I just wondered if anyone wanted to chime in with thoughts on the recent batch of FlashForward episodes. I stopped reviewing the series awhile back, but have still been tuning in every week at UK pace (four days behind ABC.) There's been some terrible moments that made me groan, but also some surprisingly effective sequences (usually action-orientated.) I think it's clear the writers have a decent nucleus of ideas, but the characters aren't strong enough to make them fly.
Someone needs to sit down and tell Joseph Fiennes to remove that stick from his backside, for starters. Often, the best episodes are those where characters are only needed to be instruments in service of the plot -- like the entertaining episode where Benford had to find Demetri on the day of his supposed death, as he'd been kidnapped by Dyson Frost and attached to a booby-trapped gun-firing contraption. Entertainingly bonkers, it required Fiennes run around looking fraught, and he can do that.
I also found it interesting that former-showrunner David Goyer has admitted they're burning through ideas originally planned for season 2. Maybe that was out of desperation to throw as much stuff at the screen as possible to hide its deficiencies, or the producers know their show's days are numbered and would prefer to get as much on-screen as possible before the plug's pulled.
Remember when Goyer was saying they had five years mapped out? Do you still believe him? I found it amusing when Dyson Frost's wall chart of future events indicated 12 December 2016 as "The End" -- so, what, they still believe they'll get to an eighth season? Such optimism!
So what do you think of FlashForward right now? Has it turned a corner? Is it just embracing its ridiculous nature and thus having more fun, which is enough to quell its problems? I have to admit, I like how they sidestepped the apparent misfire of revealing Janis as a mole, as she's actually a double-agent working for Vogel. Although I'm not sure why Janis doesn't tell Vogel what she knows about Simon. She's sitting on a lot of information that would aide the Mosaic investigation, so why doesn't Vogel ask her for a few breaks in the case?
And Battlestar Galactica's James Callis as a savant; is that a good performance, or excruciating?
