Flash Forward, anyone?

[question everything]

I still like it, still keeps my attention.

Did "Zoe" really see Dimitri on the beach in Miami when she was running wearing a wedding dress?

Did the DNA that Aaron got from the army is really from his daughter? Should he have compared it to his own, and his ex-wife?

Interesting story line about the crows.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. My dear question everything!

I am totally riveted!

I don't know the answers to any of your questions, which are all excellent...

I am most intrigued about the crows. I suspect we shall be hearing more about them...

It's very well done!

And I care about all the characters...

Well, except maybe the Nazi.

:hi:

[wickerwoman]

2. All the continuity errors in the last ten minutes were lame.

I was kind of following the show up until that point but the thing about the crow population really pissed me off.

1.) we don't actually count all the crows all the time; you can't google "crow population" and get a chart

2.) if you could get a chart, it wouldn't show the next three months in the future. Aren't we still in the week or two after the blackout? If it's October, how could you pull up a crow population chart that shows all the way until next January?

3.) there was no DHS in 1991. A really bonehead continuity error.

[crispini]

3. they're not continuity errors, they're just errors --

continuity errors refer to a show's internal consistency, like a character is wearing a tie and 2 seconds later in the same scene he's not (and we don't see him take it off). You're just talking about plain old script errors. :) /pedant

I thought the crow thing was kind of stupid too, but there's always some suspension of disbelief in these things, although I know what you mean, I won't watch any of the CSI shows because their level of technology is just like a fairy tale. :)

[wickerwoman]

4. Yeah, I understand the suspension of disbelief thing

but I think what sustains my interest in a show like Lost is that I still trust that the writers know where they're going with it and the payoff will be worth it. Three episodes into Flash Forward and the writing is already so lazy the hero can google anything he wants and they don't know when the DHS was formed? Doesn't bode well for the future.

I'm still feeling burned about the 4400 ending in such a totally crap way. Not quite ready to commit fully to another show.

Plus every Brannon Braga show ever is basically the same. I have a bet with my family about how many episodes go by before someone says the line: "The war is coming. Which side will you choose?"

Also: the establishing shots of Seattle and LA show planes still smoldering on the runway and buildings still smoking from impacts during the blackout, but it should be several weeks later and then the chart suggests it would have to be at least four months after the event. So why haven't they cleared the planes or put out the fires in the buildings?

[crispini]

5. Yeah, I agree, I find it hard to think four months have gone by.

I thnk that chart was a mistake. It seems like we're maybe two to three weeks after the blackout. Just based on everything else in the show.

The crow thing was cheesy, but I'm willing to give it a while because I'm a sucker for a neat premise. :D

[question everything]

11. The former WTC is still a hole in the ground

and it was smoldering for a long time. Jet Fuel can burn at a very high temp. This probably was still within a week or so, after the event, as soon as the FAA cleared flights, just as it was after 9/11. As a matter of fact, I took a flight less than two weeks after 9/11, and that empty plane reminded me of the flights that I took. Was really eerie, in the terminal - where I purchased a sandwich just to give them the business - and on the planes.

We really don't know when the funeral took place. How long it took them to recover the bodies and to identify. After all, by the time they came back from Germany, Tracy's remains were exhumed and DNA analysis was done. These things take time.

[wickerwoman]

14. Yes, but if a plane had crashed into a runway on 9/11,

clearing away the actual plane wreckage would probably have been a priority in the weeks after.

The establishing shot shows a labyrinth of smoking plane bodies still on the runway. You would think the airport would want to clear them away instead of having new flights taxiing around them. They won't even show movies with plane wrecks in them, nobody thought "hey, it might be a little upsetting to have planes taking off from a runway littered with crashed planes"?

[question everything]

17. There were, what, more than 800 planes that crashed?

And they need to remove the passengers and crew, and try to identify them, perhaps even recover personal effect. Not an easy task.

