According to SciFi Wire, English actor James Callis, who portrayed Battlestar Galactica’s Gaius Baltar, is joining the cast of FlashForward to play a major role in several episodes towards the end of the season.

There’s also more on the departure of former showrunner, David Goyer, and news of a FlashForward clip show. All this, below the break.

FlashForward co-showrunner Jessika Borsiczky on Callis’ arrival:

“When I watched Battlestar, every time he wasn’t in a scene I couldn’t wait for him to come back,” said Borsiczky. “And I really wanted to have an opportunity to work with him. Honestly, since the show was ordered, we’ve been excited to work with him. And I so just cast him in our show. He’s playing a big role in some of the final episodes this season, and it was for that very reason.”

On his character’s role:

“I don’t actually want to tell you anything about the character, because he’s a really exciting, unusual character. So I think it’s going to be fun for the audience. He’s going to be involved with Olivia’s trajectory … some of Olivia’s journey.”

On the behind the scenes changes, including the departure of show-runner David Goyer, Borsiczky said that they “always anticipated David would leave to go do movies”, and that the team was prepared for it. Leaving mid-way through the season is a bit much though, really. I’m not convinced that was ever the plan so it can’t have been easy. But hopefully the new stewards can take the show forward, because it really needs fresh impetus.

There’s also going to be a clip show to bring people up to speed on the story so far. This will air some time before the show returns on March 18th. I doubt I’ll watch – clip shows are usually dumbed down rehashes of what I already know. Not sure I could sit through that! However, I’m sure it will be useful to those ‘new’ viewers who ABC want to capture and bring up to date.

In a recent interview, FlashForward producer David Goyer spoke about the answers that are coming our way (including the Suspect Zero reveal) once the show returns from its mid-season break on March 18th.

Head below the jump to see what he had to say on the matter (mild spoilers).

“In our first episode back we answer a ton of big questions,” Goyer promises. “And in pretty much every episode after that, too.”

Among the reveals to come: On March 18, we will learn the identity of Suspect Zero, the individual who was seen awake during the otherwise worldwide nap.

Fancast asks: Is Suspect Zero someone we have met or seen before?

“Maybe,” Goyer hedges.

Also, Goyer says something rather jaw-dropping happens for Janis, the lady fed played by Christine Woods.

[via]

FlashForward returns to ABC with all brand new episodes on March 18th at 8PM.

TV Guide interview FlashForward’s Christine Woods.

TV Guide spoke to FlashForward’s Christine Woods on how Al’s death will provide sadness and hope, Janis’ return to the team, the Already Ghosts, Simon’s role in the blackout and more.

Check it out after the jump (mild spoilers):

TVGuide.com: How will Al’s suicide affect the team on a personal as well as a professional level?
Christine Woods: I think that, at any time, if you lose a fellow soldier or a colleague, especially in law enforcement, it’s a big blow. I think that that element is kind of typical. In terms of the flashforward and changing the future, he gave us a lot of hope. It’s sad in a sense that he’s gone, but now things could possibly change.

TVGuide.com: Will the public find out about Al soon and the fact that he has changed the future to a certain extent?
Woods: There’s a certain part of the FBI that has kept it under wraps, but I think the world starts to form an opinion about whether or not the future is certain based on what he did.

TVGuide.com: When will Janis return to the team? Last time we saw her, she was still recovering in the hospital.
Woods: She’ll be back this week. She is back at work, business as usual. She’s a little taken aback by what’s happened with Al. I think that when you almost die, you question a lot about: “Am I in the right job? Do I have the right life choices? Am I doing the right things with my life?” She questions, but she stays at work.

TVGuide.com: Does that influence the role she plays in the investigation or the dynamic of the team?
Woods: I think that there is an element that she’s a little skittish. She’s a little unsure. Now its scary because she’s been attacked based on the investigation she’s still working on. That’s always scary, when you think that it could happen again.

TVGuide.com: The last time we saw Janis in the hospital, she sustained injuries that would make it near impossible for her to get pregnant and she was visibly upset. She didn’t necessarily want to get pregnant so what was it that really upset her so much?
Woods: I think that whole thing is you don’t know how much you love something until it’s gone. The idea of never being able to have children kind of shocks you, the option is taken away. I think that for men and women, that’s very scary.

