Dan Liebke's Astonishing Tales

1. No More Good Days
2. White To Play
3. 137 Sekunden
4. Black Swan
5. Gimme Some Truth
6. Scary Monsters And Super Creeps
7. The Gift
8. Playing Cards With Coyote
9. Believe
10. A561984
11. Revelation Zero
12. Blowback
13. Better Angels
14. Queen Sacrifice
15. Let No Man Put Asunder
16. The Garden of Forking Paths
17. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
18. Course Correction
19. The Negotiation
20. Countdown
21. Future Shock

Episode One: No More Good Days

We open the show in the aftermath of a plane crash, surely the boldest opening for a television show since Mork arrived in his egg, lo those many years ago. Dr Jack Shephard, free from Party of Five and blessed with a medical degree, goes to work fixing everybody up. Because– No, wait. That’s the opening to Lost. This is FlashForward and it’s completely different to Lost. For example, the hero’s name isn’t Jack. It’s Mark, which is, like, two whole letters different. Also, it’s not a plane crash on a mysterious deserted island, it’s a freakin’ every-goddamn-thing crash as a result of mysterious worldwide 137-second long blackout-induced glimpses of the future. Also, kangaroos instead of polar bears and Islands In The Stream instead of Y’All Everybody. So, y’see? Very, very different (cute Oceanic Airlines easter egg notwithstanding). Anyways, Jack Mark gets to work with his FBI buddies trying to work out, like, what’s the story with the titular FlashForwards™. They spend the rest of the episode determining that the future flashes to April, 2010 are all internally consistent (suck on that, Godel!). Oh, sure, some people saw futures where they were pregnant, or drunk, or shagging somebody other than their husband, or alive, or dead, or seeing somebody who was dead but is now alive and so on and so forth. But they all weave together in a beautiful tapestry of worldwide precognitive slacking off. Oh, except for one dude, who at the end of the episode is spotted on fuzzy CCTV footage walking around a baseball stadium, awake as all get-out. Hands up who thinks it’s John Locke.

A more detailed, less fib-ridden recap of this episode can be found here

Episode Two: White To Play

With none of those tedious real clues to go by, the FBI team instead turn their attention to Mark’s Crazy Wall o’ Future Index Cards. This time around, the focus is on a mysterious ‘D. Gibbons’. After a fruitless interrogation of the Watchmen artist, they instead turn their cupcake-fuelled attention to a Utah pigeon factory (or some damn thing), which comes over a tad explodey when Mark, his partner Demetri and a doomed random sheriff investigate. Luckily, it’s only the doomed sheriff who explodes, so the other two saunter back to the office where they discover that D. Gibbons spoke via cell phone (while everybody else was a-dozin’) to the mysterious baseball fan from the end of last episode. Ergo, this fan may or may not be a certain ‘A. Moore’. All we know for certain (thanks to FBI techno-wizardry) is that the fan is 5’8″ and weighs 160 lbs and, hence, is ‘almost certainly male’ (presumably this last deduction was aided immeasurably by some enhanced video footage of his penis). Backing up the theory that D. Gibbons is a bad man is Mark’s daughter, Charlie, who, after much worried probing by her parents, declares him to be ‘a bad man’. Once again, as is so often the case with the modern FBI, an eight year old ties the loose ends together. In other news, Mark’s boss, Stan, is declared a ‘genius’. Why? Because he explains away his post-blackout bathroom activities as ‘mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on a urinal drownee’. Oh, George Michael, if only you’d had the Mensa-like nous to concoct a similar excuse.

