FlashForward: Why It Just Wasn't Meant To Be

Last week we saw the conclusions of several incredibly popular shows.  What you probably didn't see was the abrupt conclusion of ABC's FlashForward.  But did this show deserve such a fate?  More after the jump!

If you are one of the 10 people that didn't give up on FlashForward when it first went on the air back in October, you were probably a little sad, much in the same manner that I was, when the news was released that the show was getting cancelled.  Now, if you're part of the rest of the crowd that stopped watching the show when it took its conceit (the whole world blacks out simultaneously, each seeing what will befall them on the same date and time in the future) and ran precisely nowhere with it for WEEKS, that's ok.  It's forgivable.  The continual futzing around and infighting between the characters (who were for the most part, pretty unlikable) just got old after a few episodes.  I almost gave up.  Then the last half of the season happened and I caught a glimpse of something that had real potential to be a sci-fi show to replace Lost that might ACTUALLY answer some of the questions it raised (I'm not still bitter or anything).  Then, like any responsible network would, ABC cancelled the show after the finale was shot and done, assuring us that we would never get a conclusion or any answers, all because the show was a little slow to get moving.

Pictured: Another thing that is slow to get moving.  Would you "cancel"

ITS adorable ass?

However, knowing in advance that the show was going to get cancelled, I went to the trusty Kindle store to acquire a copy of the book on which the series was based (written by Canadian sci-fi author, Robert Sawyer).  After I made it through a few chapters of the book (also titled FlashForward), my indignation at ABC was simultaneously quelled and amplified.  You see, as it turns out, when you are turning a science fiction novel with a definitive beginning and end into a TV series of indeterminate longevity, things have to be changed.  On the one hand, this is not a matter that is entirely ABC's fault: in the novel, rather than humanity seeing a glimpse of a few months into the future, they see 20 years ahead.  The first half of the novel deals with the immediate ramifications that such an event would have, as well as examining time and perception through the lens of several different prominent quantum physics theories (schroedinger's cat probably being the most basic one).  Another important difference: the Flash Forwards, rather than being the work of some insidious shadow organization, are the product of an experiment at the LHC, combined with a neutrino storm that just happened to occur when the former experiment kicked off.  So the overarching conspiracy story followed by Benford (Joseph Fiennes), Dem (Jon Cho) and the rest of the FBI is a product only of the TV writers' imaginations.  You know what else is a figment of the writers' imaginations? Benford, Dem, and anyone involved in the FBI story.  As a matter of fact, the only character to appear in both the book and the show is Lloyd Simcoe (played by Jack Davenport).

Jack Davenport, seen here showing his one

facial expression on the entire program:

grave, British seriousness.

I could go on and on about differences between the book and the show, but I think you're probably starting to get the idea.  So here is my whole issue with the show: it should never have been a show in the capacity in which it was done.  By which I mean, had it been a planned mini-series with a definitive end point and an absolute length, it could have rocked balls.  Did you know that the show was originally pitched to HBO?  Can you imagine if they had the time and budget provided to those shows to actually tell the story in the 20 year span it was meant, rather than having to concoct a conspiracy that reeked so desperately of "we want you to keep watching us after Lost ends", as well as taking the handful of well rounded Sawyer characters and chopping them up into little bits and pieces in order to have a larger cast?  Benford is kind of like a duplicate for Simcoe, existing only to add unnecessary and awkward romantic tension, Dem and Simon were both cut from the same character, meaning that they basically only had one role to fill before they were ostensibly finished in their character growth, and all of the jackasses no one cared about (Benford's sponsor, his bitch wife, really anyone from America) had no analogues in the book.  But if the show had been given shorter seasons, and it probably would only have needed two, MAYBE three, there would have been A) less time spent dicking around without taking the concept anywhere, B) time to flesh out the characters in such a way that I actually cared about a single one other than Dominic Monaghan, and C) no need to have a ludicrous generic-shadow-organization plotline in order to add explosions when they felt our attention waning.

I could go on and give you my ideal breakdown of how the book could remain relatively unchanged and make for a kickass mini-series, but that would ruin a lot of the book.  Plus, I'm going to guess a lot of you haven't read it (hell, I wouldn't have heard of it if I didn't see the show first).  The bottom line is that this show was doomed to failure from the start.  They sacrificed too many core concepts (any quantum physics is simply removed, not even dumbed down) and tried to compress what was meant to be a drama over decades into several month long jumps.  The focus on the immediate future, rather than where we could be 20 years from now, is simply a less interesting idea, and ABC unfortunately caught on to this fact too late, relegating another show to the wastelands of "what could have been".

YOU BLEW IT UP! YOU MANIACS! DAMN YOU TO...

Ok, I'm over it.