FlashForward



"He who foresees calamity is doomed to suffer it twice over."

Two FBI agents, Mark Benford and Demetri Noh, are investigating a terrorist cell when an event called "the Blackout" occurs. Everyone on Earth blacks out for two minutes and 17 seconds. Twenty million people die. And more than that: during the two minutes and 17 seconds, the people didn't just black out, they had visions of what they were doing six months in the future.

Janis Hawk, their co-worker at the FBI, has a vision of herself pregnant. Olivia, Mark's wife, sees herself with another man. Demetri doesn't have a vision at all, leading him to believe that he will be dead in six months. Mark himself has a vision of his own Room Full of Crazy with clues about what caused the Blackout (as well as him falling off the wagon). And Mark's daughter Charlie says there will be "no more good days."

The series built a nice Myth Arc with a great HSQ. Based on the 1999 sci-fi novel by Canadian author Robert J. Sawyer (who gets a blink-and-you-miss-it Creator Cameo in the pilot), though it shared little with the book other than the flashforward concept and a character name or two. This show is not to be confused with Flash Forward, which is totally (and tonally) different.

Character sheet can be seen here.

If you're just getting started on watching this show, know the Wild Mass Guessing page for this show has been divided into folders letting you read theories as you go without being spoiled.

Despite having a strong start, ratings progressively dwindled throughout its run until it ended up with about a third of its original viewers, and it never made it to a second season, leaving fans pondering the season-ending Cliff Hanger. Zap2It declared FlashForward the most missed show after a poll determined that 46.3% of voters would miss it the most (by comparison, the runner-up, Ghost Whisperer, had 17.1% of the vote), and there were rumours that Starz might pick the show up for a second season, but it appears this has come to naught.

This show contains the following tropes:
"???: What did you see, Vogel?
 * Action Girl: Janis Hawk, who knows tae kwando and manages to in "Gimme Some Truth."
 * Actor Allusion: In episode four, Olivia calls Mark "The Shakespeare of children's stories," which is probably a reference to Joseph Fiennes's role in Shakespeare in Love.
 * In the previous episode, Demetri accidentally knocks over a bong at a suspect's house, and says, "It's OK, I know what a bong is", in reference to Harold and Kumar.
 * Anyone Can Die: Double subverted. At first, the fact that most characters have visions of themselves in the future seems to show that none of those characters are going to die before April 29. But after the.
 * Arc Words: Mark's whole Room Full of Crazy.
 * Arc Number: 12/12/2016.
 * And 6th October 2009 - the date of the flashforward).
 * And 29th April 2010 - not just the date that people experienced in their flashforwards, but also originally meant to be the airdate for the final episode, until its scheduling was changed.
 * And 2 minutes, 17 seconds... keeps getting mentioned moreso even than the others (in the intro voiceover for every episode, as well as being mentioned in-episode multiple times) - 137 seconds, 137 Sekunden (the German - also used as one episode title). A lot of importance was originally attributed to the number by characters early on, but later this stopped being treated as important. One theory is that it is because 137 is very nearly the reciprocal of the universal Fine Structure Constant. (137.0359990...)
 * The Artifact: Zoe. Her role was originally supposed to increase later in the season, and in the second season that never got to be, due to Demetri's death as expected. Instead, the new showrunners decided to keep him alive since John Cho had become popular following the release of the 2009 Star Trek, and the ratings needed all the help they could get. As a result, Zoe has little to do after Demetri survives his would-be death beyond break up with him, and is gone from the series by the season/series finale.
 * The Atoner:  doesn't start out this way, but becomes one as the series goes on.
 * The same goes for . It even results in.
 * Benevolent Boss: Though he does not allow himself to be taken advantage of, Wedeck really cares about his employees. He most definitely comes off as A Father to His Men after  is shot, and sheds sincerely touching Manly Tears when.
