As FlashForward disappears from the TV landscape until March 2010, many fans are concerned about what this means for the future of the show.

Long breaks for serialized TV shows are never ideal as momentum is often lost and casual viewers forget where the show left off.

But perhaps the powers that be will use this opportunity to iron out some of the problems that have dogged the show since the Pilot? With a big promotional push during the down-time (as ABC are more than capable of doing), perhaps the break could be the best thing to happen to FF since Keiko arrived (briefly) on the scene?

EW spoke to exec. producer David Goyer to shed some light on why the show is taking such a long hiatus and what the future holds for FF.

EW: So… FlashForward isn’t coming back until March.

DAVID GOYER: Why?

Yes! Why?

The answer is simple. We originally planned to come back in January, but about three weeks ago we sat down with ABC scheduling and looked at what our programming schedule would be like. And I think on serialized show like 24, Lost, and Prison Break the most important thing is to air consecutive episodes without repeats or preemptions. To be brutally honest, our programming schedule in January was going to be awful. We were going to be off for four or five weeks [through December and into January], then back on for two weeks, then off for two weeks because of the Olympics, then back on four weeks, off for two weeks again, back on three, off for two again… Our first 10 episodes had one preemption; our last 13-episode arc was going to have four. I just think when we saw that, the studio and the network and all the producers looked at each other and said, “This is crazy.” We’d rather bite the bullet, come back in March, and air all 13 episodes consecutively without preemptions.

The overnight ratings for the show have steadily declined since the premiere. [FlashForward has dropped from a little over 12 million viewers to a little over 7 million viewers over the course of 10 episodes. The numbers don't reflect DVR usage, which is substantial for FlashForward.] If the ratings hadn’t been dropping do you think ABC would have made this move?

I don’t honestly know. I just know that when we first heard about this possibility three or four weeks ago, we were all looking ahead to the series of preemptions ahead of us and were feeling very concerned. One of our staff writers is from Prison Break, and he made a comment that every time their show had been preempted, it would get knocked down [in the ratings] and they’d have to build back up, and after being preempted, they’d get knocked down again and have to build up yet again—they felt like they were continually treading water. … I know for me, as an audience member, I feel incredibly annoyed when I’m watching a serialized show and have to deal with preemptions. … Our production schedule hasn’t changed at all. We’re shooting episode 14 now; we’re prepping episodes 15 and 16. We’ll have all our episodes written and most of them shot by the time we come back in March.

We recently reported that you had to shut down production to work on some scripts…

Which I was actually a bit bemused by, commenting on it as if it was a big deal.

It wasn’t?

No! We only shut down for one week. And I’ll tell you why: we were given the reins to speed up the storytelling, and we had broken episodes 15 and 16 and done some very major moves in those episodes. When the network and the studio saw the scripts for those everyone looked at each other and said “Let’s move those up to 13 and 14.” So we swapped those out and moved episodes 15 and 16 into the 13 and 14 position. In the process, we needed to take a week to re-prep.

You can continue reading here.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MCLRUFZfNo

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]

Our friends at TV.com recently caught up with FlashForward writer Scott Gimple, who offered some insight into everything from the Kangaroo that appeared in the Pilot, to the FlashForward’s comparisons with LOST.

Here’s a brief excerpt from the interview, followed by a link to the entire article:

First things first: What is the deal with the kangaroo? Did it escape from a zoo? Are we going to see more of it?

The kangaroo does, in fact, have a deal, its OWN deal, and we will see said deal. Its deal will be fully dealt with.

Very mysterious. I know that FlashForward showrunner David Goyer has said that there’s already a plan for what caused the flash; are we going to find out what it is this season?

My mysteriousness is one part being extra spoiler careful, one part leaving story flexibility (we have a plan, I assure you, but we reserve the right to goof around with it), and one part Goyer and [recently departed showrunner and executive producer Marc Guggenheim] keeping a handful of the details of the flashes locked up away from us.

Continue reading here..

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).

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):

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJdSfVXfwig

[AP]

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

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf96teX8CL0

[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.

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).

