Friday, October 9, 2009

FlashForward: A Murder to Thank

I was a little disappointed by most of last night's episode, but it picked up steam near the end.  The part about the crows dying was really creepy.  I actually don't think it relates to the pole-shift theories.  For one thing, as we've discussed, a pole shift would be immediately obvious to anyone with a compass or GPS.  For another, it wouldn't explain the localized crow deaths in Ganwar, Somalia. 

But such speculations are on the right track insofar as they focus on electro- and geomagnetic forces.  I suspect who or whatever caused the blackout was inspired by  Nikola Tesla, whose scientific discoveries formed the basis of modern MRI technology. Tesla claimed to have discovered a new type of longitudinal (as opposed to transverse) scalar electromagnetic wave.  He built an enormous tower on Long Island called Wardenclyffe, which he hoped would wirelessly transmit electricity to a receiving tower across the Atlantic.



Unfortunately, Wardenclyffe was never completed.  Late in life, Tesla further claimed to have unified the fields in a dynamic theory of gravity. He never published his claims but they nonetheless spawned an entire pseudo-science called electrogravitics. Proponents believe that gravity is really the force of longitudinal electromagnetic waves affecting space-time in the fourth dimension.  My hunch, as stated in a previous post, is that the blackouts are a side effect of someone using this (pseudo) science to time travel or affect probability.



I think the kid saw a Tesla tower in Somalia --  my first thought was of the Prestige.  Anyone know if Ganwar is a highly geomagnetic location like Colorado Springs, where Tesla built his lab?  As always, you're welcome to post anonymously, but please identify yourself somehow, so I can distinguish between anonymous posters. Thanks!

107 comments:

Greg Tramel said...

i've felt the same for all 3 episodes, they kind of lull along at the beginning but something near the end always manages to spark my interest

yes, i agree, as with Lost electromagnetism is gonna play a big part, BTW, i've had quite a few people looking for Tesla books lately so there's something in the air

Fringe is my favorite sci-fi show on right now but i did get a little annoyed they there is talk of yet another great war

bluemarlin said...

Agreed. One of Somalia's exports is scrap metal. Maybe its near a furnace or a place abundant with ore?

Wayne Allen Sallee said...

Can't comment or the entry yet, Big. Forgot the show is on at 7 PM here. Oh, cruel confusing television guide. I'll watch it on Hulu later this afternoon as I contemplate why it is only 45 degrees outside.

Bigmouth said...

Another whackadoo speculation: Charlie (i.e., Mark and Olivia's daughter) will be kidnapped along with the autistic boy by D. Gibbons.

Wayne Allen Sallee said...

Is there really a database that shows the population of crows like that? I agree that each episode is a little uneven, and I'm not a big fan of multiple songs during the last few minutes of the episode (or the use of momentary slow motion).

If there was a localized event in 1991, the use of Somalia is a good place because of how little the rest of the world knew of the country's warlord and Al-Queda. The events in BLACKHAWK DONE occurred in the fall of 1993, but the whole country was similar to what Darfur is like now.

The Unified Field Theory plays into The Philadelphia Experiment and the Montauk Project, both of which, involved time travel to the future, although in the case of the USS Eldridge, it was a matter of a few minutes. So maybe what is going on involves an attempt at jumping fwd in time.

Wayne Allen Sallee said...

I suppose that if all it took was comparing dental records then the one guy could get the news that it was his daughter in the grave, but it's hard to see him lose his 'leap of faith' considering there are still any number of ways that a charred fragment of a body can be misidentified. I'm sure we'll see more of this over time, but I would have thought the identification process would have followed over at least one more episode.

Best scene though was at the Sea-Tac airport, with the exchange between Gabrielle Union and the CEO of the airline company.

Anonymous said...

Hi it's Quackers from the Fuselage

I really hope that the blackouts are related to someone tampering with probability and/or time travel, i'm just a total geek when it comes to TT.

Anyways, one thing that really caught me from last night's ep was the contrast between the visions of Demetri's fiancee and the future intelligence report claiming he was murdered. Does this mean that people are seeing different futures? Or was the woman who contacted Demetri trying to set him on a path contrary to his natural fate? I think we'll see more of this mystery woman and he intentions in the future.

Bigmouth said...

Hi Quackers! Sadly, I think Demetri's fiancee was asleep and dreaming of their wedding during her flashforward.

ellipsis said...

I couldn't help but think that in Demetri's fiancée's vision, there was no close up of Demetri's face... she assumes she is marrying him but maybe it's some other man? (Who is perhaps also Asian so he looks like Demetri from a distance.)

Wayne Allen Sallee said...

Re: the wedding. Dimitri's fiancee dreams/sees it and it coincidentally is the same day as the FFs. Dimitri oks it at the end of the episode. Does his decision (lame as it is) alter anything? I wonder if the woman in Hong Kong's job is to screw with people's minds. Anyone else think that?

Also, the crazy Nazi sees himself 6 months from now being greeted by a ticket agent. It takes him 6 months to get to the US? The ticket agent tells Dimitri he saw his FF with him as a ticket agent and he signed up the next day. He was afraid he'd flunk the physical, but I think he'd flunk the drug test miserably. That bong is not there just for occasional use.

I wish they handled these scenes better. It's a good angle, the guy takes the FF positively and realizes his dream. Yet, Dimitri could have changed that by reporting him as a druggie. If they could simply get these points across w/o every episode being self-contained. Ah, well. Still enjoying the show, tho.

ellipsis said...