 * Berserk Button: Agent Noh and Olivia Benford do NOT care or want to hear what your flashforward was about, because
 * Demetri also REALLY doesn't like it when people tell him that he can't fight fate.
 * Don't accuse anyone of blabbing secrets to Olivia.
 * Simon is capable of anything when someone tries to manipulate him into doing something he doesn't want to do.
 * Aaron does NOT like people messing with his daughter.
 * Call Mark a failure, question his self-belief and he WILL try to end you.
 * Big Bad: It seemed at first that it would be, but it actually turned out to be . Although, the finale implies that he was just a middleman and the real Big Bad was someone else.
 * Black Bra and Panties: Mark buys this as a gift for Olivia.
 * Black Dude Dies First:
 * Blue Oni Red Oni: Mark and Demetri, respectively.
 * Brief Accent Imitation: Mark Benford's laughingly over-the-top English accent while playing with the egg in the kitchen with Charlie (don't forget that Joseph Fiennes who plays Benford actually is English, see Fake American below).
 * Breakout Character: Attempted with Demetri Noh. Originally he was indeed supposed to die midway through the season, and his fiancee Zoe would have gotten a larger role in the second season due to her belief that the FBI failed to prevent Demetri's death. But with the ratings slipping, and the showrunner replaced by three people early in the season, the writers decided to keep him alive instead in the hope that the extra popularity John Cho had gained from playing Sulu in Star Trek would help the show's ratings. Cho and Demetri were popular, but not enough to save the show.
 * Break the Cutie: Keiko, after graduating from the reputedly finest university in Tokyo and being employed at the workplace of her dreams, ends up having to serve tea because tradition demands a woman has to serve the tea and she is the only woman employed at the company.
 * And don't forget her mother's tantrum over Keiko's refusal to deal with an arranged marriage or put up with being turned into a waitress by her employer.
 * Also, upon arriving in the US to start her new life, she gets employed at a car workshop, only to be
 * Bulletproof Human Shield: A variant on this. Janis shoots a man on a motorcycle in the chest from head-on and kills him, but the woman riding right behind him is left untouched.
 * Bury Your Gays: Janis is revealed to be a lesbian, and by the end of the episode . However, this is later partially subverted when.
 * Might have been completely subverted now that
 * California Doubling: Mostly averted, since the show is set there, but Southern Somalia looked suspiciously like Southern California...
 * Card-Carrying Villain: Flosso, a Smug Snake who regularly smokes cigars despite his crippling emphysema because that's what a villain is supposed to do. He even outright says that he's a villain when introducing himself.
 * The Cast Showoff: The brief moment of karaoke in one episode seemed one part Rule of Funny, one part a brief showcasing of John Cho's singing ability.
 * Chekhov's Gun: Flosso's killer emphysema.
 * Mark's pistol, the one that.
 * Also,
 * Chekhov's Gunman:
 * The Chessmaster: Played with (briefly) then subverted at the end of the 2 hour recommencement special. In one of the scenes with, the quick can notice a chessboard on a computer screen being panned off-screen. He later
 * Played completely straight by D. Gibbons, who has seemingly planned for every single thing that's happened in the series . And apparently, he became a grandmaster when he was fifteen.
 * Conveniently Empty Building: Implied. Mark is there in his flash forward, and he sees people coming to get him. One would assume they would grill the entire building staff from top agents to the janitors emptying the trash to see if anyone else was at the building and saw anything that may clue them in to these soldiers, but instead it seems the viewer is left to assume this trope.
 * Ultimately justified in that . It's never fully explained how no one else realized this would happen, though, given the number of extras who must have had flash forwards about it.
 * Creepy Child:
 * Charlie, in some ways.
 * Most of her classmates veer into this when they're playing "Blackout".
 * So does Dylan.
 * A Day in the Limelight: "Believe," which focuses solely on Bryce Varley and his Asian girlfriend Keiko in their quest to find each other.