TVGuide.com: What aspects of Janis’ personal life we will see in the future?
Woods: We will get to know her a little bit more in terms of her upcoming challenges with thinking of whether or not she wants to be a mom. We’ll learn what her plan is in terms of raising a family or not and that will be kind of interesting.

TVGuide.com: We’ve only seen little bits and pieces about Lloyd (Jack Davenport) and Simon (Dominic Monaghan)’s role in the blackout but can you tell us what’s ahead for them?
Woods: I may or may not have scenes with them [laughs]. They’re the delicious center of the cookie but you see a lot more of them coming up. [Fans will] feel satisfied with how much you get to know them in the next few episodes.

TVGuide.com: What is coming up for the blue-hand group (Already Ghosts)?
Woods: The saga slightly continues in this next episode. We will learn more … There’s always going to be an element about the counter-culture of the flashforward. That was a small element; the people disillusioned and saddened because of the flashforward. There will be more collections of people like that who will meet throughout the series.

TVGuide.com: How has it been reading the scripts and learning these big developments as they come along?
Woods: I read the Al script and I burst into tears. Reading the scripts is so unbelievable, it’s like reading a novel and new pages come out every couple of weeks. It’s certainly not ordinary and its never, ever boring because of how confused you are.

TVGuide.com: Have you been able to get hints as to what’s coming up from the writers or is it very secretive?
Woods: We pump them for information constantly. I think sometimes they just lie to us to put us off the scent a little bit. I’ll try to bribe the writers … One of the writers really likes candy so I’ll be like, “Here, you want candy? Tell me the secret.” But they never tell us [laughs].

[source: TVGuide]

In this latest FlashForward round-up, Sonya Walger talks about the show, a new recurring cast member is revealed and we find out why FlashForward is doing big things in the DVR ratings.

Sonya Walger spoke to Popeater about her role on FlashForward:

I heard that you didn’t hesitate to take on another complex show because you didn’t even think of ‘Lost’ when reading the script for ‘Flash Forward.’ What do you think now after hearing all the critical comparisons between the show?

“It’s inevitable that we’d be compared to ‘Lost.’ I think anytime you have a show with a big main central cataclysmic event and a large group of people are reeling from it, invariably it gets compared to ‘Lost.’ It doesn’t feel like ‘Lost’ to me at all. It feels like a very different show. It feels very much embedded in the real world. The big political field of what’s going on, and on a personal level, how people are dealing with what they’ve seen. The emotional ramifications. It’s very embedded in the world we live in. You keep seeing shots of Los Angeles on fire and the White House half destroyed. You know, there’s a global scale to it. I think the comparisons will tail off as the show progresses.”

I think it’s the giant secret that is the common element.

“Yeah, exactly. The secrecy about it and the gradual revealing of stories and story lines, all of which start paying off more and more as you watch. It’s not like you have to wait for season 6 for everything to be revealed. There are lots of payoffs as the show continues.”

I have to ask… are you coming back to ‘Lost’ for the final season?

“I hope so. We’ll see. I’ve got no idea.”

Would the decision have anything to do with your schedule on ‘Flash Forward’?

“I doubt it. I think [writer/directer David S.] Goyer is such a fan of ‘Lost’ and always has been. If there were any conflicts, I’m sure he’d be happy to make room for me to go off and do it. So we’ll have to see. It’s so out of my hands – I don’t even know.”

In ‘Flash Forward,’ we’ve only seen a glimpse of your vision of the future. I heard something about Lloyd (Jack Davenport) getting a text message?

“In his flash forward, he gets out of bed because he gets a message from someone. It will be surprising to everyone when they find out who it is.”

Continue reading..

Entertainment Weekly have the latest FlashForward casting news:

It looks like actress Paula Newsome of Women’s Murder Club fame will be joining the forward-leaning thriller for a few episodes in the not-so-distant future.
Newsome will play a doctor (maybe a certain unwillingly pregnant agent’s OB/GYN?) for an arc that will likely begin airing in early 2010.

