FlashForward: The Complete Series DVD
FlashForward The Complete Series, actually the first and only season, takes a global event and turns it into a series of mysteries that never truly get solved to anyone's satisfaction.
Film making 13/25
Video 20/25
Audio 20/25
Bonus Features 20/25
Total 73/100
FlashForward is the one series wonder with the main story of a global event shared by everyone on the planet except for a lucky few who knew it was coming. FlashForward reminds me of those one hit wonder songs but with a television show that just failed to entertain for long.
The book would probably have been better according to the internet but they went in the wrong direction with the series. Actually according to Wikipedia's explanation it seems to me the book would have made an excellent full length feature film but someone in their infinite wisdom thought the real money was in a series.
The show starts off with the event, everyone on the planet blacks out for two minutes and seventeen seconds then wakes to find everyone else laying down around them. Of course with this happening without warning planes fall out of the sky because pilots are no longer in control and other calamities happen worldwide.
Cars drive into each other, a bus drives into a pond drowning everyone on board and a host of other really bad things happen to millions. The rest pick themselves up and try to understand what is going on but the really interesting part is they all saw their own future.
That two minute and seventeen seconds of time was played out before them in a dream like state while they were unconscious but it was six months in the future for almost everyone. Those that do not see anything are believed to be dead by the six month deadline but others see things that change the course of their lives.
The show revolves around a group of people, all from different backgrounds and not related in blood, job or even location but all a part of the blackout or FlashForward as everyone starts to call it. The main story revolves around the FBI trying to figure out who is behind the event but this leads to just about every character in the show having some pivotal part of the plot.
The show gets a bit too technical and really starts to run down after the first half as they took the show in the logical direction for a series but the story did not lend itself to this idea. The FlashForward is caused by a particle accelerator running along with some other event and when it happen twice we get more show to lead into the second series.
Problem with this is there is no second series so we really have nothing other than a reason of how they are causing the global blackouts but not why or who is really doing it. The show would have worked as a movie because you could start with an interesting and plausible? story that could have a definite end in an hour and a half or two hours.
To stretch this story out to a full series is just not going to work no matter how much character development and back story they give to the shows cast. The show started out well but did not have really anywhere to go over the 22 episodes other than to run through the events everyone saw as their own personal glimpse of the future.
FlashForward sounded good but really had nowhere to go and by the middle of the second half it was obvious that fans had lost interest. Viewers went from 12 million for the first episode down to half that by the end in a gentle slope of declining viewers.
Video looks good for a series with good color and great flesh tones as well as good dark and shadow, the usual things that make a show look good are done here. The shows plot is filmed in a variety of places, so we have a really good variety of filming locations and contrasting film scenes.
The video looks really good without any problems with quality, grain or compression artifacting as they kept the series to five episodes per disc. Audio is also very good with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound for clear well done sound throughout the entire series which is mostly front heavy.
The audio is without problems to speak of and the front heavy voice and general sounds work well but you do get occasional surround with the varied explosions and other events that occur from time to time. The very start of each episode for the first half of the show has a scene of the blackouts and this is a cool way to start each one that really shows off the video and audio.
FlashForward has a good amount of bonus content with the whole array of audio commentary, deleted scenes making of features and bloopers. Low and behold they also have Easter Eggs, a whole set of features that give each main characters personal FlashForward.
FlashForward did not work out and with the odd release of the entire series after releasing the first half several months ago this was a bad release for the marketing or whoever made this decision. The first half of FlashForward was released a few months ago and my complaint about half of a season is very evident with this decision.
Now that the series is done they released the complete series but not the second half on its own for those that bought the first half. People who liked the show enough to buy the first half must purchase the complete series to won the full show and I guess just toss out the first half, I can't see anyone buying it.
FlashForward is not that great a show and the only reason I had to give it any kind of a rating is my rating system, this show is not one to bother purchasing. If your that interested in watching FlashForward check it out on Hulu or rent it but a purchase is a waste of money.