FlashForward - Believe

Please be aware this review contains spoilers….Woohhh scary!!

So this was supposed to be the week. Finally after two months of perseverance and plummeting expectations, we were supposed to be treated to some major developments that would make it all worthwhile. Instead, and you knew their would be a ‘but’ coming and ‘instead’ is just a fancy ‘but’, instead what we have is the hospital and law enforcement from The Simpsons and show drowning in it’s own homemade pool of disappointment. I feel obliged to keep watching as I did decide to write this weekly column but those who are doing so of their own feel will should be commended, gold stars and medals all round people.

This week we follow the story of Bryce and his repressed Japanese soul mate from his flash forward epiphany. Not why 20 million people are dead but Bryce and his repressed Japanese soul mate. Insert “yawn” here. The reason why he tried to kill himself in the moments leading up to the black out was because he had been living with terminal cancer. It would have been another outrageously public suicide, with Bryce blowing his brains out onto the promenade decking right in front of families on their weekly casual stroll along the pier. Surprisingly for a man working in a hospital alongside geniuses such as Olivia Benford, nobody noticed. None of these doctors noticed the regular days off from work after painful, life altering chemotherapy sessions that had been going on for a year.

An impatient Bryce ignores the offer of experimental treatment to fly to Tokyo and search for the woman he saw in his flash forward, without much luck. Keiko, who is a bit of a free spirit, escapes her conservative mother and sexist work place, coincidently on the same plane as Bryce’s return flight. They haven’t met yet but they soon will. How exiting.

Back to the comically organised FBI and their investigation. Nothing to see here. No progress on enhancing the photo pulled from the baseball ground, no progress on D Gibbons and no progress on anything else at all really.

The NSA have been tapping Demetri’s phone and intercepted the ‘death’ call he received a few weeks ago, which can be traced to China. The same China that were accused of causing the black outs by the C.I.A. Despite Wedeck’s protestations, Benford and Demetri decide to go to Hong Kong anyway.

You might have noticed their hasn’t been much of a mention of Benford so far and this is partly because he didn’t have much screen time. However, he featured just long enough to force his name into the hat for, Most Confusingly Smug Man Of The Year 2009. Irked after stumbling on Olivia’s motivational “Mark was drinking in his flash forward” phone screensaver, he goes on to accuse the only two people he told about it.

The first round of accusations didn’t go too well, his AA sponsor Aaron was so offended he started throwing chairs about. Okay that was a set back, change of tact Benford next time. You’re an FBI agent, maybe try a different approach when you confront Wedeck, you must have learnt all sorts of subtle ways to get information out of people in the academy? Or just say this: “Did you send my wife a text telling her I was drinking in my flash forward?” This gets him kicked out of another room and fractures yet another relationship. His response is to smile as if this was all part of his plan to let off a silent fart without getting caught.

By my count there have been a total of five people working on the black out case. Benford and Demetri who are about to leave for China, Janis who was shot and out of action for a few weeks, Wedeck who doesn’t do anything and Gough who didn’t want to do anything so badly, he killed himself. No wonder things are moving so slowly.

FlashForward - Playing Cards With Coyote

Please be aware that this review includes spoilers…

Unfortunately it seems as though we’re in for a, one week on one week off, scenario where for every decent episode, we have to sit back and wade through a poor one. Their are times during the inconsequential jabbering, when I forget that everyone in this programme is mind numbingly stupid. Going back to Gough, the agent who sacrificed himself last week in order to save a woman he may have been destined to kill. A week later she is found and left burdened by a suicide note written by a complete stranger who has left his friends and family in mourning. Stupid.

This sacrifice was also meant to “change the game” giving those who did not like what they saw in their flash forward, hope to change the future. Benford takes this advice and grabs the future with both hands and an itchy trigger finger.

The latest image from the magic board of clues comes from an eye witness to a murder. Hiding behind a car as a man is shot and his case stolen, a woman manages to film the event on her Blackberry and sends the video to the FBI. Still shots pulled from the video reveal a man with three stars tattooed on his arm, the same tattoo Benford sees when he has guns pointed at him in is flash forward. Suspecting a mole in the FBI, Benford uses the witness as bait in an attempt to ensnare the criminal and pre-empt his future attack. Classic, Bauer!