According to E! Online, FlashForward is the most DVR’d new show on TV:

ABC got to brag that the Thursday night series is TV’s most DVR’d freshman, packing on nearly 2 million viewers over the course of a week. In the latest Nielsen rankings, the show finished 29th, with a 9.9 million viewers (and counting).

Here’s a round-up of FlashForward tidbits from the last few days.

FlashForward was up in ratings from the previous week, as reported by TVByTheNumbers:

8-9pm: ABC freshman FlashForward finished second against its non-sports competition in the 8 o’clock hour to CBS’ veteran Survivor in Adults 18-49 (3.0/9), leading NBC’s comedies (Community/Parks and Recreation) by 50% (2.0/6). Among Adults 18-34 (2.5/8), FlashForward stood as the #1 non-sports program in hour, ranking as the top-rated series in the slot for the 5th week in a row. The ABC freshman led the hour overall with Women 18-34 for the 5th straight week. Despite increased competition in the hour week to week from baseball and Survivor, FlashForward increased its overall audience by 8% from the prior Thursday (9.8 million vs. 9.1 million).

FlashForward showrunner Marc Guggenheim has stepped down, leaving creator/EP David Goyer to ‘fly solo’ according to The Hollywood Reporter:

There’s been a change at the helm of another freshman drama recently picked up for a full season, ABC’s “FlashForward.”

Co-showrunner/executive producer Marc Guggenheim is leaving the series, with co-creator/exec producer David Goyer stepping in as sole showrunner.

The move follows a similar switch last week on CBS’ freshman drama “The Good Wife.” Showrunner/exec producer Dee Johnson, also brought in after the pilot, has departed, handing the reins to co-creators/exec producers Michelle and Robert King.

Because of Goyer’s limited hands-on TV series experience, “Eli Stone” co-creator Guggenheim was brought in after the “FlashForward” pilot to help with the launch of the mystery drama based on Robert Sawyer’s novel.

After learning the ropes in a co-showrunner capacity on the original 12-episode order of “FlashForward” alongside Guggenheim, Goyer will fly solo for the series’ back-nine order.

Guggenheim will focus on development under his overall deal with “FlashForward” producer ABC Studios.

TV Guide talk to Sonya Walger about what’s coming up on FlashForward:

TVGuide.com: Were you nervous about joining another mythology-heavy show?
Walger: No, not at all. It’s funny, I didn’t even think of Lost when I read that script. It sounds bizarre or naïve, but I really didn’t. I read the script and I was so excited by the writing and by this character, by this woman who is complicated and says ‘I hate you’ to her husband when she means ‘I love you.’ She’s a professional and a surgeon and a mother. I didn’t see any similarities to Lost. I honestly still don’t. I see them as big shows that have one big exciting event, the catalyst that gets it all going with an ensemble cast. I see that, but after that they just part ways. There isn’t a mythology to FlashForward in the same way. There’s not codes to decipher … There’s not islands moving and polar bears and smoke monsters, that’s not in our show … yet anyway.

TVGuide.com: Did you ever work with Dominic Monaghan on Lost?
Walger: This is the joke of me being a part of Lost, I haven’t met three-quarters of that cast. I’m not kidding. I would be as star-struck as you would be if I met Matthew Fox. I actually only met Dominic on a photo shoot for FlashForward — that was the first time we met. He comes into play in quite a significant way in this show. I can’t really tell you anymore than that. He’s a good part of it.

TVGuide.com: We haven’t seen all of Olivia’s flash-forward. What can you tease about what we haven’t seen?
Walger: In the flash-forward, the bit that you have seen is that Lloyd [Jack Davenport] gets up from the bed and gets a text message from someone. The person he gets a text message from is very, very unexpected.

TVGuide.com: Can Mark and Olivia’s marriage survive this flash-forward?
Walger: Who knows? I think it’s completely fascinating that just the ghost of this might be what undoes their marriage, or it might be what strengthens them and keeps them together. It might be the tension of it alone [that] drives Mark to drink. It’s such an interesting idea that just the threat of something might be what leads you towards it. It may well be that they get to a breaking point and then say, ‘No, this isn’t happening to us. We’re going to make this work.’