I think Demetri is going to report him as a druggie just because he really really doesn't want the future to come true.

Wayne Allen Sallee said...

ellipses, that's a good thought, though there's still the convenience of our bad guy taking six months to go to the US. I guess a way out of that would be to have him called to the US (FF time) to help with the Mosaic case. Then it would be wild if he arrived and a different ticket agent greeted him.

Capcom said...

Hey yes I remember Mosaic, and I thought of that too Greg!

Great post Big, I love any Tesla stories. Don't forget about his Death Ray also.

If I were Dimitri, and someone told me that I was going to get murdered via a shot in the chest, I would not be walking around without a kevlar vest (or two) on. Seriously.

That would be a good twist if he did turn in the bong guy Ellipsis. I think that he should.

The crow incidents really spooked me. When I was living in NY, a very long cloud of crows flew over my apartment from the East towards the Hudson river and they just kept coming for a half hour or more. I couldn't even stay outside long enough to see when it ended. I don't know where they were coming from or where they were going. It was very weird. Twice that occurred. Perhaps there was some fishing scow dumping chum off the boat. I guess I'll never know.

One weird thing about the "awake" guy in the stadium: he had something dangling off of the left side of his head, that you could see when he came back out of the corridor to look back out, and then he went back in. At first I thought that it was a hat flap, but there doesn't seem to be anything hanging like that on the right side. Just sayin'.

Bigmouth said...

That's funny...I just figured the bong was a Harold and Kumar reference LOL! But I like this idea that Demetri will try to change the future by having the guy busted for smoking pot. Of course, what if he then turns around and tries to kill Demetri for revenge?

dj said...

What if Dimitri's murder is the murder of which Mr Nazi is speaking in the Flash Forward because Dimitri does turn in Mr Bong, but for it all to come true, Mr Bong has to be there to greet Mr Nazi! :O

Thunderstorm said...

Imagine that you, sitting where you are right now, got a flash forward of next January 15th, 2010.

And then you corroborated this with everyone else, blah blah, you understood that everyone on the planet seemed to have such a flash at the same precise time.

Then you spent the next three months agonizing of whatever you were doing at that moment, that precise moment would be so ingrained in your mind that at exactly that moment you would know that you are experiencing your FLASH as it happens to you.

And yet not a single flash shown on the show so far, has a single person acknowledging their own flash IN the flash itself.

Because if it was a future that was going to happen no matter what, these people would know exactly what was happening at the moment of the flash. Because they'd just spent the last X number of months knowing EXACTLY when it was going to happen and EXACTLY what they were doing.

So what does this mean? IMO, it means there is no possible way that this is a set future for these people.

Capcom said...

I think that's exactly the problem with knowing what's going to happen to you in the future, DJ! I used to have a friend who was so insecure, at one point she couldn't go out of the house without doing Tarot cards a few times first. I tried to tell her that even if she did know what was going to happen, how did she know that knowing wasn't the thing that caused it to happen? She didn't get it.

Thunderstorm, do you mean that in their flashes everyone should have also had a giant sense of deja vu about the flash, in the flash? I guess that maybe one could argue that they didn't realized there was a flash until it was all over. The way that Miles told Hurley that they didn't remember being in 1977 in their later lives, because their 1977 timeline hadn't happened to them yet, i.e., they hadn't traveled back yet. But thinking about that gets dangerously close to making my head explode the way Lost does.

I thought for sure that Dimitri was going to get shot when he was snooping around Mr. Bong's house. Again, he knew he was going to get shot and went out there without armor on, sheesh.

Anonymous said...

Nikola Tesla...I've been studying this guy since The Prestige - and I'm a huge fan of Edison. Looks like it's back to books.

Capcom said...

Putting Tesla in "The Prestige" was a great idea, it really aded a lot to that film! I used to be a fan of Edison too Anon, until I learned what a jerk he was to Telsa, via not paying him for work and trying to destroy his credibility, etc. :-(

Edison also allegedly stole ideas from other people in addition to Tesla. For one, he had his people bootleg Melies' "Le Voyage Dans La Lune"(1902) film (the one with the rocket in the moon's eye) and played it in the U.S. before Melies got a chance to release it himself, which (according to Tom Hanks' "From The Earth To The Moon" series) left him in a pretty poor state financially. Bah humbug.

My brother and I have "decided" that perhaps even though Edison was a great thinker and tinkerer of his era, he had to resort to those tactics becuase he wasn't quite as smart as the people that he was competing with. That is to say, where Edison says something about failing 99 times and then getting it right on the 100th try, perhaps his competitors would have arived at the solution on the 50th try and he knew that. ???? Just sayin'.

Bigmouth said...

Thunder: That's throwing me, too. For example, if they knew the time and date of the flashfowards, why would the FBI guy be on the toilet reading the paper if he knew one of his agents would be attacked by masked men with machine guns?

At the same time, the clue board implies that the people in the flashforward always experienced blackouts. As I mentioned in the comments to an earlier post, I worry they've set up a potential plot hole here.

Anonymous said...

Hey, wasn't Benford supposed to take his daughter to work with him because the babysitter was still MIA? What the heck happened to that?

I also agree that in their flash fowards, they should have acknowledged that THIS was THE moment that they had flashed foward to three months ago. By then, it should have been all they were thinking about, and they should have been anticipating the moment.