A more detailed, less fib-ridden recap of this episode can be found here

Episode Three: 137 Sekunden

As most of us predicted, the third episode of this series has all come down to Nazis and dead crows. The Nazi in question is a lying troublemaker – as those blasted Nazis so often are – but he does allegedly have crucial information about why everybody fell asleep for precisely 137 seconds. Excited by the prospect of such chronoknowledge and whipped into a frenzy by the fact that the Nazi’s photo is on his Crazy Wall o’ Future Index Cards (and, in turn, not at all deterred by the fact that the photo is seemingly only on there because Mark just put it on there because that’s where his freakin’ FlashForward™ told him it’d be), Mark and sexy code monkey Janis fly to Munich to make ludicrously generous deals with the Nazi. (At one point, Mark offered him total freedom, a complimentary Blu-Ray player and a lifetime pass to Dollywood in exchange for a more convenient parking spot, before Janis ordered Mark to ‘man up’ on the negotiations.) In the end, the Nazi’s freedom is won with the near-useless information that crows die during FlashForwards™. Whether or not this includes pop sensation Sheryl Crow, the Nazi’s not telling. That wily mass-murderer! In other news, Demetri may not be as doomed as previously advertised, given that his fiancee saw him alive and kicking (presumably not literally) on his wedding day. This is wildly inconsistent with Demetri’s FlashForward™, but the aforementioned fiancee is a smokin’ hot, whip-smart lawyer who is horny as all get-out, so he cuts her some sensible slack. Elsewhere, Mark’s AA sponsor Aaron is digging up his dead daughter’s grave, which I’m almost certain isn’t one of the twelve steps. Lift your game, Aaron! Those first two letters of your name will only get you so far in the AA biz!

A more detailed, less fib-ridden recap of this episode can be found here

Episode Four: Black Swan

Y’know what Mark’s wife, Olivia, is sick of? Doctors who’ve seen too many episodes of House. Oh, sure, it’s fine for Hugh Laurie to hobble around, irritable and blue-eyed and surly to all and sundry, making mind-bending, Emmy-worthy deductive leaps that, out of nowhere, correctly diagnose the patient and save them from an untimely demise at the hands of less erratically awesome physicians. It’s much less fun when your co-workers start doing it to you. And, it’s the least kind of fun when your co-worker (Bryce) turns out to be, like, totally right. You end up in the operating theatre, all scrubbed up, ready to operate the bejeezus out of some uber-calm Bjork fan, then having to abandon it when you realise he’s merely got some kind of melanin disorder that makes one a fan of Icelandic pop. Or some damn thing. “Hey, Bryce,” she says, scrubbing down. “Weren’t you committing suicide in the pilot? Whatever happened to that?” Y’know what she’d also be sick of if she only knew about it? That her predestined future suitor Lloyd is working for a hobbit. ‘Cause that’s just demeaning, even if the hobbit is claiming to be responsible for all the FlashForwards™. Oh that Middle Earth braggart! Elsewhere, Mark and Demetri, with nothing better to do this episode, visit a diner and arrest a fleeing drug dealer. This proves so absurdly beneath their chasing and arresting abilities that they then start punching one another to finish out the scene, before deciding that a kick-ass thing for the FBI to get involved in is, uh, hacking into CIA computers. It’s kinda like punching your partner, only more hi-tech and borderline treasonous. So, points for consistency, I guess.

A more detailed, less fib-ridden recap of this episode can be found here

Episode Five: Gimme Some Truth

It’s tough work being a lesbian in the modern FBI. For one thing, there’s that business with Nazis trying to out you a couple of episodes ago. But, more timelier and relevant to this particular episode, there’s also all this modern hassle of trying to pick up karate-trained lesbian chefs with trash-talk to heterosexual men and first date lies about your availability to answer Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? questions when you’re, in fact, far more concerned with trying to work out where in blazes you picked up a wandering impregnating sperm. And, yet, somehow, Janis manages to successfully traverse these Sapphic, culinary and martially artistic arenas. She wins an annoying alarm clock for her efforts and also gets to avoid a trip to Washington DC, where all the boys get to a) face Senate hearings, b) blackmail the President of the United States, c) perform terrible karaoke renditions and d) get into a rocket launcher fight with random Chinese thugs. Mark tries to call Janis to find out which of these four options is the most unbearably awful, but Janis can’t take the call, thus re-emphasising what a poor choice she would be under the Millionaire hot seat pressure. Oh, sure, she’ll claim that it’s because she’s been shot in the stomach by her own set of thugs. But, c’mon, Janis, when you’re somebody’s Lifeline, you make yourself available, goddammit!