TVGuide.com: Do you have any personal belief in fate?
Walger: I don’t really. The word fate doesn’t really mean much to me in some ways. I think we make our own. Minute by minute you decide who you are and who you’re likely to be. You make the choices hour by hour, just in the present. I don’t believe there’s some roadmap laid out that we’re headed towards.

TVGuide.com: Give us a nice tease for what’s coming up for Olivia.
Walger: She’s going to be forced quite soon to deal with whether or not you can change the future. She keeps being reminded — evidence keeps being presented all around her — that you can’t change it. Every time she thinks she’s seen the last of Lloyd and that she’s managed to avoid it, he keeps coming back.

You can read the “LOST” part of the interview here.

A few people have been asking for the name of the song from the start of 1.04 Black Swan. It’s probably easier for us to post it here -- the song was “It’s Oh So Quiet”" by Bjork. Here it is again:

Meanwhile, if forums are your thing, check out WeFlashForward for some great discussion on all things FF.

Continue below the jump for news of the latest FlashForward ratings, watch the Canadian 137 Sekunden promo, and find out who’s landed a recurring role on the show..and more.

The second episode of FlashForward - White To Play, received 10.78 million viewers -- as reported by Digital Spy this is healthy retention from the season premiere.

Here’s the Canadian FlashForward promo for 137 Sekunden:

The Guardian label FlashForward “the fastest selling Disney series ever”:

Flashforward, the high-concept US drama series, has become the fastest-selling Disney series of all time, and broadcasters around the world are showing it as quickly as possible in a bid to beat piracy.
The programme, in which an unexplained event makes people around the world see into their future after blacking out for two minutes, has premiered in Britain on Channel Five, in Australia and even been dubbed into Russian within days of its US premiere. “Even before Mipcom begins we have sold it to 100 territories, already making it the fastest-selling series in our history,” said Disney Media Networks president global distribution Ben Pyne on the opening day of TV trade festival MIPCOM. He said persuading other networks to premiere the programme quickly was part of a new policy.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, “Sleeper Cell” star Michael Ealy will have a recurring role on FlashForward.

Here’s another FlashForward series promo, Spanish style:

Click through the jump for a round-up of the latest post-worthy news and views from the world of FlashForward:

Joseph Fiennes offers hints of what’s to come in FlashForward (mild spoilers):

[AP]

For those of you just getting up to speed, Joseph Fiennes outlines the premiere of FF:

[ABCSource]

Sonya Walger spoke to Latina.com about relationships and hope in FlashForward:

Tell us about your Flash Forward character Olivia Benford.

Olivia is a trauma surgeon. She’s a dedicated doctor and the wife of Mark Benford (Joseph Fiennes) who is an FBI Agent. They’ve been married for seven years—maybe 8—and he’s a recovering alcoholic so he’s in a program—and they’ve clearly had some bumpy times in their marriage in the past. But they’re in a good place now. They’ve got a little girl named Charlie, and I think the condition is for as long as he’s sober, their marriage works. But she has said to him before that if he drinks again, she’ll leave him. With him being in the FBI and her being a surgeon—they are a busy couple.

What do you think draws Olivia to Mark?

That’s a good question. I think she loves what a good dad he is, and how devoted he is to Charlie. I think she feels very loved by him as well. She knows he battles with these demons all of the time and there’s nothing she can do about them. I think that’s the endless battle of being with anyone who has an addiction—it’s not about you, it’s about how much support you’re willing to give. So I think they have a real profound connection, but I think it’s been tested over the years.

I watched the pilot and I think Olivia may have some demons too. Does she?

That’s interesting. I think if Olivia has any demons it’s her work ethic—her completely massive focus on work. Maybe she’s taken that to an extreme in the past. Yeah, I’m sure she has some demons of her own.

Obviously, one of the great things about the show is its larger-than-life scope, but what do you think is the bread and butter of this show? Is it the relationships?

Yeah, it really is. It’s epic in scale, and as you can see from the pilot, its epic in concept. It’s shot like a movie, so I think it’s breathtaking how big it looks! But it’s really intimate in terms of where the drama is coming out of—the drama is really coming out of these relationships. We’re about to start shooting episode 9 and 10 this week, and watching what is really happening to Mark and Olivia because of what she’s seen and what he’s seen that he hasn’t told her—it’s so interesting. It’s not huge crashing events that are forcing them apart. It’s just the daily wear and tear of living with someone and wondering if you’re going to cheat on them.