Also, maybe this was mentioned before, but why is there so much "confusion" as to wether or not seeing no flash means you're dead? In some time zones, the majority of people should have been sleeping, right? So if the majority of people had no flashes, then you can't get a flash while you're sleeping. If most of them did... well, that's a different story altogether. But, either way, the mosaic program should have cleared that up a bit more.

Finally, why the heck was the little Somalian boy immune to the blackout? And what time frame was this from? Was this the first blackout in 1991? The most recent one? Yet another one?

Capcom said...

But like Miles said, it hadn't happened to them yet, until it happened, so they wouldn't have a memory of it. :o)

I was thinking that too about people being asleep and perhaps having a blank FF.

Maybe the experiment/test/whatever in Africa was more localized to occuring within a certain parameter? And the kid was outside the effected zone? Just guessing.

Wayne Allen Sallee said...

Capcom, a group of crows like you saw is a 'murder of crows' and where that phrase came from, I really don't know. Faulkner used that phrase when he was writing in the 30s. And the idea that Tesla was murdered is a conspiracy theory, for the life of me I can't recall where I've read that, but it goes back to the 90s.

Big, I think there are several plot holes, and the biggest problem is the writers' done-in-one story progression. Yes, indeed, why wasn't the daughter there? Where did the blonde terrorist go in the first episode. Some of the writing is reminiscent of HEROES, just a line or a scene and have a "so what?" attitude for disregarding it later.

Dimitri wouldn't be wearing a Kevlar vest now, only on March 15th 2010, if the woman in Hong Kong should be believed. And, yes, turn in the bong guy. Try and change the future (in this case, Dimitri and Benford didn't BOTH know who this guy was in the FF). This is the biggest thing that bugs me, it is three episodes in and no one has said, well, I'm going to do something different. Dimitri said, if I was sleeping, I'd still be dreaming, to that effect. Which is just stupid. Plus it was 10 PM, so unless he had a different shift, I doubt he'd be in REM mode.

Thunderstorm, the flash within a flash should be addressed by SOMEONE. Have someone just say that they had this feeling of deja vu (have it be someone who wouldn't necessarily have a cognitive memory, an older person, someone who was on morphine in a hospital at the time of the blackouts, a kid).

Not as bad as HEROES, but they need to tighten this thing up. I think the problem is these encapsulated episodes.

Capcom said...

Hey thanks Wayne! Now I know what to call my "calling all crows" phenomenon. :-)

You said:"...reminiscent of HEROES, just a line or a scene and have a "so what?" attitude for disregarding it later." I concur.

Wayne Allen Sallee said...

Capcom, I know you've mentioned you watch HEROES more just to watch, but I can't. I tried this season, but when I saw Claire's roommate jump from the dorm window, I realized that screaming at the tv again wasn't going to help much.

And I think the writers of shows like FF need to use HEROES as a bellwether of sorts. Otherwise, as Big mentioned in his first post, each season of FF will simply start anew. It worries me because I do enjoy FF, very much so.

Capcom said...

Then it's a good thing that you missed this week's episode Wayne! I forgot to turn it on until it was almost over, but there's this new invisible girl who was in the dormroom, and well, I'll let you see it and yell at the TV some more if you so choose. I yelled.

:-p

Bigmouth said...

I think this week's Heroes was for the guys...and the lesbians LOL!

Wayne Allen Sallee said...

Capcom, let me guess, the invisible girl was the suicide girl's twin sister, only invisible (yes, I'm repeating myself, just like the writers do on HEROES). Or was it Claire from the future, because, in the HEROESverse, time travel makes you transparent? (Take that as a joke, if you want, ha ha.)

Big, go to Hulu, I mean just because. There's a fifty second clip of the "kiss." I just wish Ando will kiss Hiro and get it over with. Hmnn, who else? Mr. Bennett and...is Malcolm McDowell still alive?

Wayne Allen Sallee said...

Sorry, my point on Hulu and "the kiss" is more about that being the only clip for Monday's episode, usually some shows will have two or three.

Capcom said...

I didn't see enough to know exactly who this invis-o-girl is, but I saw enough of the flashback to be annoyed by it. But I wouldn't be surprised if it is as weird as you guessed. :o)

I don't want to say anymore because it would be pretty spoilery for someone who didn't see it yet.

Capcom said...

P.S. Haha, the way that Ando has been looking at Hiro lately, I was almost waiting for that as well!

Maybe Malcolm McDowell will be back, no one is ever really dead on Heroes it seems.

Wayne Allen Sallee said...

I watched the last few minutes on Hulu, Capcom. The only good thing was showing that the invisible girl pushed the first roommate out the window. They introduce new characters and ignore the good ones created in the past.

Off-topic, kind of. Hulu now has the first five webisodes of SPIDER-WOMAN: AGENT OF S.W.O.R.D. I've only watched the first one, ten minutes long. It's pretty much just art from the ongoing comic, but you all everybody can see the great Alex Maleev art I mentioned re: the Lost posters. Check it out.

Greg Tramel said...

i'm thinking HAARP or maybe

"What if the future has already happened and what we are watching is the past. Someone has invented a time travelling device and every time they use it to go back in time everyone suffers a blackout and sees the future of where they are..."

http://flashforwardtheories.blogspot.com/2009/10/theory-are-we-seeing-past.html

Capcom said...

Oh Dammm! Why didn't I think of HAARP, I listened to Art Bell!!! :o)

See y'all on the flip-side of the new ep tonight!

