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Rating: Country: U.S.A. Release Date: February 23, 2010 Distributor: ABC Studios Cast: · Joseph Fiennes · John Cho · Sonya Walger · Brķan F. O'Byrne · Courtney B. Vance · Christine Woods · Jack Davenport · Zachary Knighton · Peyton List · Dominic Monaghan Related Sites: · Official Site · IMDb: FlashForward Grade: A

On October 6th of 2009, the world experienced a catastrophic event, nearly the entire population "blacked out" for 2 minutes and 17 seconds, causing mass accidents and deaths and leaving the world to wonder what caused this strange occurrence. We center in on Los Angeles-based FBI Agent Mark Benford (Joseph Fiennes) -- he's a husband, father and recovering alcoholic and he and his partner Demetri Noh (John Cho) are tracking a terrorist meeting right as the event goes down. While in a meeting about the event at their offices, Benford reveals that what he experienced wasn't really a black out, but more a loss of present day consciousness and witnessing events that will occur in his life on April 29th of 2010. There he saw that he was further investigating the event, but also falling off the wagon, and right at that moment he was being tracked in the office by people intent on killing him. And then it comes out from everybody else that what they experienced was a glimpse into their future...

That's a nutshell premise to ABC's FlashForward, a brilliant new series created by David S. Goyer and Brannon Braga and this new DVD set presents the first ten episodes. It's basically a chance to get caught up on the action of the show before the series makes it's return later in March.

Now there's more going on than this -- we're also introduced to Benford's wife, Olivia (Sonya Walger). She's a doctor and in her flashforward, she saw herself in her home and in love with another man. We meet Benford's AA sponsor, Aaron Stark (Brían F. O'Byrne), a L.A. Water and Power technician, and in his flashforward, he saw that his daughter Tracy, a marine killed in Afghanistan, was alive and he was at her side. As mentioned above, we met Benford's partner, Demetri Noh, and he was one of the few who didn't see anything, giving him cause to believe that he'll be dead before April 29th comes around. Also in the FBI office, we meet Benford's superior, Stanford Wedeck (Courtney B. Vance), whose flashforward is embarrassing to say the least and Janis Hawk (Christine Woods), who saw herself pregnant, even though at the present time she wasn't involved with anyone. At Olivia's hospital, she's treating a young autistic boy who was injured in the event, Dylan Simcoe, and through him, meets his father, Lloyd Simcoe (Jack Davenport), who just happens to be the man she saw herself with in her flashforward, and is a lynchpin character in this event.

It's a really good show, and if you haven't seen it, I'd certainly urge anyone reading this to at least give it a shot. It's no secret that Lost is coming to an end on ABC this year, and they've certainly had their success with the show and would obviously like to continue that success, and at least I see FlashForward as the show that ABC is cultivating to continue that success. Now don't get me wrong, I love Lost, but one of the differences that FlashForward has with it is that it's a lot more tightly focused and it's moving forward at a more aggressive clip than what Lost did in it's first season. There's nothing here that really seems like filler, and by the end of the tenth episode, we're left with a game changer -- something that definitely moves this mystery even further forward.

This new DVD set presents the first ten episodes along with three tiny featurettes- one about the making of the visual effects for the first episode and two more talking about what's coming up when the show returns, with one of those actually giving us a full scene from the next new episode. So if you're expecting further, prepare to be disappointed. You'll have to wait until the full season is released to see if there will be more substantial special features. One thing that is included with this DVD set though is a $15.00 Off coupon that goes toward the purchase of the full season set once it's released. Amazon has this priced at $19.99, so it's not really a great deal if you're planning to buy the full season set later down the road (and further, that will be the only way it will be available on Blu-Ray).

When we write these reviews here at The Trades, we have to assign a letter grade to what we're reviewing and so I'm a little torn... FlashForward really is an excellent series, very gripping and involving and features a first-rate cast, but this package is extremely light on special features and considering that ABC has all of the episodes available on their web site, the real value of this set is just for those that want to see this without viewing on their computer and you're better off then just renting this through your local outlet or Netflix. My review grade though will reflect the content of the series, and not the package itself. The series gets high marks, but the package would rate a D. Still, if you haven't seen this yet, or want to get caught up before it returns, this is well worth seeing, but I'd advise it only as a rental.