There's a rumour, originating from E! Online's Kristin Dos Santo, that ABC's critically-derided and low-rated FlashForward might get a surprise second season pickup because it's a hit overseas and doesn't cost much to produce.
This boils down to one commentator's opinion, but could it be possible? I'm not sold. It's certainly not a bad thing that the show's doing well abroad, but would ABC really renew a series that doesn't have much homegrown support and dwindling ratings? I know people say Heroes has only survived on NBC because of its international appeal, too, but it also has excellent DVD sales. Maybe that's why ABC release a "first volume" of FlashForward's first season recently, to gauge whether the show is a Heroes-like moneyspinner on disc
I'm also surprised by the suggestion FlashForward's a relatively cheap show to make, as it's always struck me as looking fairly expensive. If that's indeed true, I at least have to applaud what the showrunners have achieved with their budget and choice of filming locations.
ABC will make their official decision about FlashForward's future on 18 May.
Finally, while I'm not actually reviewing the series now, I thought I'd just mention that the last few episodes have been hilariously terrible. An African warlord stereotype who killed someone every 5 minutes for the hell of it, but who saw himself as an ambassador for peace in his flashforward? Huh? And this week the show turned into a very dumb episode of 24, with the FBI team trying to find a mole, who eventually turned out to be a character it makes NO sense has been a villain! And sweet Japanese robotocist Keiko returned... to, um, work in a "Pimp My Ride"-style L.A garage fitting hydraulics to cars. That really happened.
Or how about Mark Benford solving the most complex "clue" ever devized, in one morning, all by himself? He actually thought to investigate enigmatic D. Gibbons' early-'90s chess games, noted how long Gibbons took to decide on each move, then converted those times into Morse Code, which spelled out a telephone number that connected him to Gibbons' modern-day voicemail? I mean, have the writers gone NUTS? Who would ever think to do that?!
It was so bad it was kind of good. Kind of. But it's making Prison Break look positively Mensa right now.