Wayne Allen Sallee said...

Thought last night's episode hit well. Back to the blonde terorrist, no loose end there. Dimitri getting b-slapped by Jack, where he gives a nice explanation about solving the board to find clues to keep Dimitri alive. Trailer parks, which I can say in three directions from a nearby intersection, yay!

HAARP is interesting, but I don't know that the device is old news. Capcom, long before Art Bell, there were people in LA (hmnnn...) that ran a website re: plane contrails as evidence of weather manipulation, HAARP, the usual stuff I tend to believe because the government tends to not care enough, unless its for the greater good. (The website, later combined with Glenn Campbell's UFOMIND in Las Vegas, ran in maybe 1992.)

By the way, if that one guy had the gun to his chin when the blackout occurred, why didn't the gun go off when he dropped it? His finger would have relaxed on the trigger, of course, the bullet would have gone into the surf. I just thought of that because there are so many reruns of that scene. Man, you'd think even the casual watcher would get Olivia's dream by now. Gah. Still great episode.

Capcom said...

I have to watch last night's ep again to see how I feel about it, I kept getting interrupted by the company we had. It was nice seeing Chahlie again though. Neat that **spoiler** turns out to be a bad guy! I guess that we got signs of that, but I've missed a lot of the obscure details because I just leave the room too much when I'm taping it.

Contrail conspiracies also claim that "they" are seeding areas with various illnesses to make people sick, and do experiments like that on us. :->

Yes HAARP is old news, that's why I was surprised that it didn't cross my mind now. It's been around since '93 I think. Art Bell changed his political radio show to the spooky stuff around '95-ish. I believe that Russia has it's own version of HAARP now too. Something to think about.

Bigmouth said...

Good call re HAARP. The lunatic fringe insists that HAARP technology is based on Tesla's ideas. I firmly believe that the weird "smoke" around the tower was actually "air glow" -- basically an artificial aurora borealis.

Bigmouth said...

BTW, once an episode has aired, any spoilers therein are fair game. I didn't love last night's episode but thought the blond terrorist lady's speech about the black swan was creepy and brilliant. So, does this mean someone initiated the blackout to change the future?

Wayne Allen Sallee said...

Big, agreed on spoilers, more because it's this early in the game. LOST is winding down, and if someone were to say anything about FF, I think most would be like me and say, wow, now that is cool.

I am glad that the blond terrorist wasn't a throwaway plot device, and it leaves me curious as to whether she, or the driver in the car, knew exactly when the blackouts would occur. You know, the life in danger thing. I think she wasn't expecting that to happen, and that she was in shock when she mentioned the horses as her FF. We'll see those horses, I think.

The idea of Olivia's supposed lover being a bad guy leads me down the time travel road. Maybe in reverse. Someone had to know WHEN everyone saw their FF, so that they could put the proper people in motion. So maybe at least one person came back from that date. Or maybe its as simple as knowing how many days in the future the Somalians saw in 1991. It would suck if Dylan wasn't even his kid, and that "dad" was manipulating the need for hom to say hospitalized.

Wayne Allen Sallee said...

Capcom, give Hulu a try. I taped Thursday's episode, then ended up going over to Hulu. Easier to catch the details when the screen is right there in front of me, better on my back, too. Three minutes of commercials tops, and Pause is simply a mouse-click. Very much worth it.

And yep, those contrails supposedly caused illnesses, I recall most of the reports being over northern California. That and HAARP were bunched together, it was like we went from the black triangle UFOS to HAARP and then back to things like the Phoenix lights. Then we had the ubernet (my gauge would be 1996-1997 for, like, almost everyone having a PC) and everybody skidded out on their investigative reporting, because things became way to easy to debunk. I liked the old days with all kinds of sightings and conspiracies.

Wayne Allen Sallee said...

Big, I meant to reply to your second post, too. I think maybe the blackout was initiated with Somalia (possibly others) as a test. Olivia's FF can't be coincidental, and to an extent, I think the idea is to have Mark start worrying about his marriage and then devote less time to solving the mosaic board.

Greg Tramel said...

yeah, i just threw HAARP in there to the mix for good measure, i know it's been around FOREVER in the conspiracy/chemtrails stuff but i think maybe the related technology around it is worth looking into and since it has a Tesla connection, funny this weird book i was kinda reading pegs Tesla as the Alchemist of Atlantis and ties him in with HAARP somewhat

did anybody happen to see that weather warfare miniseries over the summer?, i want to watch it since i only saw bits and pieces but it looked very interesting and definitely had a HAARP subtext

anyway, i'm on vacation in Philadelphia and my wife's nieces and nephews kept taking over the TV Thur so i didn't see much of FF and Fringe yet BUT that last scene on FF with "Charlie" got my attention, wtf was that all about?

Greg Tramel said...

LOL, this just showed up in my feedreader

HAARP Creates Bullseye In The Sky

http://www.noonehastodietomorrow.com/agenda/weather-modification/1512?task=view

3D said...

Capcom said...

"I didn't see enough to know exactly who this invis-o-girl is, but I saw enough of the flashback to be annoyed by it. But I wouldn't be surprised if it is as weird as you guessed. :o) I don't want to say anymore because it would be pretty spoilery for someone who didn't see it yet."

Nothing spoils Heroes for me more than watching it.

What a bunch of crap.

Capcom said...

LOL X-D

Capcom said...

