FlashForward Review: What about Free Will?

“FlashForward” continues to engage viewers by advancing its plot at a moderately clip, something that is unusual for most TV serials. In the show’s pilot, we learned that everyone suffered a two-minute blackout, save one person. We also learned that people who “saw the future” during their blackouts, also saw each other or recalled seeing the same things during their experiences. In Friday’s episode, “White to Play,” we learned that there is more than one person out there who didn’t blackout. We also learned that events are beginning to unfold in the manner the blackouts foretold.

People who didn’t see their futures are now expected to die. Those who did see their futures are now meeting strangers from their future, and so on. But the issue that begs for exploration is whether the future is predetermined. In the last two episodes, characters have asked the question, but not one of them has had a meaningful discussion, count and counter-point, about whether the future is set or if human will can alter it. “FlashForward” has the platform to engage viewers in a bold and substantive debate of those questions. Will it gloss over meaty questions about the nature of life and science and instead go for easy melodrama as “Defying Gravity,” a show that has been cancelled for being sci-fi light, recently did?

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