I admit to not being terribly with it. I never heard the song (“Bad Day”) that’s being touted as the decade’s top one-hit wonder. I learned only about a month ago that there exists a performer named Lady Gaga. I don’t usually watch TV so didn’t follow Lost and have never seen American Idol. But I’ve gotten hooked on FlashForward.
In a nutshell: everybody passes out for 2 minutes & 17 seconds and sees six months into their future. The questions are: (1) whodunit (and why and how) and (2) do the visions show futures that must necessarily come to pass. It’s free will vs determinism for the boob tube. You got your global conspiracies, your quantum mechanics, and of course your human interest. By now you also got your web sites and forums. And after 10 episodes, you got total confusion that won’t be relieved until March, because the show’s just gone on hiatus (but now available in reruns (or online) for anyone who missed it). So no furtherance of confusion tonight.
The whole notion of seeing into the future is irresistible. Is it because we want to take measures against misfortune? Or comfort in the belief that, no matter how crummy things are now, they’re going to get better? On a deeper level, is it because we each have a self that seeks assurance of its own continuity? Or simply because we’re the one animal that knows it’s going to die – and are desperately afraid? (Does death even exist?) That, after all, is the basis of religion – and it’s curious that, thus far, FlashForward hasn’t had much to say about that.
Most precognition seems to come in the form of dreams, so it’s not inappropriate that this show focuses on dream-like experiences. Maybe while dreaming we tap into some non-linear comprehension of existence in which the future has already occurred. If so, does that send free will out the window? Or does it only seem that way because we’re trapped in our own linearity? Just because we haven’t experienced something yet in our current timeline doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened – or that we didn’t bring it about of our own free will.
Fittingly – or should I say teasingly – the last episode lived up to its real-time premise by providing nods to Dickens’ Christmas Carol, with Scrooge’s fear that the visions presented by the Ghost of Christmas Future must come to pass. Tiny Tim won’t necessarily die, and neither, perhaps, will Agent Noh. But only perhaps – we won’t know until March.
The whole notion of seeing into the future is irresistible. Is it because we want to take measures against misfortune? Or comfort in the belief that, no matter how crummy things are now, they’re going to get better? On a deeper level, is it because we each have a self that seeks assurance of its own continuity? Or simply because we’re the one animal that knows it’s going to die – and are desperately afraid? (Does death even exist?) That, after all, is the basis of religion – and it’s curious that, thus far, FlashForward hasn’t had much to say about that.
Most precognition seems to come in the form of dreams, so it’s not inappropriate that this show focuses on dream-like experiences. Maybe while dreaming we tap into some non-linear comprehension of existence in which the future has already occurred. If so, does that send free will out the window? Or does it only seem that way because we’re trapped in our own linearity? Just because we haven’t experienced something yet in our current timeline doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened – or that we didn’t bring it about of our own free will.
Fittingly – or should I say teasingly – the last episode lived up to its real-time premise by providing nods to Dickens’ Christmas Carol, with Scrooge’s fear that the visions presented by the Ghost of Christmas Future must come to pass. Tiny Tim won’t necessarily die, and neither, perhaps, will Agent Noh. But only perhaps – we won’t know until March.
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