The first episode was a little depressing. It seemed like the lives of these people were a little hopeless. Is this a show about hopelessness?

There’s so much hope in it! The pilot only focuses on a handful of people’s flash forwards. There are so many other characters that you don’t see in the pilot, but you start seeing in subsequent episodes who have flash forwards that you hope come true! It’s so wonderful what they’re seeing in the future. So that’s what has become so interesting is that everyone is wandering through the world, and some people are trying desperately to make sure they don’t happen, but others are looking for theirs to come true.

As you well know, Flash Forward has been exhaustingly compared to Lost. How are the two shows similar or different?

I think they are very different. I think they are similar in that they have an ensemble cast and that there’s one giant event that propels everyone into these different situations. But after that, I think we part ways quite quickly. Flash Forward doesn’t have this embedded mythology in the same way as Lost. It’s very human. What you will see from here forward are the ripple effects of everyone dealing with what they saw in a very human way. People are given the real time to come to terms with what they’ve experienced. It’s not a science fiction show. It’s much more grounded in human reality, apart from the flash forward, which is the only thing that you’re asked to buy into as an audience member.

Continue reading here.

FlashForward opened in the UK to strong numbers:

Channel Five’s new US drama FlashForward launched with more than 3 million viewers last night, Monday 28 September.

The science fiction drama, in which everyone in the world blacks out for 2 minutes and 17 seconds giving them a glimpse of their future, pulled in 3.2 million and a 13% share between 9pm and 9.55pm, according to unofficial overnight figures.

The drama, which stars British actors Joseph Fiennes and Jack Davenport, was the channel’s highest-rating debuting show since The Mentalist in March, which picked up 3.6 million and a 16% share.

The figures compare with 2.4 million for the first episode of CSI on Five in 2001, 3.1 million for CSI: Miami’s debut in 2003 and 3.4 million for CSI: NY in 2005.

Five said the debut of FlashForward had nearly doubled the average share for the slot, which usually stands at 7%, while more than four times the number of 16- to 34-year-olds tuned in, making it the most watched show at the time for that demographic.

The FlashForward premiere is just over a day away and there’s a lot of ’stuff’ out there, but here’s the best of the latest from the world of FF.

New FlashForward promo from FIVE - short but very effective.

..and from Italy.

Spanish viralesque FlashForward promos from Cuatro.

I have to say, I’ve never known a TV series to launch with as much international hype as FlashForward. I think people really are tapping into the ‘global event’ premise, which not enough TV shows do well enough.

FlashForward is set to follow in the footsteps of Fringe and Dollhouse by reducing the amount of commercials during episodes:

With eight comedies and dramas premiering this fall — seven of them in the next few weeks — Walt Disney Co.’s ABC is making the unusual move of reducing the number of commercials in the premiere episodes of its new shows.

Although that may seem an odd decision in a tough economy when networks are scrambling for every advertising dollar they can get, they are also fighting to hold on to every viewer. ABC hopes that fewer ads will prevent people from switching the channel to a rival network.

The network is eliminating the first commercial break — which typically occurs about eight minutes into an episode for comedies — from new prime-time series, including “Cougar Town,” “Modern Family” and “The Middle.”

“You hope the longer you keep them at the start of the show, the more likely they are to stick to it,” said Jeff Bader, ABC Entertainment’s executive vice president and scheduling chief.

That also means more content as well. The story lines of comedies will be about three minutes longer, and those for the dramas may be as much as five minutes longer than they are normally. The opening of the dramas could run as long as 15 minutes before their first commercial. “FlashForward,” ABC’s big bet for the fall, may have an opening as long as 18 minutes.

At one point, ABC even toyed with the idea of premiering the episode without any commercials. But the network thought finding a single advertiser to foot the “brought to you by” sponsorship bill would be too challenging in the current economy.

Reducing the number of commercials in hopes of maintaining an audience is not unheard of in television. Fox last season reduced the commercial load in its dramas “Fringe” and “Dollhouse,” but has since dropped the practice.