 * Death Trap:
 * Disc One Final Boss:
 * Downer Ending:
 * It was intended to be just the season finale, with  setting the stage for the second season. Which, as we now know, ain't gonna happen.
 * Dramatic Irony: The episode "Let No Man Put Asunder" begins with
 * Driven to Suicide: "Dear Celia..." Goodbye,.
 * Enhance Button: Strongly averted and lampshaded - even the NSA couldn't reconstruct a face from a blurred security camera picture under a month.
 * Wedeck seems to believe in it, when he demands a few blurry pixels be enhanced into an identifiable ring. That had better not work.
 * It did work and they spent quite a while trying to justify why the tiny ring could be enhanced when the face could not. It's still unbelievable.
 * Estrogen Brigade Bait: John Cho and Jack Davenport have both gotten shirtless scenes. Joseph Fiennes is all broody and not bad on the eyes either.
 * Simon Campos got a Shirtless Scene too. With a fedora.
 * Evil Brit:
 * There's also
 * Eviler Than Thou:
 * Fake American: Definitely a few of them.
 * English Joseph Feinnes as Mark Benford
 * English Sonya Walger as Olivia Benford
 * Irish Brían O'Byrne as Aaron Stark
 * O'Byrne is a particularly egregious example.
 * False Reassurance: Inverted: A Nazi war criminal is able to secure his release from prison by telling the main characters that, in his flashforward, a murder had been his "Get Out of Jail Free" Card. Once the paperwork had been filed, he then told them that he saw a dead murder of crows outside his window when he came to.
 * Subverted when it turns out that the murder of crows is indeed a clue that points to the possibility that
 * "Oh, we've had training."
 * Fan Service: Janice and Maya making out in "Gimme Some Truth".
 * The brief Cat Fight in "Queen Sacrifice" between two Action Girls. Both wearing fairly light blouses. In a pond.
 * Whenever Janis goes into full Action Girl mode the camera never ignores her tight pants or blouse.
 * Fauxshadow: Did anyone else think, based on the contents of his vision, that  had to be The Mole, until it turned out to be someone else?
 * Flash Forward: The entire show is built around this premise.
 * Flat Earth Atheist / Skepticism Failure : Several people are shown to be skeptical of the flash forward despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, calling them meaningless "visions" and getting angry at people who are considering the visions as true just in case because they could possibly save lives. Explained in that these characters were shown to have really awful futures they don't want to be true.
 * Foregone Conclusion:  Whatever that would have meant.
 * For the Evulz: Generally assumed to be the motivation of the people who caused the global blackouts  at least until their motivation becomes more clear.
 * Genre Savvy: Dylan, of all people, as he seems to be the only one who thought of leaving messages to his past self in his flashforward.
 * Getting Crap Past the Radar: "Have you heard of the double-slit theory?" "Well, I did a little experimenting in college..."
 * A God Am I: This is Simon's viewpoint on the fact that
 * Go Mad From the Revelation: Invoked by  after Demetri tells him "You're Insane!."
 * Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Flosso intentionally invokes this.
 * Heel Face Revolving Door:.
 * Heroic Suicide: commits suicide so that the woman he found he accidentally killed in his flashforward can live.
 * Hey, It's That Place!: The Bradbury Building.
 * Hostage Situation: Subverted.
 * I Did What I Had to Do: Janis says this word-for-word after.
 * Idiot Ball: Come on, Mark, you don't recognize a unit tattoo when you see one?
 * Then we have anyone who thinks Tracey is dead.
 * Speaking of Tracey, it takes an idiot ball of exceptional size to tell someone that your daughter, who is thought by most to be dead and is in fact hiding from badass army types, IS STAYING AT YOUR HOUSE.
 * Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: The mooks in the final episode.
 * In Medias Res
 * Insufferable Genius: Simon
 * I Knew It!: A rare In-Universe example. A member of the CIA in "Gimme Some Truth" has a theory that China is behind the blackouts with an incredibly shaky basis, which both the Mosaic team and the U.S. Senate dismiss outright. At the end of the episode, however,
 * Ironic Nursery Tune: The second episode opens with "Ring Around the Rosie" and images of children lying completely still on the ground. Later on, the fake D. Gibbons has dolls which also sing the song. It's creepy.
