A Flash in the Pan: FlashForward Review

FlashForward: Complete Series

Released on DVD August 31st, 2010

ABC

  A mysterious event causes nearly everyone on the planet to simultaneously lose consciousness for 137 seconds, during which people see what appear to be visions of their lives approximately six months in the future—a global "flashforward". A team of Los Angeles FBI agents, led by Stanford Wedeck (Courtney B. Vance) and spearheaded by Mark Benford (Joseph Fiennes) and his partner Demetri Noh (John Cho), begin the process of determining what happened, why, and whether it will happen again. Benford contributes a unique perspective on the investigation; in his flashforward, he saw the results of six months of investigation that he had done on the flashforward event, and he and his team use those clues to recreate the investigation.


FlashForward is a show, much like Lost and the upcoming The Event which revolves around a mystery that needed to be solved.  In this case, the mystery was the event that caused the worldwide blackout, and the flashforwards. 

The show was entertaining and engrossing, and the writing was superb.  It was cancelled after it's first season due to plummeting ratings, the same thing that happened to ABC's other freshman show V .  Unfortunately, a number of factors were working against the show.  Its time slot on Thursdays was packed with popular shows, and ABC put the show on a 3 month hiatus mid-season.  The networks do not seem to understand (or care) that these hiatuses severely damage fan interest. 

This is one of those shows that is much easier to watch on DVD because if you miss one episode, you're likely to be completely lost.  The concept was intriguing and original, but due to the nature of show, there were many flashbacks and even more flashforwards, which made the show confusing at times.  If you followed the show from beginning to end, there was a definitive payoff at the end of the season (unlike many abruptly canceled shows).

The show had a fairly large cast with at least 9 main character threads interweaving throughout the season.  They were fairly easy to follow and all the various plot threads connected near the end to reach one cohesive narrative.  The one exception to this was Mark Benford's friend and AA sponsor Aaron Stark (Bryan F. O'Byrne).   His plot thread remained independent of the others and slowed the narrative to a halt.  It didn't connect (tangentially) to the others until the last few episodes, and when it did, it was hardly worth it. Other than that, the writing was superb and intelligent.

The characters were likable and realistic, all with their own faults and weaknesses.  My favorites were Demetri (Cho) and fellow FBI agent Janis Hawke (Christine Woods), and Dr. Bryce Varley (Zachary Knighton). 

It is a pity this show only lasted one season, as the ratings may have gotten better had it been moved to a more favorable timeslot, or not given a 3 month hiatus, or given a second season. I enjoyed the 22 episodes available here, though, and am satisfied by the conclusion they offered.  


3 1/2 stars out of 5

Ugly Better Season 4 Review

Ugly Betty: 4th and Final Season Review

DVD released August 17th, 2010

ABC

The 4th and final Season of Ugly Betty was one filled with many changes. The most obvious change is in her looks.  Betty Suarez' style grew up this season as we see her in much more fashionable attire.  This was far from the only change this season though, as there was a change around every corner, and it seemed like at least one in every eipsode.

As a matter of fact, there were so many changes that is is actually hard to talk about this season without mentioning them.  This season felt like Betty was growing up, and the show was trying to grow up with her, but it wasn't exactly sure where it wanted to go. 

All of the main characters played a large role, although for the second season in a row Daniel Mead, one of my favorite characters, played a smaller role.  Wilhelmina Slater (played wonderfully by Vanessa Williams) had some surprising turns this season, but in the end learned the lesson that all she ever had to do to get what she wanted was to be nice. Justin Suarez finally did something interesting this season, and he learned a lesson or two himself (for the first time in the series, the lesson was not about fashion).  The friendship fostered between him and Mark St. James was entertaining, and led to some very humanizing and sympathetic moments for the often cold and mean Mark.  Amanda tried very hard to grow up this season, even though she didn't really seem to know how. The turning point was when she finally found her father, after two seasons!

We had some returns as Matt Hartley returned as Betty's boss (and boyfriend), as did Gio and Henry, Betty's former boyfriends.  Christina, Betty's former friend and Mods magazine's former seamstress returns for a few episodes as well.  We also see Nico, Wilhelmina's daughter, return for a few episodes.

We also had some guest stars this season as "Third Rock From the Sun" alum Kristen Johnston plays Helen, in a hilarious turn as Amanda's friend and perpetual leech.  RuPaul, and Kathy Najimy, Christie Brinkley guest star as well.  Shkira guest stars as herself, and in one of the funniest turns of all, Chris Williams, Vanessa Williams real life brother, plays WilhelDiva Hater, a drag queen modeled after Vanessa's character. 

Betty goes through some changes as well..but most of those would give away the season. Suffice it to say, where Betty and Daniel end up in the last episode is pretty much where i expected them to from the start of the series, but it's too bad it took so long because it would have been interesting to explore.  I will say this - Betty finally gets rid of her braces!

