The word is 'PROLEPSIS'

I'm in Southampton at Becky's house. It's very weird. I would like to be a student. I, Student. It's a shame that I'm not. I'm looking for jobs. It would be lovely if I could look for jobs now and not have a job at the same time to have to keep me going. A temporary job is distracting. You know what I mean. Time-consuming, as well. What I mean to say is I want a career. I don't want a job. What are you here for? Careering, probably straight into a job, straight into a wall, the kind of wall that careers straight back into you. Students don't have walls. Doors and windows, but no walls. Who needs all this philosophising anyway? Whatever and whatever else.

Now a flashback. Two nights ago I watched the first episode of Flashforward.

I was slightly apprehensive. I had watched the trailer, it didn't impress me really. However, I decided to give the first episode a go. What ensued was half-good. I was expecting melodrama, and what it was, well it was melodramatic. There's nothing wrong with that, though. So we career onwards into the program itself. It begins by establishing all of the characters, lovely lovely, so that we care about all of them. I don't care about most of them because they all interact with each other as if they're in group therapy. We get to see the status quo, the nice little lives, the houses, and for one character the prelude to a possible suicide. This makes it more fun when the 2 minutes 17 seconds long black out happens. Everyone in the world blacks out. Everyone sees something in their 'blackout' which is more like a vision than a dream - but then with some super sleuthing it is decided that the visions are actually memories of events which haven't yet occurred.

Ah-ha. Now we are getting somewhere. People who haven't had these memories of events which haven't yet occurred are going to die; that's pretty logical: if you see nothing, there's nothing of you existing in the future (which is April 29th, 2010). The media picks up on it, and you see some nice footage of some people on the news talking about these memories of events which haven't yet occurred. Is that getting annoying yet? I'm getting a memory of an event which hasn't yet occurred: I am watching a program about memories which haven't yet occured and I am using the laptop as a battering ram to my head. But that event hasn't yet occurred. For some reason all characters avoid saying "flashforward" like the plague, as if the word doesn't exist in this alternate reality, until Shakespeare in Love says it while being emotional in bed. If the program was called 'Memories of Events Which Haven't Yet Occurred', all the characters would be saying 'flashforward' - do you see what I mean? Shut up Shakespeare!

Am I being unfair? Maybe. I may be being biased, but I did research Flashforward, and did not realise that it was based on a novel of the same name. If Wikipedia counts as research, then yes it was research. The novel sounds pretty interesting, more science fiction than something that is happening 'now', and the blackout for 2 minutes and 17 seconds actually has a cause, shall I say it? It's caused by the Large Hadron Collider. I'll say that much. Perhaps I'm more of a book person. Perhaps I'm a purist. Perhaps perhaps. But let's carry on, shall we?

Despite hiccoughs here and there, for example, Abrams ripping off the pilot of Lost, with the carnage of the plane crash paralleled with the carnage that happens after the blackout on the motorway on the freeway when Shakespeare wakes up; the abuse of situational music every time something vaguely emotional or chilling happens - it makes me not want to listen to what's going on, and rightly so, some of the emotional stuff is ridiculously overdramatic and I wouldn't listen anyway, actually it makes me laugh, so it's a little bit of entertainment over the top of what stupid, teary-eyed waffling they are doing; the fact that this program is also basically just an urban Lost - strangers thrown together because of some fateful event, this time less plausible in its premises (a plane crash versus everyone in the world blacking out for the same time? Over in the first round); of course, also the memories of events which haven't yet occurred thing; despite all this, it has some good points.

The dialogue is believable and enjoyable, and in its very nature it has to be melodramatic at times - if we as an audience are going to believe that everybody blacked out for 2 minutes and 17 seconds and experienced a memory of an event of which hasn't yet occurred yet, then we can believe that these people also actually speak like they do. The characters themselves are bit funny, but on the whole, I'm not irritated by watching them, let's put it at that. Even though there is a little voice in my head, bleating and bleating about how silly the program is, I am addicted to the story, and this is only the first episode. I desperately want Shakespeare and his sidekick to find out what is behind all of the mysteries - I searched for the second episode online as soon as I finished watching the first one. I didn't find it. And I felt like a junkie, I need my next Flashforward fix, I'm a gibbering idiot, I'm hungry for a plate of intrigue. It's something that really needs investigating, and I can't wait until it is fully investigated. Every episode is like a slice of cheescake, but after every bite of the slice I have to eat a peppercorn; lovely, but with a miniscule sphere of shit every so often.

On the train down to Southampton me and Alex watched the second episode. Thirty-five minutes of it. I felt very unfulfilled. Have to wait for tomorrow. Have to wait for tomorrow. Then episode three... what will I do? I'm rocking back and forth in a corner. Help me.