A more detailed, less fib-ridden recap of this episode can be found here

Episode Six: Scary Monsters And Super Creeps

Like I’ve been saying since the very first episode, what this show really needs is a sex-crazed, train-travelling, quantum physicist genius hobbit with a penchant for strangling people, singing Karen Carpenter medleys and hiding in people’s cars. And (at last!) the writers (mostly) deliver. Oh, sure, he doesn’t get much screen time, which is instead spent primarily on the evolving affair between Olivia and Lloyd that hasn’t happened yet but almost certainly will if Mark continues to behave like a dick, which he seems certain to do, given that he can no longer trust Olivia because she’s going to have an affair with this dude Lloyd, possibly because, in the future, he (Mark) is going to be a drunk and untrusting husband, which will no doubt only transpire because his wife is having this affair everybody’s been trying so hard to avoid because it’s so gosh-darn inevitable. Hot damn, if I don’t love me some time-travel nonsense. It’s even gets me hooked on what would otherwise be a middling rom-com drearfest subplot. As Huey Lewis would have said, had he been a more interesting lyricist – “That’s the power of self-fulfilling consciousness-shifting prophecy!”. In other news, Demetri and his backup FBI partner, Al, try to track down a rave party and instead find only a dead body. Which certainly matches my experience. Also, Janis? Feeling much less bullety than she was at the end of last episode, thanks for asking. Although she’d probably recover a lot quicker if Stan would quit hovering at the end of her bed, droning on and on with his numerous hospital gown anecdotes. Doesn’t he have, like, Boss of the FBI work to do?

A more detailed, less fib-ridden recap of this episode can be found here

Episode Seven: The Gift

We learn a lot about Al (Demetri’s backup partner when Mark has a busy ‘squabbling with this wife’ schedule) this episode. For one thing, Al’s a kickass Russian Roulette player. For another, he cares about bird safety and cooking Native American dishes that nobody else wants to eat. But the thing we learn most about Al is that he’s a fan of the scientific method. Oh, sure, one could continue to speculate wildly about whether or not the FlashForwards™ represented an inescapable future, like the rest of his nitwit FBI buddies. Or one could go ahead and conduct an experiment to find the freak out. So, good ol’ Al, in fine Galileo-emulatin’ form, decides to throw an object (ie himself) off a building and see what happens. Given that he was alive in the future, if the future is truly predestined, he should be intercepted by a passing helicopter or land on a perfectly parked mattress delivery truck or grow wings and fly or something. But if the future can be altered, Al will plummet to his death below. And, hey, guess what? Turns out the future can be altered. But Al’s untimely death does mean he cleverly avoids the mind-numbing hassle of submitting the results of his paradigm-busting experiment to the scientific journals. Oh, Al. Splattered like a fox.

A more detailed, less fib-ridden recap of this episode can be found here

Episode Eight: Playing Cards With Coyote

The death of Plummeting Al last week has excited everybody no end, in terms of how the future may not, in fact, be predestined. To celebrate, Simon (the finest quantum physicist in all of Middle Earth) plays poker with Lloyd (merely a Nobel Prize nominee, if you can imagine anybody so stupid). The stakes? Whether or not they tell the world they’re responsible for the whole FlashForward™ thing. The game? Poker. I said that already. Simon is by far the superior poker player, having spent many a youthful night at the Ivy Bush Inn, fleecing lesser Boffins and Brandybucks, in no limit games of Hobbiton Hi-Lo. And yet, he ultimately loses as a result of a combination of overconfidence and an inability to detect basic sleight of hand. Oh, Simon, did you learn nothing from Gandalf’s incessant charlatanry? Other people celebrate the new open-ended future in different ways. Mark and Demetri, for example, start shooting people who have tattoos they don’t like the look of. Hey, they’re FBI. Who’s going to stop them? Aaron, meanwhile, hides his runaway undead daughter from roaming evil military contractors. And Janis? Why, she spends an exciting night working late, downloading a slightly enhanced copy of that fuzzy CCTV footage of the guy who was awake in Episode One and trying to determine whether or not he’s wearing a Green Lantern power ring. Oh, Agent Janis, shine on you crazy diamond.