BTW, I have to admit that I got a little teared-up when Olivia was finishing her anagram in the cemetary. I didn't get soggy about anything on the X-Files until well into the middle seasons. *sniff* RIP Charlie. Gee, we lost another Charlie, heheh.

Capcom said...

Thinking about "A murder to thank", maybe Dimitri's death will actually somehow advance the work on the mosaic board and give them a major lead towards the solution. But I really hope that Cho wil be on the show for a good while longer.

dj said...

FF is really disappointing me so far. I've just been so spoiled by LOST, and more recently, Fringe.

I don't know, FF just seems very full of plot holes at this time. One legitimate question is, why don't people do outlandish shit to escape the future? This last episode, in my opinion, served as the writers' way of making it quite clear that the flash forwards are the immutable future, so we have to take them very, very seriously.

The only character whose name I can even remember is Dimitri, so that's kind of sad and a bit telling of my care level. Anyone else think the babysitter's flash forward was her being baptized?

Capcom said...

Interesting point DJ. I'm probably wrong, but I thought that the "drowner" looked like the priest. Is it supposed to be or am I way off?

Greg Tramel said...

yes, baptism came to mind for me, the show has improved a bit for me but maybe it is just because of "charlie" FINALLY making his appearance, i figured Dylan's father was involved in the flash somehow

Capcom said...

I hadn't thought of the baptism because she looks like she's struggling, but maybe when they lay here back she panics because she can't swim. She should have opted for the font baptism, heheh. :o)

Bigmouth said...

Oh, wow, great thought on the baptism, DJ! Or what if the priest is somehow involved with the blackout? I remember reading elsewhere that "Black Swan" is written on a box on his desk.

Thunderstorm said...

Two episodes in a row that for me have fallen flat.

I laughed out loud at the shootout scene with a 60 year old Mick Jagger singing Like A Rolling Stone playing over the top. Fiennes (in general) is straining my cringe-meter.

There have been more eye-rolling moments in the last two episodes than the first three combined, IMO.

Although, the story is still compelling, it's just what the F is up with the execution?

dj said...

Agreed, Thunderstorm. Disappointing. A captivating idea/story, but very poor execution. I'm not a fan of the whole "drag, drag, drag.. CLIFFHANGER!!!!" crap. Seems lazy. I should want to tune in next week because I love the show, not because you basically gave me intellectual blue-balls.

dj said...

And concerning drowning/baptism, her whole "Do you think God did this?" thing is alluding to it pretty much point blank. Hell, maybe it IS murder and not baptism, I don't know. But it's probably the priest dude one way or the other. His conversation with her certainly was stilted. He's either got very poor social skills for a man of the cloth, or he shared her flashforward and is reacting a lot like .. uhm, Penny towards Dylan's dad (avoidance) due to freaked-outness. Haha. I still don't know any damn names...

Capcom said...

LOL Thunder and DJ! This ep really left me flat and the repeated scene didn't serve any purpose for me (correct me if I'm wrong and missed the point) and wasted precious story-telling time, IMO.

I agree about the priest DJ, either he's a bad guy, or that was some of the worst script dialogue ever, between them. Or, as you say, he's avoiding her too, that would be a good reason. Otherwise he's a pretty horrible counselor. Heheh, I can't remember any of the names either except for Dimetri since we've talked about him so much, and Olivia, Charlie and Dylan.

And by the way, if that computer chick is only a few months pregnant in her FF, she must have gotten pregnant by a watermelon, she's enormous!

Capcom said...

It just occurred to me that perhaps the babysitter tries to drown herself (thus her feeling of punishment) after the depressing blow-off by the priest, and someone is trying to actually save her. Probably not, but I got the feeling after he succinctly got up and left her that she was going to fall into despair and kill herself.

dj said...

Entirely possible (suicide). Now the real question: will we care by then? Stay tuned...

Greg Tramel said...

i'm thinking Simon & Co used cell phone towers, those that didn't go blackout hacked their cell phones to block the pulse

Greg Tramel said...

actually, i think FF is getting better each epsiode, we enjoyed last week's epsisode

guess we are in the minority from the chatter

i'm thinking Simon & Co pulsed the cell phone towers to pull a major banks heist (i think 1 of the video feeds at the doll factory was a bank vault)

then i have a whackadoo: the pulse was to prevent a UFO from landing

Capcom said...

Do you mean, in that some kind of EMF wave would repell it? Or more like an energy shield to keep it from approach and landing?

Greg Tramel said...

if your asking me Capcom, my whackadoo is the EMF field was created to interfere with alien propulsion systems so they could not enter the field or they would lose power and crash or something like that but i suppose it could also be some kind of star wars defense (Reagan's notion) type protection shield, anyway it is a whackadoo

BUT i DO think using cell phone towers may be the only way to do it worldwide

Capcom said...

::cough!Roswell!cough::

:o) Yes, I was asking you Greg, thanks. That sounds good. And there certainly would be enough cell towers around to blanket an area, you'd think. Are cell towers the microwave towers that are around? I haven't kept up with that radio technology for a while.

Greg Tramel said...

i guess i'm the only one still watching FlashForward (and Dollhouse for that matter)

we may want to look into

Active Denial System

i heard about it on this podcast

The Cosmic Mind

Capcom said...