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGV-SJX9DRM

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.”

ABC have released 20 FlashForward cast photos in preparation for the season premiere on September 24th. Click below the jump to view the gallery, and for interviews featuring Courtney Vance, John Cho, Joseph Fiennes, Sonya Walger, Dominic Monaghan and Jack Davenport.

Here are 20 official cast photos for FlashForward (click to enlarge):

[Show as slideshow]

[ABC]

Courtney Vance gives us his take on FlashForward:

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4A6FeFtLqoE

Here’s another interview with the cast of FlashForward:

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSWS7a_4cnw

Dominic Monaghan and Jack Davenport talk to SyFy about their FlashForward characters:

Comic-Con in San Diego over the summer when it was revealed he would be joining the cast of ABC’s upcoming FlashForward but couldn’t say a lot about what he’d be doing. He offered up a wee bit more this week when we visited him on the show’s set in Burbank, Calif.

“Yeah, I can’t tell you a huge amount,” Monaghan (Lost) said. “I play a guy called Simon who is linked through story lines with Jack’s [Davenport] character, Lloyd. He’s a very smart, intelligent scientist, and we begin the relationship with him under the impression that he knows more than he is giving away.”

The trailer suggests Simon may know the reason everyone in the world has blacked out for 2 minutes 17 seconds, during which time they each have a glimpse of their future six months from now.

“He’s almost a kind of reveal, in a way,” Monaghan says. “Obviously, Joe [Fiennes] and Sonya [Walger] and John [Cho] and Jack kind of are telling the story in the initial episodes, and my character, Simon, is kind of in the wings a little bit, kind of waiting, kind of a reveal. He’ll gradually be trickled in as the show picks up some steam.”

For his part, Davenport said that his character, physicist Lloyd Simcoe, is the only one taken from Robert J. Sawyer’s novel, on which the show is loosely based. “That’s right, he is the only character from the book,” Davenport said. “Yes, because obviously there has to be some kind of scientific explanation for all of this, and there’s a lot of science in the book, and the character is a scientist.”

But is he the same guy?

“He’s similar in the sense that his profession is the same, but obviously what [series co-creator] David [Goyer] has done is extrapolated from the novel in a way that the connections between the characters are much broader and much wider than they are in the novel. You follow multiple storylines in this in the way that in the novel it’s pretty much a single line.”

ABC have made the first 18 minutes of their upcoming series, FlashForward, available for free online after several clips were leaked. An interesting move from ABC – if nothing else, they must believe in these opening 18 minutes. Watch it for free using the video player above, if you want (video player may take a few seconds to load).

Continue below the jump for an “FF” sneak peek promo and an interview with John Cho.

Slightly redundant now, but here’s another sneak peek. I’m posting this for those of you who prefer not to watch the opening 18 minutes of the premiere above, and to point out the thematic similarities with the opening sequence from the “LOST” Pilot – although obviously the setting is very different. As I’ve said before, hopefully FlashForward show can be half as good as the island drama and go on to develop its own identity over the course of the season – by the looks of the first 18 minutes, it definitely has the potential.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DD1PW97xQP0

USA Weekend interview with FlashForward‘s John Cho:

There are a bunch of things conspiring against John Cho, keeping him from strumming his guitar just for fun. For one, he has been acting non-stop for several years. “Star Trek” was one of the biggest movie hits of this past summer, and his new ABC show, “FlashForward,” has all sorts of buzz around it.

There’s also his 16-month-old son, his first child with actress Kerri Higuchi. “My wife and I were saying, it’s no wonder the body allows you to have children at such a young age,” Cho, 37, says. “It’s because you need the energy, the strength and the stamina to run after the kid.”

Best known for starring in the “Harold & Kumar” comedies with Kal Penn, Cho admits that J.J. Abrams’ big-screen reboot of “Star Trek” (in which he plays Sulu, a younger version of the role made famous by George Takei) gave him a jump-start both professionally and mentally when it came to acting. And after having been burned a few times by canceled series and pilots that went nowhere, Cho had sworn off television.