A more detailed, less fib-ridden recap of this episode can be found here

Episode Nine: Believe

Hands up who wants to hear more about Bryce? Oh, come on. You know who I’m talking about. Bryce! Big Bad Bryce! The guy who tried to commit suicide in the pilot but was hampered by a bout of FlashForward™ing. Old Bryce. The Bryce-meister. Bryce, Bryce Baby. Yeah, we all want to know more about his story. Don’t we? Shhh. Of course we do. Be nice to Bryce. He has cancer, don’t you know. Yep, that’s right. Cancer. Exactly. And not just any old cancer. Terminal cancer. And he hasn’t told anybody about it because he’s brave. Brave Bryce. According to his FlashForward™, Brave Bryce’s girlfriend of the future is Keiko. She’s a Japanese, guitar-playing roboticist who disapproves of tea. Multi-faceted! Alas, the pair of them are as dull as dishwashers, which make an episode of following them around as they utterly fail to meet up with one another a little bit of a snoozefest. On the marginally less tedious side, Mark’s summoned all his FBI training in a bid to unravel his most puzzling mystery so far – ie, who texted Olivia with details about his future drunkenness. He narrows it down to two candidates – Aaron, who reacts to the accusation by throwing folding chairs around and Stan who, with no folding chairs handy,  instead refuses to allow Mark and Demetri to go traipsing off to Hong Kong on a whim.  Of course, they go anyway. Because who listens to Stan, anyway? Man doesn’t even have folding chairs in his office.

A more detailed, less fib-ridden recap of this episode can be found here

Episode Ten: A561984

So, snickering all the way over the Pacific, Mark and Demetri eventually arrive in Hong Kong, where they take a phone call from Stan who orders them to get, like, totally back home before he, uh, orders them back home some more. “No way,” says Mark. “I’m from the FBI. I can do whatever I want, even if that means wandering the streets of a foreign country, accosting innocent shopkeeps, upturning restaurant tables as part of a temper tantrum and kidnapping and threatening to shoot Eartha Kitt voice impersonators simply because they claim I’m the person who is going to shoot Demetri in the future.” “Wait a second,” says Demetri. “What was that last bit again?” Meanwhile, back in the States, Simon and Lloyd admit responsibility for the FlashForwards™ and, like, the accompanying mass deaths. Simon is therefore immediately recruited into Project Mosaic by a rather lonely Stan, where he (Simon) explains that the tower thingummy in Somalia is one he awesomely designed but for which the technology doesn’t exist to build just yet. When Janis points out that the tower not only has been built, but was built before Simon even thought of it, he predictably sulks like a petulant genius hobbit-child. Lloyd, on the other hand, doesn’t get recruited by Mosaic. He is instead sneered at by everybody he bumps into (for, like, all the deaths and stuff he caused – also, the incessant bumping – look where you’re going Lloyd!), then flirts outrageously with Olivia, talking saucy ‘many worlds hypothesis’ talk before he is kidnapped and driven off into the closing credits by evil ambulance drivers (as if there are any other kind!).

A more detailed, less fib-ridden recap of this episode can be found here

Episode Eleven: Revelation Zero

Several long, hiatus-ey months later, we return to find that Lloyd is still kidnapped. By, as it turns out, the infamous and evil dental hygiene spokesvillain Flosso. Not only that, but Flosso has also tasered Janis with an electric toothbrush and, hence, kidnapped Simon as well. In accordance with the fundamental principles of dentistry, Flosso welcomes Simon to his underground dungeon by chopping one of his fingers off and spitting cigar ash in his face. He then interrogates Lloyd about tartar control and the details of their FlashForward™-inducing experiments before eventually unleashing the stunning revelation that their experiment didn’t cause the FlashForwards™ at all! Also, that the need for regular brushing is a myth perpetuated by the giant toothpaste conglomerates! Undeterred by the high quality of these startling disclosures, Mark comes up with his own jaw-dropping plot point. Namely, that he can reverse his car through a brick wall and rescue Simon and (begrudgingly) Lloyd from certain doom. Also, that another FlashForward™ is coming! Mark’s content to leave us on that thrilling reveal, but Simon uses his precocious intellect to deduce that this is a double episode of the show and hence, he (Simon) has plenty of time to traipse off to Canada, elude Janis semi-effortlessly and several times over while filling us in on his secret past as Flosso’s sidekick (The Fluoride Kid). He also finds time to reveal that he’s Suspect Zero (the awake dude from Episode One, remember?), quote Shakespeare and murder the snot out of Flosso. Simon Brandybuck, Renaissance Hobbit. And vale, Flosso! We shall miss your unbridled, orthodontic evil.