I'm still watching FF! Even taping it just in case all of a sudden I like it a whole lot and want to rewatch during the hiatus. I keep forgetting to watch Dollhouse on Fridays though. I guess subconsciously, my extreme dislike of Eliza Dushku's constipative acting style forces by brain to forget, haha. Grrr, Arrrrg.

Tx for the links as always. :-)

Capcom said...

One thing I'll say about tonight's ep...Mark better take chill-pill, he's driving his wife towards her FF at full speed. :-p

Greg Tramel said...

i agree capcom, mark was being a full blown jerk, that might be the last straw

so we have Schrödinger's cat AGAIN!

Greg Tramel said...

capcom dollhouse has been focusing on the other characters much more than echo lately so it is MUCH MUCH better

the last 3 or so eps drew me, it's finally found it's pacing and nuance after a disappointing start the very first 5 or so episodes of season 1

you can always watch it on the Fox website and all the other places

that being said it may still be dead in the water

btw, Defying Gravity continued to being shown in Canada so we can probably find the end of the season out there somewhere, i haven't seen them yet but supposedly they give the scoop on wtf beta was

Greg Tramel said...

my favorite guess at the link below is the time travel one

10 best guesses: Who is FlashForward's suspect zero?

Capcom said...

Yes, our Cat! I bet that a lot of the audience's eyes glazed over with that one. :-D

Rats, I'll have to make sure to watch Dollhouse now.

Oh, let's hope so about DG! Yes, in the last ep that ABC showed, they were just about to look into the *SPOILER*! And then they leave us hanging like that! I must remember to hate ABC after Lost is over. :o) I haven't looked on the ABC-DG forum lately, I'll have to check what fans have been saying and doing, especialy as far as a completed airing.

Greg Tramel said...

her's some articles on Defying Gravity

How Defying Gravity would have progressed, straight from the creator

Capcom said...

Sweet, thanks Sir Linksalot!

:-D

Capcom said...

After this week's ep I am beginning to think that they are almost ALL going to make their FFs happen.

Except for the computer chick, don't know what's up with her story now. Pehaps Juliet will give her a mouse embryo to gestate.

I got rather confused by Mark's boss's attutude last week. Mark's got a pretty big secret of his to use for blackmail too (his toilet FF) so where does he get off acting like such an ass to mark about his? But at least he apologized this ep.

Greg Tramel said...

or a bunny embryo

this guy (or rather house wife)thought cell phone towers as well


flashforward addicts

Greg Tramel said...

that should have been HIS wife

i don't think it really means anything but this is the definition of blue hand in the urban dictionary

"Originated at the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo campus. It is a marker in the shape of a blue hand used to deignate where a male has been sexually assaulted or raped."

Greg Tramel said...

this cracked me up

Hollywood Sues FlashForward Websites

Capcom said...

What the.....X-D

Bigmouth said...

Sadly, I'm losing interest, too. The writing just keeps getting worse and worse. Mark seems perpetually peeved, and he doesn't do angry particularly well. Indeed, while Ralph Fiennes and John Cho are solid comedic actors, both suffer a bit when it comes to drama.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that Simcoe and the Hobbit had nothing to do with the blackout. They were probably running some experiment at the same time the flashforward occurred. They will provide scientific insight into its cause, but they are not the true perpetrators. No way.

I think it's increasingly clear someone initiated the blackout to change the future. After all, what better way to ensure the future doesn't happen than by showing trillions of people their futures? Even if many visions come true, many others won't, changing the timeline in important ways.

Bigmouth said...

Also, why the hell didn't they just let Mark's friend speak with an Irish accent? Same question in reverse regarding Robert Knepper's ridiculous Irish accent on Heroes. Why, why, why force actors to speak in unfamiliar accents when it's not necessary to the story?!

Greg Tramel said...

i'm really looking forward to next week's ep but my wife agrees with Big calling it cheesy and stopped watching 3 weeks ago

good point that it could very well be a coincidence that Simon and Co were doing the experiment at the same time a rogue group was causing the blackout but if Lost has taught of anything is that coincidences are more than just coincidences

Greg Tramel said...

i don't watch sports but i figure The Observer form Fringe will probably show up at the World Series

i suppose FF could use a little more viral marketing in addtion to

Truth Hack

Capcom said...

I find it very difficult not to be annoyed by Mark's whiney attitude towards his marriage as well. It could be the addictive aspect of his personality kicking in. But as a trained investigator, you'd think that he'd be able to draw from his analytical expertise to objectively assess his marriage within the FF situation to keep his fears at bay via logic, at the very least. I guess not. So it seems like a cheap tool in the story just to invent conflict between them, to me.

And I also don't understand why Penneh and Feines couldn't have just kept their accents, who cares about that.

I'm still interested in the show, but hoping that it will hit a better stride soon.

Greg Tramel said...

im looking forward to V tonight

V

Wayne Allen Sallee said...

I was cynical of this from the first episode, and waited for others to weigh in with similar feelings. I went from watching the show to taping it to knowing its on Hulu whenever I want to see it.

I like the thoughts on the baptism and the cell towers. This might explain why the blackout occurred when it did, because of the lack of phone towers in Africa, rural China, and elsewhere. China, I suppose, is needed as an adversary of sorts.

But I really do not want to see the same snippets of FFs again and again. We get it! Fore the love of God! I liked when they thought to triangulate the FFs, if one person knew he was talking to the other, compare notes. That's gone nowhere.

The only thing left for me is the curiosity of the event itself. And I cannot see what they can do to get a second season out of this, unless there is some sort of reveal that is beyond my scope of imagining.