 * It Meant Something to Me: Poor Demetri...
 * Ironic Echo / Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Mark in the finale. "What did you see?" * BLAM*
 * I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: A truly touching moment between Mark and Gabriel in "The Negotiation". (No, not like that! It Makes Sense in Context.)
 * Karma Houdini:
 * Kudzu Plot
 * Loads and Loads of Characters: Switch "characters" with "factions" and you got it. There is the FBI, the Blue Hand, the men with the three stars tattooed on them, the man who acquired  from them and promptly killed one of them, Simon and Lloyd who are part of a larger group,   and, judging from the woman from Hong-Kong who , the Chinese. All these groups may or may not be connected.
 * There are quite a lot of characters too.
 * Lucky Translation: The  only works in English. Luckily for the international dubs, the   were technically murdered. This way, the old Nazi's deception revolves around.
 * Magical Database: Well, the FBI are trying to create one with the Mosaic website, which tracks people's visions and cross-references them.
 * Me Love You Long Time: Bryce and Keiko (seeing as she is repelled by her Japanese suitors and prefers him).
 * And inverted with Demetri and Zoey.
 * Messianic Archetype: Simon accuses Lloyd of trying to be one.
 * Mind Screw: You may have a tough time in the first episode differentiating the flashforward from the real world if you start watching when it happens.
 * The ending, thanks to its cancellation.
 * Misplaced Wildlife: The kangaroo, though it's probably intended to appear as a zoo escapee.
 * An escapee of the most incompetent zoo in the world, apparently, as it's still running around in "Scary Monsters and Super Creeps".
 * Well, the LA Zoo is currently defending themselves from a lawsuit alleging they abuse their animals, so...
 * Well, during Hurricane Andrew, much of Miami Metro Zoo was destroyed and lots of animals escaped. Some, including a giraffe were never recovered. Dead or alive. If you can lose something as big and prominent as a giraffe, a kangaroo is child's play.
 * Missed Him by That Much: Running Gag to Bryce and Keiko.
 * An incredibly sad running gag.
 * The Mole: The audience is led to believe this is someone who was apparently working with Mosaic all this time but was never given so much as a name before this.
 * could also be called this. As could.
 * Mythology Gag: Frost's Room Full of Crazy Conspiracy Wall has CERN in block letters, a reference to the Large Hadron Collider's involvement in the original book.
 * Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
 * Nice job
 * The Mole: The audience is led to believe this is someone who was apparently working with Mosaic all this time but was never given so much as a name before this.
 * could also be called this. As could.
 * Mythology Gag: Frost's Room Full of Crazy Conspiracy Wall has CERN in block letters, a reference to the Large Hadron Collider's involvement in the original book.
 * Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
 * Nice job
 * Nice job

Flashforward:

Vogel: I was Shooting The Dog doing my job."

"Simon: What I designed was theoretical. It could only be done in the future. And yet, it's been standing here for 18 years. Janis: Well, welcome to the future."
 * Nietzsche Wannabe: Dr. Raynaud, the highest ranking Blue Hand we've met so far.
 * Possibly lampshaded by Mark when he asks Raynaud what made him turn from an ordinary nice guy into Friedrich Nietzsche.
 * Not What It Looks Like: Olivia invokes this one in non-humorous context.
 * No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Mark delivers one to in the penultimate episode.
 * Noughties Drama Series
 * New Powers as the Plot Demands: Nicole's knowledge of Japanese language and culture.
 * Or it could be You Didn't Ask.
 * Various characters seem to remember New Flash Forwards As The Plot Demands, or at least new parts of the one they had, on a regular basis.
 * Newspaper Dating: That's how they find out that the visions are supposed to show the future.