The series finale was one not filled with endings but with beginnings and it was overwhelmingly positive.  It is among my favorite episodes of the series.  The entire cast, by the end of season four, had grown up.  There were many life changing events this season for every character, and they all ended up in a better place then they were in the beginning of the season, having moved on.  Just as the cast of Ugly Betty had to move on now that the show was cancelled, so did all of Ugly Betty's characters, each of them to a new, more mature place.


3 1/2 Stars out of 5

The Ratings Conundrum

Stop Canceling Good TV Shows!
Ratings only tell part of the story

So i was trying to decide what i should write on my blog - I'm slowly realizing that the time it takes to watch an entire season of ANYTHING with my schedule means that there will be less than 15 blog entries a month, if that's all that i write about.   I have plenty of TV shows that I haven't watched, but it takes me a good week or two to watch an entire season.

I'm currently watching Ugly Betty, Season 4.  This show caught my attention almost by accident.  It's based on a Colombian telenovela,  Yo Soy Betty, La Fea (I am Betty, the Ugly - go HS Spanish!!).  This show was so funny and interesting the first three seasons, but in the third season there was a dramatic drop in viewership.  This led to ABC moving it around to Fridays (which is the one of the WORST days for network television) and after fan backlash, was again moved to Wednesdays at 10 pm.

Now I wasn't watching this show on TV, I had been following it on DVD, but i knew that it had been moved to Wednesdays at 10 pm.  The reason I knew this was that one of my favorite TV shows of last television season, Eastwick, was canceled after just 13 episodes (I think only 12 aired) and Ugly Betty took its time slot.

While i loved Eastwick, and i especially loved the three characters playing Joanna, Kat and Roxanne (Gotta love Rebecca Romijn - I mean she was both married to Uncle Jessie from Full House AND played Mystique in X-men and X2 in practically nothing but blue body paint), I always hated the time slot.  I personally hate watching television at 10 pm on any night of the week.  I have to be up around 7ish in the morning for work, and that means if i fall asleep at 11, that gives me a solid 8 hours of sleep.  More often than not, I would fall asleep watching Eastwick.

I know i wasn't the target audience for this show (it was probably women in their 20-30s) but I enjoyed it.  It was reminiscent of Charmed, and certainly could have gone places if given a fair shot.  Putting any show at 10 pm on a night when people have to work is really asking an awful lot of them.  I know people have DVR and Tivo, but not everyone does, and I think if a show like this was put in an earlier time slot, it would have done much better.

Does anyone think that the networks aren't even giving television shows a chance to find their audience anymore?  It used to be that shows that had potential were shifted around and/or retooled and given another season before the network called it quits, but it seems these days if a show doesn't capture huge ratings to begin with, it is canceled. 

For example, in addition to Eastwick, ABC also canceled FlashForward, another show I liked (a bit convoluted, but far better than V, a much better cast and with similar ratings).   Other great shows that were cancelled due to low ratings were Joss Whedon's Dollhouse (great show) and Heroes (an all time favorite show of mine).

The networks need to find different ways of capturing revenue.  The television landscape is not what it used to be.  It is reported (here, by associated content.com and here by the New York post ) that TV viewership is down.  This makes sense - I watch live television probably once a week, and yet I have between 3-5 shows being recorded on my DVR weekly.  I then fast forward through the commercials.  The one show i watch live, TrueBlood, has had no commercials this season since the first episode.  There's also watching television online, thought both official and unofficial website.  Each network has their own website with streaming television episodes that can be watched anytime.  In addition there are things like Youtube and Hulu.

The largrst drop though, has got to be due to DVD sales.  When television shows were not released on home video format in entire seasons, the shows were watched much more readily.  It was an event, because it was on once and once only (not including repeats and syndication) and then it was on to the next episode.  With DVD and Bluray TV Shows you can watch it all at once, without having to wait until the next episode is on.  I can tell you that i might only watch 3-5 shows a week (mostly to support them, I'd prefer to wait for the DVD) but i watch WAYYY more than that every season on DVD.

The shows I'm currently following on DVD are Chuck, Supernatural, Smallville, Psych, V, Vampire Diaries, Dexter, Fringe, Glee, How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory..The only shows I'm planning on watching live next TV season are new shows No Ordinary Family, The Cape, returning shows Weeds, and possibly Smallville because it's the last season.  I'm not sure about the Event, it seems fairly mysterious, but perhaps too much so.


The point is, I watch way more DVD TV then live TV, and if the networks found a way to make more money off of DVD's, they wouldn't need to make as much off the live shows, the ratings wouldn't be the only factor keeping a show on the air, and good shows wouldn't get canceled so quickly.  Obviously raising the prices of the DVDs isn't the solution, it all comes down to advertising!  The networks need to find better, "new media" methods of advertising such as product placement. 


So that's my rant for the week...STOP CANCELING GOOD TV SHOWS!!


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