all mapped out from Day One, however, but was cobbled together once the series was greenlighted for a full season. With better characters and smarter scripting, it might have worked. Alas...I didn't regret the time spent with it, but won't be returning to it, and don't bemoan its cancellation. Season Two would have just been more of the same.