‘FlashForward:’ A disturbing meditation on Americanism

March 17, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

By TED ANTHONY

Associated Press

NEW YORK

The Americans who populate the ABC series “FlashForward” are, on balance, a morose lot. And justifiably so: They are paralyzed by their 137-second visions of the future, part of a weird global bout of unconsciousness in which all humans see glimpses of their lives at the same moment six months onward.

The main character, recovering alcoholic FBI agent Mark Benford (Joseph Fiennes), sees a tomorrow in which he’s drinking again and pursued by killers. His wife, Dr. Olivia Benford (Sonya Walger), sees herself intimate with another man — a potentially dangerous man. Benford’s partner, Demetri Noh (John Cho), is haunted by his complete lack of a vision — and his certainty that the blackness means he’s going to die.

And from Nicole Kirby (Peyton List), a 19-year-old struggling with what she saw in her flash-forward, comes this intriguing bit of pretzel logic: “How do I atone for something I haven’t done yet?”

For “FlashForward,” which returns Thursday (8 p.m.) after a three-month hiatus, all of this is not merely science fiction, though it fits nicely into the crop of weird-twists-on-reality programming in recent years.

With its meditations on inevitability, this show taps into something far more fundamental about the American character: the ability to shape our tomorrows.

America started, for the most part, with a group of people — the Massachusetts Puritans — who believed that no matter what they did in this world, they were predestined to a certain lot in the afterlife. In short, though good behavior was required, the activities of life weren’t worth much in the context of eternity.

But that quickly became the antithesis of what America was all about. This quickly became a society whose hallmark was the ability to write your own story, to shape what came next for you and yours. People came here to build new lives, to construct new destinies — to change the outcome.

Which is why, perhaps, “FlashForward” is so deeply unsettling. It masquerades as a locked-room mystery with sci-fi undertones. But in reality, it’s a meditation on Americanism — a story that tells Americans they cannot control the outcome. And that’s not something modern Americans are accustomed to hearing.

The show’s producers are clearly aware of this tension. Every moment is suffused with a sense of helplessness. Usually in modern television drama, people are trying to surmount the improbable or, sometimes, the impossible. Rarely is an entire show’s ensemble cast dedicated to overcoming the inevitable.

This is what “Flash- Forward” hinges upon. While the sci-fi is rollicking, though at times muddled, what’s most striking is the sheer smallness of the human beings trying to figure this out.