"FlashForward" The Gift (2009)

Director:

Nick Gomez

Writers:

David S. Goyer (creator) &
Brannon Braga (creator) ...

TV Series:

"FlashForward" (2009)

Original Air Date:

5 November 2009 (Season 1, Episode 7)

Genre:

Drama | Mystery | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Plot:

Mark, Demetri, Gough and MI6 agent Fiona Banks investigate a Blue Hand club and its possible connection to some recent suicides...

Plot Keywords:

Hand | Suicide | Hospital | Nihilism | Father Daughter Relationship

Cast

Joseph Fiennes	...	Mark Benford
John Cho	...	Demetri Noh
Jack Davenport	...	Lloyd Simcoe
Zachary Knighton	...	Dr. Bryce Varley
Peyton List	...	Nicole Kirby
Dominic Monaghan	...	Simon Campos
Brian F. O'Byrne	...	Aaron Stark (as Brían F. O'Byrne)
Courtney B. Vance	...	Stanford Wedeck
Sonya Walger	...	Dr. Olivia Benford
Christine Woods	...	Janis Hawk (credit only)
Lee Thompson Young	...	Al Gough
Genevieve Cortese	...	Tracy Stark
Mark Famiglietti	...	Mike Willingham
Callum Keith Rennie	...	Jeff Slingerland - Dr. Maurice Raynaud
Alex Kingston	...	Fiona Banks

Runtime:

60 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Japanese

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

Australia:M

Filming Locations:

Downtown, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

ABC Studios

Trivia:

When you enter "alreadyghosts.com" into your Internet browser, you will be redirected tho the official ABC "FlashForward" (2009) page.

Goofs:

Errors in geography: During their shared flash forward, Gough and Agent Banks are shown in the MI6 offices, sitting in front of a window out of which the London Eye and the Houses of Parliament can clearly be seen. These constructions, however, are both almost two miles downriver from the MI6 building.

Movie Connections:

References Madden NFL 94 (1993) (VG)

What your destiny is going to look like?

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Is your future written in stone?

I think this episode, out of the seven that were already aired, is the one that provides the most in enrichment of the plot.

Like I expressed in my review on the main page of FlashForward, the chances for this show to not disappoint the audience was to continually keep feeding the audience with an intelligent script. And the primary question that had to be answered was the one above: Is the future indelible? Are we able to change it?

If the answer would be no, the plot would be turning predictable and, with time, boring. The first episodes, and even this one in some part, were leading in that direction. Although Mark got rid of the friendship bracelet that his daughter gave him to try to stop his future, all the new leads of his "flash forward" future kept showing up and his board was filling up little by little in the same way he saw it. Demetri was so certain of his upcoming death that didn't even want to try fighting his destiny. Even Al in this episode took the gun and shot himself because six month from now he knew he was going to be alive.

The turning, and key, point was Al jumping from the roof in a desperate attempt to change his future. The result? It didn't only changed his, Celia's and her kid's, those last 7 minutes of episode 7 were really "The Gift" (title of the episode) all the audience needed.

The future can be changed. Demetri and Mark felt that relief. We all did.

Now new questions have arisen: How to stop the train of the future from coming if you didn't have the chance of knowing who were you going to affect like Al did? Or even if you didn't have a flash forward? How do you know that something you are doing to prevent the future from happening is not really causing it? Can it just be stopped by drastic measures like Al's?

Really good questions that got me hooked up with just to the idea of a possible new dawn.