The plan comes together perfectly until, when coming face to face with Mr Tattoo man, Benford reacts by shooting him dead, in fear for his own safety. Or at least that’s how it will sound on the internal report.

So we’re done, the future is saved! Well done Agent Gough, well done Agent Benford. Except for a glaring oversight that Bauer would laugh at and shoot in the leg and one which will make everyone look a bit stupid in a few months time. Shockingly the man is not the only one in his militia with a tattoo of three stars on his arm, in fact everyone has one, kind of like an ipod but it only comes in one colour. This is also forgetting for a moment that Benford was being hounded by several gunmen in his flash forward and by killing one of them he has only killed, ONE of them. Any moderately serious organisation, the kind that tries to kill witnesses and has something to do with the largest global catastrophe since ‘Jedward’ became a word, will probably be able to get a replacement, so interrogation might have been the better option.

Lloyd feels guilty about being responsible for the flash forwards and urges Simon to go public and tell the world. The decision is settled by a game of poker about half as tense as watching a slug fight a snail. It is mostly ruined by the ‘science banter’ spewing out of Simon’s mouth. Their is no such thing as ‘science banter,’ that’s why nobody uses it anywhere, let alone while playing poker. Poker conversations are supposed to be about cool things like killing and world domination and unless it involves blowing something up or pet dinosaurs, science is not cool.

Beardface, AKA Aaron, is stunned to find his daughter alive and well, minus a leg, and is desperate to know what happened to her. Tracy believes the attack was an attempt to silence her after she saw members of a private security firm hired by the US army, slaughtering women and children in an Afghan village.

If only more time was spent on this sub-plot and less on whether or not two people who hardly ever talk to each other might or might not break up. It’s simple, Olivia, if you’re ever in a situation where you might have sex with Lloyd, don’t. Actually I don’t care but someone can’t just jump off a roof every week to remind you, stupid. With the flash forward conspirators set to tell all, next week should provide some major developments but then again we have been disappointed before.

FlashForward - The Gift

After the mundane drivel that was week six, episode 7 sees a “change in the game,” as FBI Agent Gough takes destiny into his own hands in an overdue attempt to cast doubt on the certainty of the flash forward theories. Light entertainment is provided by the Blue Hand Club from Benford’s magic board of clues, not to be confused with the Blue Man Group who incidentally are a lot scarier but not quite as stupid.

Those who were unfortunate enough not to have a flash forward and thus believe they are destined to die have formed secret death club, with Russian roulette as the entry policy and, We Might Die Soon So We Might As Well Try and Kill Ourselves, as the Monday night fancy dress theme. “Like a book club but with bullets,” says Benford with all the humour and comic timing of rich tea biscuit. With undercover experience, Gough joins Demetri and Benford to investigate and finds willing torture victims who would rather experience unbelievable pain rather than spend time with their loved ones? Odd, but maybe that’s just me.

In the middle of the night, instead of a foam or balloon party, one reveller is chosen to die. To be honest I don’t blame them, foam parties are rubbish and balloon parties are pointless. Tonight however Benford, who is faster than a speeding bullet, stops the vulgar act just as the latest ‘victim’ is about to pull the trigger.

A rant about not being able to escape the inevitable encourages Gough to confront his own demons as we find out he causes the accidental death of mother named Celia in his flash forward. Unwilling to accept this fate, Gough offers the ultimate challenge to his unwanted future, with an excessively spectacular suicide from the top of the FBI roof. I suppose this is TV Drama after all. I was half hoping/expecting him to land on poor Celia right in front of her precious twins, killing her but escaping largely unharmed, left wondering what might have been had he chosen a more community friendly way to die.

His death does however change everything previously accepted by the flash forwards. It is hard to believe that he’s the only person out 7 billion people to try and change their future but nevertheless, things have just got a lot more interesting.

So, the Benfords don’t have to split up, Demetri doesn’t have to die and most poignantly of all, Wedeck doesn’t have to be on the toilet!

The sub plot involving Benford’s sponsor and his alleged dead daughter also gains some legs, no pun intended. You see, her ex army buddy arrives in town letting Aaron know that she can’t be alive because he saw her die in an explosion. He didn’t, he saw her leg blown off and she was unconscious because apparently things like that hurt a bit. Episode cliff-hanger sees daughter, Tracy, sitting at the dinning room table. Dream? Look-alike? Wedeck in a Mission Impossible mask? I’m not sure.