A more detailed, less fib-ridden recap of this episode can be found here

Episode Twelve: Blowback

So, remember Aaron? He’s Mark’s AA sponsor and, as we all know, when his daughter is kidnapped by America’s premier Private Army/Children’s Birthday Party-Planning corporation Jericho, he’s capable of unleashing all kinds of vengeful batshit-crazy superspy antics such as getting into fist fights with duplicitous ‘friends’, sabotaging the electrical system of mansions, tapping phone lines and making not-particularly veiled threats to Jericho’s CEO that culminate in dangling a tied-up underling’s body upside-down from the mansion roof. Hmm? What’s that? You don’t remember Aaron as being capable of any of this? You remember his previous most extreme act of violence as half-assedly throwing a chair in Mark’s general vicinity? Yeah, that’s true, but would you have rather I spent this summary talking about Ol’ Bullet-Womb Janis moping around fertility clinics trying to get pregnant? Or about Demetri and Zoey squabbling about whether or not she should be ruining his job by attempting to save his life (or, indeed, vice-versa)? Or about Mark and Lloyd squabbling over acronyms while reliving the latter’s FlashForward™ tryst with the former’s wife? Exactly. We work with what we have, people.

A more detailed, less fib-ridden recap of this episode can be found here

Episode Thirteen: Better Angels

Tourism Somalia (slogan: ‘Meet A Warlord! Or Your Money Back‘) has finally worked its magic on Demetri, Janis, Vogel and Simon who have therefore chartered the next helicopter over there. Within milliseconds, Tourism Somalia makes good on its sloganly promise and the four of them are kidnapped by a warlord. The aforementioned warlord immediately proves his menace by brutally slaughtering all non-regular cast members in their party. Ha ha ha! That’ll teach them. He then goes on to explain how he became a warlord after his FlashForward™ showed him mongering war at some form of future public gathering (possibly a Whitney Houston concert). Luckily, Janis sets him straight by clarifying that he is not a warlord in the future, but rather Abraham Lincoln! Or some damn thing. Frankly, I lost track at some point and since Vogel eventually killed him totally, like, dead, it scarcely seemed worth my while to try and sort out. In non-Somalian news, Bryce flamboyantly comes out of the cancer closet to Nicole. This is as precisely (to four decimal places!) as tedious as it sounds.

A more detailed, less fib-ridden recap of this episode can be found here

Episode Fourteen: Queen Sacrifice

(stifled yawn) Sorry, but boring old Bryce and equi-boring Keiko are back, spending vast chunks of this episode continuing their epic quest to, like, totally not meet up with one another. Instead, chemotherapy-addled Bryce is planting a smooch on Nicole. And Keiko? Why, she’s getting a job as an illegal greasemonkey at a car repair shop owned by local mechanic and renowned Orlando Bloom-lookalike Emil and is then being hauled off to Illegal Immigrant’s Prison almost immediately (stifled yawn again). In other news, it seems there’s a mole in the FBI camp, a fact deduced by that man Vogel via the underrated method of, uh, belting out smash hit Stevie Wonder tunes. Mark tries to trump Vogel by deducing the identity of the mole via keen observation of sugar cubes. This is a perfect summary of the cool-factor difference between the CIA and the FBI. Anyway, as you’d expect, Mark eventually tracks down the mole and, after a lot of inept tomfoolery and wayward shooting and butchered fellow FBI agents, arrests her. However, and as you’d also equally expect, he’s got the wrong woman entirely. Because the mole is Janis! How do we know? Because a different angle of her FlashForward™ sonogram shows that she’s going to give birth to a baby moleling!! (No, not really. But how awesome would that have been? Answer: Approximately ten zillion times more awesome than Bryce and Keiko’s ongoing non-interactive subplot.)