[targetpractice]

30. I also wonder why no buildings collapsed, just smoldering crash holes...

Then I remembered the bit about controlled demolition of the WTC on 9/11.

Seriously, it's odd that the post-blackout disaster special effects are so unrealistic... especially, since recent history provides a good reference for special effect artists about what those effects should look like.

[question everything]

6. I don't think that they googled it

I think that the book gave a site of an organization that follows crows population, just like you have groups that follow whales, or hummingbirds, etc.

Wasn't the chart for 1991, in Somalia?

I missed the reference for 1991. This is why I watch the program again on Friday, to catch what I've missed.

Also the 137 and Kabbalah connection: all it told us was that the Hebrew letters of Kabbalah end up as 137. It did not tell us anything else... unless they are trying to say that the answers can be found in the Kabbalah?

[hedgehog]

7. I think that the entire plot line with the Nazi and 137 seconds is going to come

back around to the question of how many things they investigate because they were on the board in the flash forward, but then how many things are on the board in the flash forward because they decided to investigate them because they were on the board in the flash forward.

Although he did tell them about the crows.....

[wickerwoman]

9. Regardless of where the chart comes from,

it takes time to collect and organize that kind of data. Somehow I doubt counting crows would a high priority in the weeks after a global blackout. Especially with all those smoking buildings and crashed planes still on the runways weeks after the event.

And even if it was a big priority, wouldn't 80% of the world's crow population dropping dead at the same time be kind of noticeable? There's fifteen crows sitting on the telephone wire outside my window as I type this. Why would the only person to notice it be a Nazi in prison in Munich?

The chart was for 2009 showing a sharp drop the day of the blackout (and a gradual recovery in population for the next four months, never mind that they haven't happened yet). Then they pull up another almost identical chart showing that the same thing happened in Somalia in 1991.

It just feels like this show is being written by a nineteen year old with a dubious grasp on technology. I love how in the pilot the FBI proposes "creating some kind of 'website' where people can 'post' stories about what happened" as if internet technology is cutting edge and nobody had ever considered creating a BBS before.

[Dr. Strange]

21. Oh my God!

Somehow I doubt counting crows would a high priority in the weeks after a global blackout.

That's it! Adam Duritz is the guy in the stadium who didn't black out! That's where this is going!

[targetpractice]

31. Dubious grasp of biology, too...

That graph is wrong in so many ways, but crows take up to two weeks to build a nest, a week to lay eggs, 18 days to incubate said eggs, up to 45 days to leave the nest, another 2 months for juvenile crows to be independent of their parents, and usually crows don't breed until they are 3 years old. Yet that graph shows the population recovering nicely in the winter months following the die-off.

[question everything]

10. DHS - Dept. of Health and Human Services

was very much around in 1991 and this would be the one from which the CDC would request a grant to investigate the event in Somalia.

[wickerwoman]

13. DHS = Department of Homeland Security

HHS = Health and Human Services

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Health_and_Human_Services

Also, assuming the "Save the Crows" organization was actually monitoring the population in the days after the event, wouldn't an 80% drop in population be the kind of thing they reported to say, the FBI office responsible for investigating the event? Or at least to someone else who would have made the connection?

Why does the Nazi prisoner notice all the dead crows, but the poor luckless schlub who cleaned them all up didn't say "Wait a second, this is a shitload of crows all dropping dead at the same time and all facing the same direction with one wing slightly raised?"

And why is the FBI investigating this global event? It's way beyond their mandate. At the very least the CIA or actual DHS would have taken them over before now.

[question everything]

18. I am sure that the poor luckless schlub cleaning them

just want to get it over with. He really does not want to think about it. And, one may conclude that while humans were awakened after the blackout, birds and animals may have not.

I think that that Mosaic is global. I think that the woman calling Dimitri was not calling from the U.S. This is how it started, they got info from all over the world, including London where another FBI agent was meeting with his counterpart.