Sonya Walger may have a new sci-fi monster to play with but that hasn’t stopped her from paying homage to the ‘irreplaceable’ LOST, which comes to an end in 2010:

“I think Lost is like losing a friend or a relative or someone,” she said. “You can’t replace it with another one.”

“Lost holds a very special place in people’s hearts and I wouldn’t presume to say that FlashForward will replace Lost. I think it provides a lot of the same adrenaline and fascination and entertainment. It will help ease the pain of losing Lost! I think it will appeal to the very same audience.”

Symmetry Magazine talk to FlashForward author, Robert J. Sawyer about the inspirations behind the novel:

Why the LHC?

Sawyer’s novel was conceived in 1997, well before CERN became a household name. But the author prides himself on keeping up with the world of science, and twelve years ago the LHC was already big news in the scientific community.
“My original notion was that I wanted to briefly punt the consciousness of everyone on Earth into the future,” he said, “and even before 1997, the various science magazines I read were all noting that CERN was planning to build the Large Hadron Collider, so it immediately sprang to mind as a possible plot point for the novel. I needed a reason why such consciousness displacement didn’t happen all the time, and why indeed it hadn’t happened yet, and the notion that the LHC would unleash, in a controlled way, energy levels not ever previously produced on Earth, was irresistible.”

Sawyer has kept up with the LHC’s progress, and admits to a special interest in the use of the new accelerator to search for dark matter. Stephen Hawking’s famous bet against CERN finding the Higgs also caught his attention, for that fact that a non-discovery might make the world of particle physics that much more mysterious.

“I understand where he’s coming from: if CERN finds the Higgs, the Standard Model is confirmed, and all is neat and tidy,” he explained. “I actually wanted to be a paleontologist; I was and am fascinated by dinosaurs. But, in many ways, the discovery by Luis Alvarez and his colleagues that an asteroid impact probably caused their extinction took a lot of the wonder out of that field; questions can be more interesting than answers, and Dr. Hawking is clearly hoping that what the LHC finds—or doesn’t!—will give us exciting new mysteries to wrap our heads around, rather than simply confirm things we already think we know.”

Continue reading..

Here’s a round-up of the best tidbits from the world of FlashForward, including flash fall preview shots featuring Dominic Monaghan, Joseph Fiennes, John Cho and Sonya Walger, interviews with Robert J. Sawyer and more!

Exclusive FlashForward Fall TV Preview shots from EW (click to enlarge).

Australian FlashForward trailer -- subtle differences from the US versions, although they continue to bleed together.

AMC has an interview with FlashForward author, Robert J. Sawyer:

Q: FlashForward was originally optioned as a movie. Now it’s a television series. Do you have a preference either way?

A: To be perfectly blunt, if we last longer than one season I’ll make more money off of a TV series than I would off of a film. So I think a TV series is a marvelous idea. Also, the comparison is often made to Lost. Well, here’s the difference: Lost has 40 people on one island affected by the event. We’ve got 7 billion people on five continents. So of course we’ve got a bigger canvas and more stories to tell.

Q: Why was only one of your characters, Lloyd Simcoe, incorporated into the series?

A: The only character by name that makes it over is Simcoe. The central conflict in the marriage between Sonya Walger and Joseph Fiennes’s characters in the TV series is directly the same conflict of Lloyd and Michiko in my novel. The central story of John Cho’s character — the guy who has no vision of the future — is directly the central story of Theo, one of the characters from my novel. Do I care about search and replace on names? Not in the least. Do I care about the thematic integrity of the material, that it actually explores in depth the kinds of issues I raise in the book? Yes, and it does.

Q: Executive producer David S. Goyer has repeatedly stated that FlashForward is not science fiction. Do you think that’s an important distinction to make?

A: We’ve learned that people will happily put their rear end in a seat for two hours to watch a science fiction movie, but they won’t watch again week after week. Thanks to George Lucas, science fiction in the visual media has been indelibly identified as escapism for adolescent boys. You look at Battlestar Galactica: Wonderful series, on a really good week it had 875,000 viewers out of 315 million people. We will die as a primetime network broadcast series if the same percentage of people decide they want to watch FlashForward. So what had to be done was make sure people don’t see science fictional tropes — they don’t see robots, aliens, flying cars, what have you; and instead see the compelling character drama.