The series has a clunky script, characters I don’t really care about and moments of truly bad acting, Fiennes’ attempt at looking sad or stupid or whatever in this episode was one of the funniest moments ever filmed. He looked like he just heard his book club ‘joke’ while biting into a lemon and thought, “oh that was just awful.” Yet I’m still watching it, waiting for episodes such as this one. Next week it will be interesting to see who will be the next to kill themselves and how? I’d go for Aaron, drowning in his own beard.

Arctic Monkeys Cornerstore Video: Genius or Laziness?

Now we all know that Beyoncé had one of the greatest videos of all time, of all time! The one where she and two other girls dance in front of the camera for a bit, Single Ladies was it? No, no it was Sweet Dreams of course, or was it Ego? I don’t know, if we’re honest they‘re all exactly the same.

The video for Arctic Monkeys’ new single Cornerstore reaches new levels of minimalism, featuring Alex Turner, on his own in front of a white background, singing into a tape recorder.

The band have a history of unconventional videos. Think back to the likes of, Fluorescent Adolescent or A View From the Afternoon, but never has opinion been so divided than as it is on their latest effort. Turner is either a lazy idiot or a genius. One thing is for sure, the band are certainly brave for trying the concept.

Turner’s unique brand of story telling depicts a man, maybe him, going to pubs each night pining for an old flame. Courting girls he thinks look similar, he asks if he can call them by his lost love’s name. Perhaps nine out of ten directors and bands would have gone with a very literal video showing a man, maybe Turner, going to pubs each night pining for an old flame, courting girls he thinks look similar asking if he can call them by his lost love’s name. This however is very different, but what does the video mean?

My interpretation is that tape deck Turner is singing into is meant for this ex lover, while standing on his own in front of a plain white background looking slightly effeminate is way of bearing his insecurities now he is unable to have another relationship.

That could however be absolute nonsense. The guy may have just lost a bet and his forfeit was to sing in front of the camera looking a bit like a girl. That would also explain why he still hasn’t cut his hair…

FlashForward

Last week, with people getting shot at and cars exploding, it seemed like FlashForward was building, unfortunately it appears to have been a bluff, with episode 6 a virtual non event. The series is moving slowly which is fine, and we now know around 3% more about the flash forwards than in episode 1 but instead of being intrigued, I’m left clinging on the to hope that soon and hopefully very soon, someone catches that damn kangaroo!

The nail biting filler here is the Janis’ will she, wont , no because you’ve already shown us she wont, death bed scene. It feels like a bit of a waste of time given that there hasn’t been so much as a suggestion that the FlashForwards, including her future sonogram, might not be true. DR Olivia is of course on hand to perform some medical something or other and save Janis but the location of the bullet has made it “virtually” impossible to have kids. Outside of virtual land 6months from now, she’ll be throwing up and taking pregnancy tests. Demetri, who I am betting is the father, is chasing more clues from Benford’s vision, following blue hands around town.

The Benford household is an even frostier place than usual with Lloyd inevitably coming face to face with Agent Serious, causing a few lasting ripples between Mark and Olivia. To remind her of her husband’s alcohol addiction, Olivia has the anonymous text “Mark was drinking in his flash forward” as her phone screensaver. With his drinking now in the open the Benford marriage is now officially, rather than hypothetically on the rocks.

It is revealed that the flash forwards which started the Benford’s downward spiral oh and resulted in the deaths of over 20million people, was caused by a science experiment Lloyd remember is part of the flash forward conspiracy and we get a closer look his accomplice Simon (Dominic Monaghan) the person who phoned him at the hospital. Look up the phrase “quantum physicist genius” you’ll find him apparently. Look up the phrase “slimy hobbit like murderer” and you’ll probably find him to. In his dark and violent flash forward Simon is strangling someone twice his size and no he’s not a hobbit in this. The full extent of their involvement remains to be seen.

About that kangaroo, I’m hoping it is more relevant to the plot than meets the eye and like the crows, other animals are affected by the black outs. If not, then I want to see it in a race with Benford and his Terminator run. I’d put money on Benford, he doesn’t look very fast but the lack of a facial expression might just unnerve the kangaroo.