 * No Endor Holocaust: Strongly, strongly averted. One of the reasons for the investigation into the flash forward is that 20 million people died in the blackout due to car crashes, train derailments, doctors passing out during surgery, and plane crashes.
 * Actually, it could be argued that even 20 million is a rather low number of casualties considering the event...,
 * Well, the number of injuries are presumably much higher. People can survive some pretty brutal things. And China is mentioned to have suffered little damage due to it being past midnight there. Presumably same goes for India, sparing the two most populous countries the worst of the catastrophe. It is a strech but it is possible to have just 20 million dead.
 * Played straight at other times, though because it is firmly established that the entire LA area was one big traffic accident because of the flash forward. Every car on the road was in a fender bender at the least. However all the cars you see in the series are all pristine - there should have been plenty of cars with dents, scrapes and scratches (the body shop Keiko works in six months after the event should have been still cleaning up by doing body work!). And the long shots of streets and freeways - everything looks fine - no dented light poles, etc that weren't damaged enough to be replaced.
 * No Ending: Due to the cancellation of the series after a cliffhanger in the finale.
 * Obstructive Bureaucrat: The head of the Senate committee in "Gimme Some Truth" is practically the embodiment of this trope.
 * Office Lady: Keiko.
 * Oh Crap: When Demetri's fiancee realizes
 * "Hello, Demetri. My name is
 * Opening Narration: Starting with the third episode, there's a quickie explanation of The Blackout.
 * Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Brían F. O'Byrne as "American" Aaron Stark.
 * The Other Darrin: Dylan Simcoe was recast in the middle of filming the pilot. Some scenes feature Dylan #1 and some Dylan #2; one of them took over for the series proper.
 * Our Presidents Are Different: The President, as played by PeterCoyote, is halfway between President Personable and President Jerkass.
 * Don't forget he's also President
 * Papa Wolf: Aaron Stark.
 * Mark can turn into this if you talk about his daughter in a way he doesn't like.
 * Psychic Dreams for Everyone: The event that kicked off the Myth Arc.
 * The Rainman: Gabriel McDow
 * Real Life Relative: An interesting case in that Alex Kingston used to be Joseph Fiennes' sister-in-law (she was formerly married to one of his older brothers, Ralph).
 * And John Cho's wife Kerri guest-starred in "Queen Sacrifice".
 * Redemption Equals Death:  was trying to redeem himself, but he got shot by a sniper working for the Big Bad before he could tell Mark what he needed to know.
 * Red Herring: Brilliantly double subverted in "Queen Sacrifice."
 * Redshirt Army: The Red Panda escorts. They even lampshade it, when the Somali warlord explains that the purpose of the Red Panda guys was to die in order to intimidate the hostages.
 * Remember the New Guy?: Hey guys, remember Marci?
 * Done rather well as her motivator was that - as a wallflower - nobody ever paid any attention to her in the first place.
 * Retired Badass: Aaron Stark, as of "Blowback."
 * The Reveal:  is Suspect Zero.
 * Ring of Power: A set of seven rings worth killing for in "Playing Cards With Coyote".
 * Room Full of Crazy: Mark Bedford has one.
 * Nicole Kirby's mother spends her spare time gluing pennies to the wall in one room of her house. All of these pennies are from the year Nicole was born.
 * Running Gag: Simon constantly hitting on Janis.
 * Also the kangaroo.
 * Scenery Gorn: The first 17 minutes of the pilot is dedicated to showing what would happen to downtown Los Angeles if everyone blacked out for 2 minutes, 17 seconds. Helicopters sticking out of skyscrapers, freeways full of twisted metal and bodies... it's pretty darn Gorn-iffic. Gorn from around the world is mentioned through the rest of the episode, but not shown (700 plane crashes?!).
 * And it continues through the subsequent episodes. The earlier episodes had establishing episodes of damaged skyscrapers and burnt buildings. The number of these slowly reduced as episodes progressed and they were repaired but every now and then, there are still damaged buildings visible even in the most insignificant of background shots.
