TNMC

Howdy folks, long time no see.  For the one or two of you who remember when I used to post here sporadically, I need no introduction.  For the rest of you, I think it's best not to warn you off.  But have no fear, I'm not in a mood to ruffle anyone's feathers today.  In fact, I'm here with happy thoughts.

In my hot little hands is the script for the pilot of the upcoming ABC series Flash Forward.  This is a sci-fi thriller that will probably make for an excellent accompaniment/replacement for Lost.  Yes, I said excellent.

The series will center around FBI agent Mark Benford (Joseph Fiennes).  His wife Olivia (Sonya Walger) is a surgeon at a Los Angeles hospital.  They have a five year old daughter, Charlie.  This is not a super happy family.  Mark is an alcoholic, hitting AA regularly, trying to hold on to his sobriety.  Olivia isn't about to tolerate any backsliding.  

Mark is working with Dominic on an anti-terrorism case.  Dominic  (possibly changed to Demetri with the casting of John Cho) is the younger partner, preparing to get married for the first time.  The pair are in hot pursuit of a van full of suspects when things get truly bizarre.  The world basically takes a leap forward by several months.  When I say the world, I mean every single person in the world has this experience.  They basically pass out, and while out, get a two minute seventeen second look at their life, approximately six months in the future.  And every soul on the planet sees the exact same moment in time, which makes it possible to start stitching together the future.

Now stop and think for a moment.  If ever person in the world passes out for over two minutes at the same time, do you think there might be some complications?  Oh yes.  If you like apocalyptic disaster scenarios, you are going to love this pilot.  I won't go into the details but suffice it to say, this is a jaw dropper to read.  Visualized, with some decent special effects?  Stunning.

I really am going to avoid any more detail on the pilot, titled "No More Good Days."  The prime strength of this idea for a series is the tantalizing taste of the future generates instant and enormous drama and tension.  Just what Mark alone learns about the future is loaded with enough material to drive a show for quite some time.  But when you cross it with what his wife and partner learn and you have a series that has the potential to deliver serious intensity.  I enjoyed the script immensely and immediately wanted to know what happens next, which is fairly annoying since I don't get to learn that for many months.  

The script is written by David Goyer and Brannon Braga, based on a novel by  Robert Sawyer.  Goyer is a familiar name to genre movie fans.  He seems to be attached to every single superhero movie at one point or another.  Last year his handiwork was on display in the brilliant The Dark Knight, so you know this cat can write.  Braga is also well known to genre fans, as a long time veteran of Star Trek and 24.  I'm not familiar with the book this is based on but the pilot script is very well written.  It has an ensemble cast and does a fine job of quickly establishing the characters and making us give a damn about them.  I believe they initially intended to sell this to HBO, so the tone is a bit stronger than ABC will be able to manage, but a minor rewrite should take care of that without much lost.

I hate to tease in this review by not giving much detail, but discovering the details is part of the pleasure of the show.  That's exactly why I think it kind of echoes Lost.  Little bits of information dribble out, encouraging the viewer to try and piece it all together.  Like Lost, this will be something to talk about and debate after every episode.  You know, the mythical water cooler talk that networks crave like models jonesing for the next botox injection.  If this thing isn't a big hit, you can come back here and kick me.  Or something worse, like subjecting me to repeated viewings of Transformers 2 until I beg for mercy.

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