A more detailed, less fib-ridden recap of this episode can be found here

Episode Fifteen: Let No Man Put Asunder

Turns out Demetri’s due to be shot in, like, three days time! Wow! Doesn’t time fly when you take a four month hiatus from a show? Anyway, with no time to lose, Mark and Demetri get to work trying to track down either a) Dyson Frost (nee D Gibbons), b) Mark’s missing murder-gun or c) something to eat (maybe a kebab? Mark’s starving). Inevitably they fail at all three and instead waste half the episode dealing with some other random insane hostage-taker completely. Whatever. Frustrated by this pair’s patented incompetence, Dyson Frost takes matters into his own hands and kidnaps Demetri on his (Demetri’s) impromptu wedding day. Good for him. Man’s working to a schedule – he can’t be delayed by these jackasses’ half-assedry. And hey, you know who’s also fed up with Mark and Demetri’s ineptitude? Stan the Man, that’s who. So fed up is he that he commandeers Aaron to go over to investigate Afghanistan paramilitary shenanigans. Oh, sure, Aaron’s dangerously untrained and almost certainly soused out of his skull when the camera’s off. But at least he’s… um… got a kickass beard going. Right? In other news, Mark and Olivia’s kid, Charlie, is organising a play date where Olivia and Lloyd can smoulder with sexual tension. Oh, Charlie. You know how most divorcing parents go out of their way to reassure their children that the collapse of the marriage has nothing whatsoever to do with them? Yeah, you’re not gonna get that.

A more detailed, less fib-ridden recap of this episode can be found here

Episode Sixteen: The Garden of Forking Paths

So, it’s the day of Demetri’s predestined death. Conveniently, then, the evil Dyson Frost has locked him into a needlessly elaborate death trap. Which makes a lot more sense than locking him in, say, a crab trap. (Not 100% sure who among the cast is predestined to get crabs, but based on her general sleep-around-with-physicists-who-aren’t-your-husband-iness, I’m gonna go with Olivia.) Anyway, needless to say, Mark is doing his usual humourless utmost to rescue Demetri and prevent the predestination. Because he’ll be damned if he’ll be beholden to one logically consistent timeline. And so through a determined combination of gasoline-spittin’, car-stealin’ and Dr Seuss-recitin’, he manages to save Demetri from being shot through the heart. Also, Evil Dyson Frost? Totally shot by that blonde chick from about thirty episodes ago who escaped earlier this episode with the aid of rogue LA window-washers (curse their souls!). In other news, Olivia’s befriending savants. Where, by ‘befriending’ I mean, of course, ‘snippily dismissing despite the fact they have obvious clues that will help unravel the entire mystery of the show’. Nice work, Olivia.

A more detailed, less fib-ridden recap of this episode can be found here

Episode Seventeen: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

Hey, remember that ‘Bert is Evil’ site that all the kids went mad for a few years back? The one where images of Bert (yes, of ‘and Ernie’ fame) were photoshopped into famous photos from history? Yeah. Turns out Olivia’s got her own personal version, except instead of Bert from Sesame Street it’s Gaius Baltar from Battlestar Galactica. Which is the next best thing, surely? Baltar is the savant from last episode and while Olivia initially tries hard to replicate her ‘snippily dismissing’ stance from then, she eventually goes along with Baltar’s nonsense long enough to discover that Dyson Frost was working with savants to develop FlashForward™ technology. Or some damn thing. In other news, Janis the Mole turns out to be a double-Mole! In that while she’s supposed to be secretly working for the bad guys, she’s double-secretly working for Vogel and the CIA. Make up your mind, Janis! Still, despite her renewed ‘good guy’ claims, she’s still running around in the middle of the night, dressed as a ninja, stealing valuable pieces of evidence from Mark’s Wall o’Clues. Not a hundred percent sure why, but I’m sure it has something to do with the fact that Mark’s an insufferable horse’s ass. Also, what show doesn’t need more pregnant ninjas?!

A more detailed, less fib-ridden recap of this episode can be found here

Episode Eighteen: Course Correction

So, look who’s back! It’s that British MI6 chick! She’s investigating an LA murder, because apparently the UK is all out of crime. Hmmm? What’s that? You don’t remember her? Then what about the woman who was destined to die until Al jumped off a building to (inexplicably) save her. Because, yeah, she’s back too. Hmm? Don’t remember her either? Or Al? Huh. But surely you remember the Blue Hand group, the rave party-based organisation made up of people who didn’t have a FlashForward™ because they were supposed to be dead? No? How about their creepy leader? Not really? Well, never mind. This episode’s all about the British MI6 chick trying to prevent the creepy leader of the Blue Hand group from killing the woman who was destined to die until Al jumped off a building to save her, but instead running her (the woman who was destined to die until Al jumped off a building to save her) over with her (British MI6 chick’s) car, because she’d forgotten which side of the road the Yanks drive on. Which would be a more effectively ironic twist if anybody remembered who any of these goddamn people were. In news about characters who may not have escaped our memory, Simon steals a ring, Bryce suddenly doesn’t have cancer any more and Mark busts in on Lloyd and Olivia in a post-brain scan snog. Hands up who wishes we’d forgotten about this lot too?