 * Screw Destiny: What Mark's trying to do by.
 * In episode 7, Al Gough does this by.
 * Olivia gets in on the act in episode 8 by.
 * Mark again by in episode 10. Considering what he did, it's not likely he'll get his job back in the next few months.
 * Oh, Nevermind.
 * He is successful in.
 * Science Marches On: In the 1999 novel on which the television show was based, the flashforward was caused.
 * In-universe example:
 * Mark again by in episode 10. Considering what he did, it's not likely he'll get his job back in the next few months.
 * Oh, Nevermind.
 * He is successful in.
 * Science Marches On: In the 1999 novel on which the television show was based, the flashforward was caused.
 * In-universe example:


 * Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Who doesn't already believe that Mark and Olivia's marriage is going to fail? They seem to have grown distant already just at the thought that she will cheat on him.
 * The Blue Hand, . Make of that what you will.
 * Demetri would do well to learn that one often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it.
 * For that matter, so would.
 * The Finale goes to town on this one.
 * Shipper on Deck: Gabriel is visibly distraught that Lloyd and Olivia aren't together, as them not being together affects the fate of the world. Somehow.
 * Shoot Out the Lock: how Mark gets into the building where  in "The Garden of Forking Paths".
 * Shoot the Dog: Mark engages in this pretty heavily in "A561984".
 * Shout-Out: D. Gibbons could be a shout-out to Dave Gibbons. There was also a poster advertisement in the first episode for Oceanic Airlines.
 * There's also an ad for Lost's final season on a briefly seen bus. So, uh, who plays Charlie and Penny in this show's Lost?
 * "Revelation Zero, Part 1" has mention of a Detective Liefeld.
 * Sound familiar?
 * There's also a character called Kent Nelson on the show.
 * Some of the items on Dyson Frost's Chalkboard Full Of Crazy are "Ansible Theory", "Maestro Di Color", and "Strange Things Happen At The One Two Point".
 * The chalkboard itself could be a reference to Rip Hunter's in Fifty Two.
 * "The Garden of Forking Paths".
 * I'm surprised no one has mentioned that Al Gough is played by the guy who played Cyborg on Smallville which was developed by Alfred Gough.
 * The first thing that Mark sees after the epic tragedy of the blackout is an orange.
 * Smug Snake: Heroic variant in Marshall Vogel of the CIA. Most infuriatingly, he's most often right.
 * Lampshaded in "Queen Sacrifice" where Mark, Demetri and Janis all tell him to **** himself at different times whenever he suggests one of them could be
 * And in the villain corner, Carline,  is one full-stop.
 * Sorry I Left the BGM On: A trumpet player in the foot chase scene in "Black Swan".
 * Soundtrack Dissonance: A massive shootout (and ) all to the tune of a karaoke-version of "Sister Christian." Motoring!
 * In "Black Swan", the flashforward occurring in Echo Park (with all the carnage that implies, specifically, ) set to Bjork's "It's Oh So Quiet".
 * The Sponsor: Aaron Stark, who is Mark Benford's AA sponsor. As the series progresses, his focus shifts from helping Mark with his addiction to finding his daughter.
 * Stable Time Loop:
 * Several, including the stuff that was on Mark's wall of crazy. It'll drive you mad just thinking about the reason he put up those cards: he put them on the wall because he had a vision of them on the wall.
 * In the second episode, Mark puts up a picture of the burned doll on the wall. But the doll wouldn't have been burned (and he wouldn't have gone into the doll factory at all) if he hadn't had the vision of the burned doll picture in the first place. Oh no, I've gone cross-eyed.
 * Also, the Nazi war criminal from "137 Sekunden", who would never have  if he hadn't seen that happening in his blackout.
 * However, it looks like this is about to be shaken up, now that
 * Stealth Pun: When the agents have to give cover stories about what they saw in their flash forwards, Janis says she was baking bread. Actually she was having a pre-natal sonogram, or in other words
 * String Theory: Mark's Blackout wall.
