If you reckon actors don't have office jobs, think again. The set of FlashForward is a vast Dunder Mifflin, all adjoining work pods with nondescript walls. But on one wall of this fake FBI headquarters is a noticeboard covered in miscellaneous items: a photograph of an old man's face, the
words "blue hand" scrawled on a post-it note; a map marked with pins and arrows that make up something called the Mosaic Collective.
Aside from that odd mix of clues and the film equipment surrounding the set, you'd think this was just another corporate workspace. It's actually home to the biggest show of the new season. FlashForward attracted 12.4 million viewers when it debuted in the US in September and has since been sold to 46 countries around the world. Its arrival is perfect timing for TV land - as Lost-ites prepare for the sixth and final season, FlashForward looks set to step into its high-concept boots.
Joining lead actor Joseph Fiennes as FBI Agent Mark Benford, is an impressive ensemble cast that includes Star Trek's John Cho, Law & Order's Courtney Vance and Mad Men's Peyton List.
It also includes two of Lost's former core cast members. Dominic Monaghan (Charlie) enters in episode five as Simon, "one of the smartest physics people in the world". Sonya Walger (Penny) plays Mark's wife Olivia, a surgeon.
The premise is this: the world is going about its business when one day, everyone on the planet blacks out simultaneously for two minutes and 17 seconds. As the world comes to, they're met with absolute carnage - buses and planes don't operate on their own - and the mystery starts to unravel from there.
"Everything has a purpose and a structure and nothing is just plucked from the air," says Fiennes, whose character leads the Mosaic Collective investigation. He soon discovers people didn't just lose consciousness during the blackout - everyone saw their future, on the same date, six months hence.
"April 29 does have a significance. I can't say what it is but the time frame of this is vital and completely mapped out. Over and above the thriller aspect is that enjoyment of seeing everyone's story converge."
As Agent Benford's team attempts to nut out the reasons for the collective blackout, they're confronted with conundrums ripe for TV drama: can you change destiny? What will happen to those who foresaw nothing? Was it a terrorist attack?
Fiennes is confident there's enough of a moral rub to keep people interested, particularly when people attempt to change their foreseen futures.
"That's where the show really becomes quite scary and peculiar and dark and invariably changes people."
FlashForward makes a bold leap into the future but it is very much a show of the times. Executive producers David S Goyer, Brannon Baga, Jessika Borsiczky and Marc Guggenheim first bandied about the idea eight years ago after reading the science fiction novel of the same name by Canadian writer Robert J Sawyer. At first they wondered if it would make a good movie. The colossal success of Lost prompted them to think otherwise.
By then TV networks were hungry for shows of a similar magnitude. Lost hooked viewers with its mind-boggling intrigue, sci-fi mystery and human drama as grand as any usually reserved for the silver screen. Lost not only proved a hit in a market desperate to hang onto its increasingly fragmented audiences, it also proved to TV networks that audiences are smart enough to follow a multitude of storylines, and, if they so desire, to expand their knowledge of the show's mythologies through the website. (FlashForward's producers have done the same, launching JoinTheMosaic.com, an online hub inviting fans to submit their own visions of the future.) Another new phenomenon also common to shows such as Heroes, is the "think big" attitude. CGI has recreated the worlds of Hong Kong, London and Afghanistan, generating interest from global TV markets. The multinational ensemble cast does the same, while taking the pressure off the main few.
"This is a leading man in many respects," says Fiennes of his role as Mark Benford. "But the show is tracking characters over a long period of time. So I feel like everyone is a leading person on this."
The high production values also take advantage of the increasing popularity of big-screen, high-definition TVs. Perhaps that explains why Goyer, a film writer whose CV includes credits for Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and the Blade series, and Fiennes, a thespian and film actor known for his role in Shakespeare in Love, made the move to TV.
Thematically, too, the show is apt. The economic downturn, environmental issues, the war on terror - our biggest challenges affect the whole planet, heightening our sense of global responsibility, just as technology continues to bring us closer.
"I think there's a lot going on right now where people are wondering whether we can change the world we live in," says Borsiczky.
"That really connects to the theme of this show, because even though something very extraordinary happens to these characters, what the show is really about is what people wrestle with in their everyday life, which is, 'Can I change what my future will be? Can I make my life better? Can I make my life what I want it to be?"'
"This is a global story," Guggenheim adds. "There are 6.8 billion characters potentially on our show. It wouldn't be successful in a time when countries were more isolationist and more tunnel-visioned."
Once the blueprint for the series had been worked out, the team sat down and configured its structure. Like Lost's head honchos, they claim to know how it will end. The complex plot means one writer on the staff is employed just to track all the items on Mark's Mosaic noticeboard. There's another massive bulletin board in the writers' room keeping tabs on every character in every episode. And the tight security on set is much like you'd imagine a real FBI HQ.
The initial plan is for five seasons but in the unpredictable world of TV, it's not possible to foresee the future. At which point it's fair enough to ask just how much of a commitment viewers will need to make to the show.
Lost fell prey to the unavoidable problems of a TV hit - the more people liked it, the longer the network wanted to string out its mysteries. Just how long will we need to stick around to get some answers?
"Lost has a really imbedded mythology that you have to subscribe to, and know, and understand," says Walger. "This doesn't have that. There is a big event, and then after that you're dealing with the ripple effect of human beings coming to terms with what they've seen. So there's not white mist, and polar bears, and smoke monsters. Yes, big ensemble cast, big disaster, yes, but the similarities end there."
The FlashForward team insist that by episode seven the comparisons will have fallen by the wayside.
"We share some cast members but the stories are very different," says Borsiczky. "People are starting to see that for themselves."
FlashForward's saving grace is its grounding in the real world rather than an island in the middle of an invisible Pacific Ocean, somewhere in a loop-hole in time. The big event has affected everyone on the planet. While that's a tantalising prospect for the writers who essentially have an entire population of stories to mine, it's fairly overwhelming for viewers, particularly those not keen on sci-fi, time-travel or quantum physics. But the hope is that the show will appeal to base emotions. The creators also hope to attract more females than Lost did.
"There was this big epic seismic event that happens," says Walger, whose character foresees problems in her private life.
"But within that, there are these people dealing with very human, very recognisable emotions. And the grandeur of the scale, and then the intimacy of what's going on between the people, that seemed to me really unusual and interesting."
The main characters are cops and doctors working on the frontline of the devastation. But the story's heart lies in visions.
Will their lives turn out that way? Or do they have the power to change their destiny?
The show should strike a chord with viewers for that existential question alone.
"In one respect it is very commercial, it's a page-turner, it has a 24-junkie vibe to it, you have to know what is happening next," says Fiennes.
"And the other side, it has a real delicate character, a human kind of character-driven piece which is all about the fallibility of the people. The little secrets and lies that people tell that have a domino effect.
"Then there's that wonderful discussion of predestination or self-fulfilling prophecy."
Lowdown
What: New TV series FlashForward
Starring: Joseph Fiennes, and former Lost cast members Dominic Monaghan and Sonya Walger among others
When & where: Starts Wednesday February 3, 8.30pm, TV2
I have seen the future
The core cast of Flashforward. Photo / Supplied
If you reckon actors don't have office jobs, think again. The set of FlashForward is a vast Dunder Mifflin, all adjoining work pods with nondescript walls. But on one wall of this fake FBI headquarters is a noticeboard covered in miscellaneous items: a photograph of an old man's face, the
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.