Rating: TV-14
Starring:
Joseph Fiennes as Mark Benford
John Cho as Demetri Noh
Jack Davenport as Lloyd Simcoe
Zachary Knighton as Dr. Bryce Varley
Peyton List as Nicole Kirby
Brian F. O’Byrne as Aaron Stark
Courtney B. Vance as Stanford Wedeck
Sonya Walger as Dr. Olivia Benford
Christine Woods as Janis Hawk
Lee Thompson as Young as Al Gough
Ryan Wynott as Dylan Simcoe
Lennon Wynn as Charlie Benford
Dominic Monaghan as Simon Campos
Genevieve Cortese as Tracy Stark
Barry Shabaka Henley as Agent Vreede
Special Features:
Creating Catastrophe: The Effects of a Global Blackout
FlashForward: A Look Ahead
Other Info:
Widescreen (1.78:1)
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound
French and Spanish Subtitles
Running Time: 430 Minutes
The Details:
“Experience the nonstop action, excitement, and drama of the first ten episodes of the critically-acclaimed ‘FlashForward’ and get set for television’s best new show (Mark A. Perigard, Boston Herald) to grab hold of you from its first explosive moment. Chaos reigns after a mysterious event causes everyone in the world to lose consciousness at exactly the same time. Was it an act of nature or something far more sinister? During the global blackout, every man, woman and child was given a glimpse of his or her life six months in the future. One elite law enforcement team jumps into the investigation, attempting to solve the mystery, as the world’s population wrestles with the choice of whether to embrace the fate they’ve seen or fight to change the future. Relive every brilliant twist of ‘FlashForward’s’ first ten episodes, and prepare yourself for what’s to come in the second half of Season One. Who is D. Gibbons? Who is the shadowy figure unaffected by the blackout? And what’s next for your favorite characters as their day of reckoning approaches? Plus, dig even deeper with never before seen bonus features and an exclusive sneak peek at the next chapter, only available on DVD.”
“FlashForward: Part One, Season One” is rated PG-13 for sequences of intense supernatural violence and action, disturbing images, thematic elements and some language.
Mini-Review:
I watched “FlashForward” on TV when it first aired. I really enjoyed the cast and I thought it was a great premise. The idea of the whole planet blacking out and seeing the future was really intriguing. But as the series progressed, I got more and more annoyed with it to the point that I quit watching. I had several problems with it.
First off, the story didn’t really go anywhere. The first couple of episodes revealed a lot of new twists and turns, but beyond that very little happened. You could skip several episodes and miss almost nothing. My second problem with it was that very few of the glimpses of the future were all that intriguing. Mark and Olivia agonize over the fact that she sees herself in the future with another man. Demetri agonizes over the fact that he believes he’s going to be murdered. These issues weren’t as interesting as the how’s and why’s behind the flashforward itself, but the surface of that mystery was barely scratched. That leads into my third problem with the series – it was incredibly repetitive. Every episode showed Mark upset that he would start drinking again, Olivia protesting that she’d never be unfaithful to Mark, Demetri freaking out that he was going to die, and then some stupid bureaucratic roadblock that hinders Mark from investigating the blackout. That describes most of the first ten episodes included on this DVD.
I’m hoping that the hiatus that the series took gave it a chance to rework its storytelling and get everything back on track. This is a TV series that I want to like. Fans of “Lost”, “Heroes,” and “V” will probably be people most likely to enjoy “FlashForward” and stick around for the mysteries to be revealed… assuming the writing on the show improves.
This DVD only contains the first 10 episodes. You can bet some special edition containing the whole series will come later. In the meantime, there’s only one real bonus feature included in this set. It shows how they did the disaster scene on the bridge in the first episode. (How they shut down a street in Los Angeles is beyond me!) Also included is a preview of the second half of Season One. We see Mark getting chewed out by his boss and Olivia getting closer to ‘the other man.’ Unfortunately, it indicates that we’re getting more of the same for the rest of Season One.