 * Ten Little Murder Victims: In "Queen Sacrifice".
 * Timey-Wimey Ball: Some of the events in the flashforwards were themselves caused by the flashforwards (see above). However, apart from a throwaway line mentioning a party in Times Square, none of the visions show any awareness that this was the moment they all foresaw.
 * Except Bryce, he says, "so you're really here" to Keiko, referencing that this is the moment he saw.
 * Token Minority: Mostly averted, as there are three of the six regular cast members playing FBI agents are black, as is Demetri's fiancee. Lynn Whitfield and Gina Torres have also appeared. Still only one Asian regular, but he's co-lead and has been getting Character Development, so...
 * Now the Japanese girl in Bryce's vision, Keiko, seems to be getting a bigger role.
 * Took a Level In Badass: Aaron Stark, in "Blowback,".
 * Also, to many, Mark Benford. In the first block of episodes, it wouldn't be a stretch to say he was in the running for most hated character. After the hiatus, he has become much more level-headed, proactive, decisive and mature about his responsibilities.
 * Viewer-Friendly Interface: All the time.
 * Wham! Episode: "The Gift." If you don't cry at the end... you probably left your soul at a bus stop somewhere.
 * About half the episodes qualify, to one degree or another. "A561984" is probably the biggest one yet, even more so than "The Gift". Just about every point of the meeting with  is its own mini-wham, and then you have   and the things he reveals, plus what happens to Lloyd (and his son and Olivia!) at the end.
 * "The Garden of Forking Paths".
 * "Countdown". Oh, boy. Where to begin?
 * Wham! Line: "Message received."
 * The episode before:
 * again:
 * Evil Pet Shop Lady to Janis:
 * Series Finale:  Whatever that meant.
 * What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic - The New York Times review of the pilot included a list of historical events tied to the flash forward date of April 29, 2010, and suggesting speculation over the date's significance would be more fuel for Epileptic Trees. In actuality, it's just the 50th birthday of Robert J. Sawyer, author of the Flash Forward novel, which coincidentally falls close to the airing of the first season finale.
 * Hurm...
 * What Happened to the Mouse? - Early episodes mentioned the Vice President being the new president in her flash forward, implying the old one would die. However, the April 29th episodes focused entirely on LA and Somalia, and even then, you'd think we would have heard if the president died.
 * Or get his impeachment. We saw her flashforward, it was a little unclear. What more interesting - what about Arabian boy who was seen by Wedeck's wife? Did writers forget about him or something?
 * What the Hell, Hero?: Janis, Olivia and Wedeck have all given this treatment to Mark. Demetri has gone as far as punching Mark in the face, although that was more his Berserk Button going off.
 * He seems to attract a lot of this..
 * And now Aaron, Mark's AA sponsor, has given him the same treatment.
 * Whole-Episode Flashback: Especially in the early season, episodes would be split between new footage, flashbacks of the flashforwards, and flashbacks of scenes from the 'present day' timeline.
 * Wire Dilemma: In "The Garden of Forking Paths",  involves one of these.
 * Wrench Wench: Keiko
 * You Are Too Late:
 * You Can't Fight Fate: They're not sure if this is true yet, but it looks like it might be.
 * Special Agent just proved you can fight it and Screw Destiny.
 * However,
 * On the other hand,  so you can fight fate, but have to overcome a sort of historical "inertia" to do so.
 * You Killed My Father, Prepare to Die:
 * You're Insane!: Demetri to D.Gibbons in "The Garden of Forking Paths". Gibbons' reply: Most oracles are.
 * On the other hand,  so you can fight fate, but have to overcome a sort of historical "inertia" to do so.
 * You Killed My Father, Prepare to Die:
 * You're Insane!: Demetri to D.Gibbons in "The Garden of Forking Paths". Gibbons' reply: Most oracles are.