Review - FlashForward Season 1 Episode 5 Gimme Some Truth

After watching every episode of FlashForward, excluding the pilot, I have the same reaction -- What the hell? While this episode was better, I was still disappointed. FlashForward could be a great show, but right now it's average. Whether the departure of Marc Guggenheim will help shall be seen. David Goyer has a pretty bad television track record, so I doubt there will be very many changes.

Before I go into anything that happened in the episode, I don't understand why nobody thought of making a flowchart for the flashforward. Using some logic, the agents could come to some logical conclusion instead of randomly looking for clues. It seems so intuitive for me that the best way to deal with the situation would be to lay out the facts and hypothesize with a degree of understanding.

We saw the politics behind the flashforward which is a good direction to take. There is still much of the world we haven't seen since the blackout and I wonder why the writers haven't give us the bigger picture, instead focusing on an insulated group in Los Angeles which we could care less about.

Senator Clemente is critical of the Mosaic and destroys Mark who admits he was drinking. She is skeptical of the project, honing in on many assumptions Mark made. In the end, Wedeck gets the funding after blackmailing the president. The president then calls someone to do something which I suspect is why Mark gets attacked.

The main shocker of the episode was shown at the beginning with an attack on Mark and his friends. At the end, we see Janis being shot and laying in the middle of the street, and Mark an Co. killing the Asian attackers. All this is set to the music of Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone." The devilish irony was pleasantly surprising, but I don't understand the tone of the show. Sometimes it is too serious bordering on the absurd, and at other times, it is funny to the point of inanity.

Janis being a lesbian was stupid. In the flashforward, she's pregnant. Right there, all attempts at subtlety are lost. The question is sitting right in plain sight. If she doesn't sleep with men, how could she be pregnant? A) The flashforward isn't true, B) She'll sleep with a man, C) She will get artificially inseminated, D) Who cares.
The mystery behind the flashforward (Simon, Somalia, crows) is still compelling is the only reason I'm still watching. Satellite imagery revealed 100-foot pylons erected before the Somalia blackout.

Score: 8.5/10