“FlashForward” has changed his thinking on all that, though. In the series, which premieres Thursday, an occurrence causes people all over the world to black out for two minutes and 17 seconds, and during that time, most have mysterious visions of their future. (Cho’s character, however, is one of the few who doesn’t see anything.) While the concept is cool, Cho says, “it’s the little things and the relationships that’ll keep bringing people back.”

"..and the last scene of the season is..."

IESB spoke to producer David Goyer during a recent visit to the set of FlashForward. Goyer reveals that as well as having dark moments synonymous with stories of global significance, “FF” will also feature a tapestry of humour and quirky moments.

Check out the interview below, as well as the latest on FlashForward sponsorship in the UK and the science behind  Robert J. Sawyer’s FlashForward novel:

Q: What are three things this show is, and three things this show isn’t?

Marc: It’s a television show. It’s not an opera.

David: It’s a really big, cinematic show, where we really are telling, in some ways, a 24-hour movie. My aim is to do what television does best, which is to really welcome these characters into your homes and really dig deep into them, in a way that you really can’t do with movies. I have a lot of respect for what J.J. Abrams does. I think he goes for it. I think his shows don’t feel like cheesy TV shows. I hope that it’s a very thought-provoking show, and that it gets people talking, the next day, about what they would do, in those kind of circumstances. And, ultimately, I hope it’s a very hopeful show.

It’s not Lost. Aside from the fact that it’s big and cinematic, and there are a lot of characters. As soon as people see the episodes the comparisons will stop, although I love Lost. It’s not a science fiction show. There are the flash-forwards, but the audience won’t know, for a couple of years, what the ultimate cause of those were, so I don’t think it really matters. And, it’s not like anything you’ve ever seen on television.

Marc: I’d like to add that what it is, is a very ambitious story with a lot of layers, a lot of plot twists and a lot of interesting things happening in it. What it’s not is an impenetrable, Byzantine puzzle box.

Q: Is it important that people know this show is not Lost?

David: No. Ultimately, it isn’t. It’s going to be a moot point, once we air. People like to talk about stuff. If we were on any other network, we never would have gotten that question. It wasn’t written for ABC. It was written for HBO. The big-name bidders were Fox and ABC, and ABC got it. If we were on Fox, and certainly if we were on HBO, I don’t think people would have been asking that question. We didn’t change the script at all, from when it was developed at HBO, other than to take the swear words out.

Q: Then why is there such an emphasis on the show not being Lost?

David: It’s only because we’ve just been asked the question so many times, in every interview we do. We didn’t start out that way.

Q: Because of the large ensemble, the thing about Lost is that no character is safe. Does that go for this show as well, since you also have such a big cast?

David: Yeah, no character is safe on our shows. That’s for sure. But, I think that’s exciting. I love that.

Q: Episode 102 seems like it has some broad humor. Will that continue throughout the scene? What will the tone of this show be?

David: Well, we showed you these three scenes to show you the different gamut of the things we will be doing on this show.

Q: So, there will be more of that broad humor then?

David: Yeah. We picked that scene because we think that scene is funny. And, there are other scenes, in the first eight episodes, that we think are equally funny. There weren’t a lot of moments in the pilot that were that funny, but there are definitely funny things on the show, and that we think the audience will find funny. Is that scene representative of every single episode? No. But, there are definitely things like that. There are scary moments, and there are what we hope are funny moments, heartbreaking moments, thoughtful moments and sexy moments. We just decided to pick three different kinds of scenes.

Q: How soon are you going to pass the April 29th date, when these people all had their visions?

David: We pass that date by the end of the first season.

Marketing Week report a deal between channel FIVE and Blackberry for the UK’s coverage of FlashForward:

Research in Motion’s BlackBerry brand has signed its first European TV sponsorship deal in a tie-up with Five’s soon-to-be launched US drama series, FlashForward.

The sponsorship package will include a 15-second opening credit, break bumpers and a ten-second closing credit.

Berkeley Lab physicist Peter Jacobs explores the science behind the novel behind FlashForward (novel spoilers):

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZOya-9u8es