A more detailed, less fib-ridden recap of this episode can be found here

Episode Nineteen: The Negotiation

Olivia’s still trolloping up the entire show with her ongoing quest to floozy it up with any man who isn’t her husband. Granted, her husband is Mark. But, still… for better, for worse, for surly, for surlier and all that. People, pay attention to who is standing across from you when you do the whole wedding ceremony thing. Anyways, she’s now spending a lot of her time with Baltar, who is, like, totally batshit crazy but, having been on an actual successful show for four seasons, is still a much better option than Lloyd (boring) or Mark (Mark-like). Sensibly then, Mark decides to save his marriage by dressing up as Baltar. Less sensibly, he gets distracted and instead runs off on FBI nonsense, capturing bad guys of some ilk. I dunno. I kinda blacked out myself for large chunks of this episode. In other news, Simon shags some woman who then tries to steal his fedora. As I understand it, Simon’s epic quest to recover his hat would have been the thematic basis of the entire second season had the show been renewed. Curse you, network executives and your cancel-happy trigger-fingers!

A more detailed, less fib-ridden recap of this episode can be found here

Episode Twenty: Countdown

The day of the FlashForward™ is here! And, while some characters are doing their best to live up to their predestined futures (Zoey obediently catches a plane to Hawaii, Aaron hangs out with his daughter in Afghanistan, Nicole plans to enter an apple-bobbing competition, Boring Old Bryce boringly hangs out in his boring old bar, etc), others decide to give Fate/the writers a tougher time of it (Aaron’s daughter Tracy dies rather than lives, Demetri lives rather than dies (pair of muddle-heads!), Janis blows off her ultrasound in favour of running around with gun-toting Simon, Keiko blows off her meeting with Boring Old Bryce in favour of a court-mandated flight to Japan, etc). And then there are those who could go either way. Lloyd, for example, is gung-ho for a no-holds-barred shagging session with Olivia (“it’s what the universe demands, damn it!”), if he can just work out, uh, where she is (HINT: she’s guest-starring in the Lost finale, Lloyd!). Mark, too, has managed to get himself happily drunk off his scone, as predicted. But he’s also got himself flung into jail, rather than his office. Tsk. How are the gunmen going to kill him in prison? Nobody’s ever killed there! So those two are doing their best to make the plot work. But it’s all kind of half-assed. Much like everything else to do with this ultimately disappointing show, I guess.

A more detailed, less fib-ridden recap of this episode can be found here

Episode Twenty-One: Countdown

Stan inexplicably bails Mark out of prison and takes him back to FBI Headquarters, which is laced with dozens of inconvenient bombs. Stan lays down the law. “Stay in the car. Under no circumstances are you to sneak back into your office, deduce that there is another FlashForward™ coming in fifteen minutes time and then spend those fifteen minutes engaged in an extended tribute to Die Hard as you use guerilla tactics and elevator dings to pick off your predestined assailants before attempting to leap out of a window as the building explodes behind you.” “Gotcha,” says Mark, and then proceeds to do exactly that. Jackass. In other news, Olivia changes her mind and heads back to her house to make out with Lloyd (helps him think!), Keiko’s mother changes her mind and creates a distraction so Keiko can sneak away and meet up with Boring Old Bryce, Janis changes her mind and decides she’ll collapse with pregnancy pain and go get that ultrasound after all, Janis’s doctor changes her mind and decides the baby’s now a boy, Nicole changes her mind and drives into a convenient lake where somebody totally undrowns her and Tracy changes her mind and comes back to life. Chicks, huh? Oh, and as everybody settles down for their second FlashForward™, that bloody kangaroo returns to hop around like a total pouch-wielding showoff. What’s that, Skip? You’re the mastermind behind everything? Wow. Can’t wait to see how that plays out next season…

Hmmm? Oh. Okay.

A more detailed, less fib-ridden recap of this episode can be found here

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