If they are using a fair amount of elements from the book, e.g., the cliffhangers episodes equating to cliffhanger chapters, this is a good example of why I avoid about 90% of books being published these days.

Capcom said...

LOL, Wayne, many good points. Especially on the reruns of the FFs. I'd like to see some more of the triangulation myself. And a lot less of computer-girl's abnormally huge 17-week belly.

"V" was pretty good tonight, it kind of jumped ahead quickly time-wise, but maybe I missed something when I was out of the room. I like the actor who plays the priest, he's great in alien TV, he's been in three so far that I know. In Spielberg's "Taken" he was a totally insane military dude. In "4400" and "V" he is one of the good guys.

Interesting link as always Greg! Heheh, my nephew and I celebrate the "V For Vendetta" bonfire day as it's the day before my B-day. :o) So, "V" is not coming back until March?! Gee, ABC, way to keep the viewers' interest in your shows.

Wayne Allen Sallee said...

Wait, what? March? V? I guess I missed something. No, Capcom, it wasn't you leaving the room. I saw two day/time stamps on the bottom of the screen, the second not too far into the program. I thought, crap, another show that can't get its $#!t together. I do not know what was up with that; I can totally accept a passage of time in the first episode to make it believable AND interesting, but I don't think even the newsguy had a line like, Sooo, hot leader chick, you guys have been here, what, a month now... etc.

For anyone who has this week's TV Guide, look at the page for the V characters. I'm always checking out the way people dress in full-length shots for my writing. Elizabeth Mitchell is wearing beige sneakers, and in the last season of LOST she wore the same, I swear. (Maybe they were DI sneakers.) Just stood out because I noticed back then the beige (or tan) thing, I don't know anyone who wears tan sneakers and I thought it was a 70s thing. Find a screencap of Juliet & Sawyer sitting by the sub in 1974.

Capcom said...

My sentiments exactly Wayne. They could have done some interesting storytelling there instead of giving us a fast-forward, haha. And that guy's marathon exposition in the warehouse about how the Vs are infiltrating was kind of weird too, I thought. Oh well.

I noticed Juliet's tan/brown shoes as well, especially when she was drinking on the beach. I figured that I was the only one who took note. Great minds think alike I guess, heheh.

Wayne Allen Sallee said...

I just don't see a heck of a lot of tan sneakers (the beach scene after the freighter blows is a better reference, the bottle of booze is right there in the sand), maybe because white or black goes with everything in the wardrobe.

I liked V, and I'd rather have that speech in the warehouse as it was. Maybe we will get a flashback to before the Visitors show up, one or two characters at a time. I'm sure they did not infiltrate Earth at the same time. Plus, it will be neat to see how the guy who called the meeting knew about the bad guys, but not his friend. When THE INVADERS aired in 1967, each of the aliens in human form had bent pinkies. Hey, it was the 60s.

And I've gotten more enjoyment from V than I have the entirety of FF so far. A time stamp on the screen might be the only thing that would help in future episodes.

Thunderstorm said...

Cap, I remember him from Taken, I really enjoyed Spielberg's Taken. Never watched 4400.

The first half of V got me highly interested, then the warehouse shootout, the outing of the lizards, it got clumsy towards the latter half. I'll check it out again. Funny seeing Bailey Salinger on a ABC Sci-Fi show. First Charlie, now Bailey, his girlfriend see ghosts on that other show...

Flashforward continues to have all the same problems, I 'half-watched' it last week by having it on in the background as I surfed the web during commercials, so I was allowing myself to be distracted and I didn't care.

Quoting Big here
"Also, why the hell didn't they just let Mark's friend speak with an Irish accent? "

hahaha, swear to Jebus, with in the last week or two I googled the actor's name to see where he was from, because I was about to rip him a new one for that accent. Turns out, he's Irish. What the F?

It's sort of a Bostonian accent isn't it? I guess they figured Boston-Irish same difference...uh, no. Unless it's something else, I just don't think it sounds the least bit authentic.

synchrobrarian said...

i felt they revealed just a little TOO much for a 1st ep

Capcom, you gotta love "Alpha" playing the reptilian FBI agent

synchrobrarian said...

hmm how about a:

geomagnetic storm

Capcom said...

D'oh! That's where I've seen him before! X-D BTW, I actually remembered to watch Dollhouse last week, and my station was playing something else, I forget what. I don't think that it was any of the games either. BTW, Go Yankees! *ahem*

Thunderstorm, The 4400 was pretty OK, better in the first couple seasons, but it got cancelled before a resolution was made. The Taken dude played one of the Feds investigating why everyone abducted had returned. It's worth renting if it's available. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_4400

Interesting about the geostorm news. I wonder what would happen if earth's magnetic "shields" broke down (naturally or artificially) and let in some more of the sun's radiation? Even a tiny bit more would create problems. Amazing how our universe is so perfectly balanced.

Greg Tramel said...

Dollhouse is on hiatus until Dec

i HATE these hiatus'

V is going on hiatus at the end of November

Capcom said...

Oh I see, then my local TV guide messed me up last Friday, figures. :-)

synchrobrarian said...

we can't trust those local tv guides because i thought Fringe was back tonite BUT the tv guide in our local paper says baseball

so the world series is not OVER YET??

Thunderstorm said...

Fringe was going to pre-emtped if the Phillies won, but the Yankees put them away, it's over. Fringe should be on tonight as far as I know.