[alsame]

29. About DHS - I found this on another site:

According to Wikipedia: "The MEASURE DHS (Demographic and Health Surveys) Project has earned a worldwide reputation for collecting and disseminating accurate, nationally representative data on health and population in developing countries. The project is implemented by Macro International, Inc. and is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) with contributions from other donors such as UNICEF, UNFPA, WHO, UNAIDS."

This makes the most sense to me...the DHS reference was bothering me too until I read this and checked Wiki.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_and_Health_Surveys

[bbernardini]

8. I haven't finished watching the first episode yet. Is Seth Macfarlane a regular character? nt

[question everything]

12. I don't remember him, so probably not

at least, not in the first three.

[Duer 157099]

22. I thought I recognized him!

But then never saw him again so figured it wasn't really him.

[nuxvomica]

25. It was McFarlane

But I only saw him in the first episode. Maybe he'll return when the kangaroo does.

[azmouse]

15. If Dimitri dies in March why would his financee see herself getting married in April?

That's why I think he doesn't die.

Maybe something special happens to those people who didn't have a vision about the future?

[question everything]

16. I wonder whether she actually saw him in her vision

We saw some of it, she was running, barefoot on the beach, wearing a wedding dress. She many have assumed that, of course, Dimitri was there but was he? We did not see him.

As opposed to other flashes, like the Nazi and the Custom agent, or the other FBI agent and his counterpart in London where both saw each other.

On the other hand, the boy's father - don't remember his name - apparently did not see Olivia in his dream. Though I suspect that his son did, this is how he recognized her.

[azmouse]

19. See that's just it... wouldn't she know if he had died a month before?

Why would she have planned a wedding on the beach and why would everyone be there if the groom was dead?

It's an interesting show. Can't wait to see where they go with it.

[Duer 157099]

24. My first thought was that he was sleeping

Because what would a sleeping person "see" during the flashback? If they were in a non-REM period, they'd see nothing, that's what.

Or maybe he's in a coma.

The lady who phoned him is just being nutty, or misread the report or misinterpreted it.

[azmouse]

26. Sounds like you like a good mystery too!

I'm wondering what is motivating the woman who called Dimitri. What reason would she have to lie to him? Or for that matter tell him the truth about what happens to him?

[onlyadream]

27. She could have been dreaming.

It was 10:00 at night and she was on a beach during the day (did they say where the beach was? The month is April, I think...and it gets dark around 6:00ish at that time). Or, she was at the place of their wedding without Dimetri (sp?). They didn't show him in her vision, so maybe she was mourning him by just going there.

[GCP]

20. It's rapidly losing me

I think they start writing these series, like LOST, and throw a load of stuff at you in the first few shows, then they have to start explaining some of it, and they lose track of where they are going. And they probably never had the ending worked out anyway, because there's always such an air of improvisation about these story-lines.

[Duer 157099]

23. I started watching it because of a post here in the Lounge

I don't typically watch network shows like this, but once I saw that a Fiennes brother was in it, that was enough to keep me interested, at least for now.

I think this is going to turn out to be HAARP related.

My biggest moment of suspension-of-belief was when they claimed that after putting the website up, it received (forgot the actual number) some millions of hits the next day.

Yeah, right.

Also, it appears to me as though only a few days have passed, maybe a week or so.

The beach scene has me wondering also, I haven't come up with a plausible explanation for that one yet.

[onlyadream]

28. Did anyone notice a spacship shaped cloud in the sky

at the end of esp. 3?

[CaliforniaPeggy]

32. I did notice that!

And I am very intrigued about it.

I'm really enjoying the show!

:hi:

[targetpractice]

33. The clouds were expanding away from the device on the tower...

It reminded me how the clouds clear away from an atom bomb blast due to the shock wave.

Did I miss a spaceship?

[Blue_In_AK]

34. Very interesting story line

and I'm enjoying it a lot.

[ecstatic]

35. I hope the show is not canceled. I'm getting into it but I wonder

how long they can keep the mystery going without jumping the shark.

[Yavin4]

36. Self Delete

--delete--