Here's where the pilot starts getting post-apocalyptic spooky. After the blackout, Charlie announces to her baby sitter, "I dreamt there are no more good days."
Ah, the child with the dark vision - I think there were only three or four of them in the fall of 2006.
Both Dr. and Agent Benford have equally troubling visions. As for Agent Noh, he has none and wonders if it means he will be dead in six months. This is a not a happy show.
Still, for all the similarities to the serialized dramas from 2006, there is one wild-card factor that might make help this series avoid their failure: the huge change in America in the last three years. Social reality today is much darker and far more uncertain than it was three years ago.
I think the fear of losing jobs, homes and any sense of optimism about the future has more Americans lying awake at night in 2009 than the fear of another terrorist attack did in 2006.
What I'm saying is that maybe those expensive, finely crafted serialized dramas were a bit ahead of the culture in 2006. And now, maybe we're ready to embrace the angst and darkness seeping through this American life. "FlashForward" is certainly steeped in both.
On TV
"FlashForward" airs at 8 tonight on WMAR, Channel 2.