Following up on what I wrote a few weeks ago...

I wonder why the Cop taking a deuce in his FF didn't write himself a note to be reading, not to mention still taking the deuce at all...his buddy Benford has cops after him...he's sitting in the john just reading the paper. How would he not know?

Benford doesn't write himself a note saying "this is real" yet he's standing there in front of that poster board, after having thought about this moment, every minute of every day for the last 3 months.

Bigmouth said...

Oh wow...I just had a thought. What if, in the timeline of the visions, they all experienced a blackout BUT NO FLASHFORWARDS? That is, in the visions, the FBI is investigating the cause of blackouts ONLY with NO foreknowledge of events.

Greg Tramel said...

Big, u lost me there

r u saying the Flashforwards were in a different timeline?

dj said...

He's saying that while as we watch FlashForward, we're watching all our main characters scuttle about with foreknowledge of what's to come because they all saw the future in their visions. This we know.

Big's thought is, well, take Mark for example. Mark saw himself in his office, drunk as a skunk, examining the giant Mosaic board he has going. When Mark wakes up, he remembers this vision, and it is the things he saw in it that ultimate bring him to all the leads he's been following (D Gibbons, blue hand, etc).

But what if the visions all showed a timeline where there were no FlashForwards -- only blackouts? So back to what we know happened... Mark saw himself drunk and checking out Mosaic. But that Mark, the drunk one, actually never experienced a FlashForward six months ago and instead got all those leads through good old-fashioned detective work. But our Mark, the one we've been watching, the one with foreknowledge of all those leads, was fortunate enough to get a glimpse of the future when he blacked out.

And thus, in effect, Mark DID do all that detective work, but somehow someone was able to essentially hack the blackout and show everyone their futures. As a result, our Mark gets all those leads for Mosaic thanks to 1) Mark doing all that hard work for six months with no FlashForward to guide him, and 2) someone hacking the blackout and injecting that six-months-ahead consciousness into the 2 minutes 17 seconds of blackout.

I probably used way too many words to get that across. Ergh.

The idea is though that we're seeing not just a self-fulfilling prophecy show, but a show that essentially displays time-travel or time-manipulation via trying to give people self-fulfilling prophecies for them to put into effect themselves.

Hah, thing is though, uh. If Mark had gotten all those leads legitimately in the original timeline, why bother injecting future consciousness into people to set it into motion? Looks like the same thing would have happened. Maybe people like Mark weren't the objective... maybe someone important will be manipulated by the injected future?

Well, whatever it is, I hope it's good and I hope I care. This show is a pretty big stinker right now. Saying each episode improves upon the previous isn't saying much. And I must admit that I'm really not a fan of the self-fulfilling prophecies, and it looks like that's what the writers are aiming for (this happens because everyone thinks it's going to happen, i.e. there would have been no cause/way for it to occur otherwise/[without visions]).

WTB LOST.

Bigmouth said...

dj: Precisely -- well said!

Capcom said...

I'm not too into the self-fulfilling prophecy either, it's just to darn easy to sabotage yourself like that in real life so that it doesn't seem like an interesting topic for fiction to me.

"Charlie" and Dylan's dad keep saying that they accidently made it happen, so how does that figure into any plan of sorts?

Gosh, I liked Al, I was sorry to see him jump. :-(

dj said...

...hm. OK. I'll give it 'til the end of the season before I pass any more judgment. That episode (7) was actually quite moving and, well, it broke the mold.

Thunderstorm said...

Basically a 'false flash', is the way I read that idea above. They actually blacked out but were 'fed' a vision that didn't really happen. Only one they are supposed to effectuate. This is really the strongest alternative I see, especially after tonight's episode.

I thought it was good, actually. You wonder why they aren't all handled this way. I thought the 'Deer Hunter' Roulette scene was pretty cool. Leoben from BSG is an interesting dude.

Wayne Allen Sallee said...

I like Big's thought and dj's explanation. If only because it changes the way so many of the characters seem to accept their FFs as gospel. If I'm getting this right, the FFs already happened, and however this massive job was completed, the events of the FF were jammed into everyone's consciousness during the blackout timeframe.

I guess this would seem less convoluted if there was some type of technology involved, something that is activated at the moments of the actual FF scenes. This would let a lot of things go into play, the way the everyday dream is affected by real life events from the same day. That is, sure Mark is working on the board, but his guilt over alcoholism bleeds into the FF. Dimitri could have a subconscious fear of dying and therefore his FF was him being dead, regardless of how many other ways than can be explained (sleep, unconsciousness).

The reason this is too much a stretch is because the show is just so bad. Big's comment can be compared to Desmond and the failsafe on LOST. If his consciousness can travel from 2004 back to 1995, it can be considered that on a global scale everyone's consciousness from April 2010 zooms back to October 2009, maybe with a whiplash effect that actually CAUSES THE BLACKOUTS TO END. Maybe the machine (or w/e) that starts running in April can only stay activated for 2 minutes and 17 seconds. It turns off, real-time consciousness turns back on.

Wayne Allen Sallee said...

On a happier note, it looks as if HEROES is done as of May (or sooner). Doesn't affect me either way, I'm just glad half the actors stop getting a weekly paycheck for pretty much saying the same lines with the same tone of voice every time they open their mouths.

Bigmouth said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bigmouth said...

Just a heads up that I decided to repost my comment as a separate entry.