Q: One of the big series mysteries is what actually causes the event, which in your novel is explained right away. How do you resolve that?

A: In my book it’s on Page 1! The reality is that it may or may not follow the book. You know the phrase in computer science, “RTFM,” read the eff-ing manual? We’ve gone to pains to make clear that my novel FlashForward is not necessarily the eff-ing manual for the reveals that are going to happen in the series.

Continue reading here..

Paul Levinson spoke to Robert J. Sawyer about what it feels like to be on the verge of having his novel seen on screens around the world in this ABC series.  Sawyer takes goes through the steps of moving from novel to screen, his admiration for the stellar cast, his clear vision of possible future paths for his FlashForward novel universe, at a time when everyone will be coming to know the slightly different story in the television series, and much more. Click here to listen to the interview.

C21Media report on FlashForward’s Asia pick-up:

FlashForward, the ABC science-fiction series that debuts stateside this Thursday, has been picked up by 10 broadcasters in the Asia-Pacific region, bringing it to 44 more territories.

Disney-ABC International Television (DAIT) Asia Pacific has sold the show to free-TV channels Seven Network (Australia), TVB (Hong Kong), Media Prima (Malaysia), TVNZ (New Zealand), MediaCorp (Singapore) and ABS-CBN (Philippines).

Seven and MediaCorp are to air episodes within two weeks of their US broadcasts, with the Aussie net starting the show on September 28 and the Singaporean broadcaster kicking off the action on October 4. Both have also acquired catch-up TV rights.

Four pay-TV platforms have also licensed the drama, namely Fox International (for south-east Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan), Zee Cafe (India), OCN (Korea) and Singtel (Singapore). Fox starts airing the show in Philippines on Star World on December 10.

“With the show’s global themes and relatable characters, our partners have been aggressively marketing FlashForward as a key show in their programming schedule,” said Rob Gilby, senior VP and MD at DAIT (Asia Pacific).

MediaWeek report on ABC’s new partnership with Microsoft -- a move that will help the FlashForward promotion bandwagon:

Microsoft has scored an elaborate multiplatform ad buy from ABC, which is promoting its upcoming sci-fi series FlashForward with a major assist from the software giant’s company’s video game assets.

The digital ad blitz, which sources said is valued at several million dollars, kicks into high gear this week with a wide array of ad placements on Microsoft’s Web, mobile and gaming platforms. The full first act of the FlashForward pilot has been available since Sept. 10 on Xbox Live—the online subscription platform where 20 million Xbox owners congregate, download movies and TV shows, and play online games.

On the series’ premiere date (Sept. 24) Microsoft’s in-game ad group Massive will serve Flash ads within 12 Xbox video games, including the mega hits Guitar Hero 5, Madden 10 and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10.

Also that day, ABC will have a major presence on the MSN portal that includes a homepage takeover ad on MSN.com, a branded Flash site on MSN TV and ad placements that will envelop the content on MSN’s celebrity channel Wonderwall. In addition, Microsoft has built ABC a custom mobile site to promote the show, and will also run ads on its mobile portal.

Plus, users can sign up to receive text alerts prior to the premiere and can download Flash-themed phone wallpaper.

The multifaceted campaign is said to make up the bulk of ABC’s digital effort to tout the much-hyped Flash. The deal—stewarded by ABC’s agency Wieden+Kennedy—marks the second major win for Microsoft, which landed a similar buy for Discovery’s Deadliest Catch in April.

Keith Lorizio, vp of U.S. sales, Microsoft Advertising, said the company’s ability to deliver young male gamers who are likely to be drawn to the sci-fi show, was crucial. “We have a multi-screen user experience, and we have scale on all three. Xbox is absolutely a differentiator.”

Mike Benson, executive vp, marketing, ABC Entertainment Group, said ABC typically expects 3-5 percent of users exposed to a promotional campaign online for a new show will actually tune in. Given the young male audience of the Xbox, they are shooting for 10-15 percent. “As we all know, audiences have become incredibly fragmented,” said Benson. “For a show like Flash Forward…We actually think that with Xbox, we’ll get a deeper, more engaged audience that will spend a lot of time with it.”