In My Lousy Flash Forward I Saw the Crappy LOST Finale

I’m amazed at the number of fans LOST had until the bitter end. Far fewer people seemed to be satisfied with the one-season wonder, Flash Forward. (Based on my highly unscientific occasional skimming of Television Without Pity.)

But while the former show may have had the edge in some areas - a few individual characters more fully fleshed out in writing or acting - when it came down to it, both were muddled messes.

 The main problem? The creators of these shows, and others of the ilk (e.g., The X-Files), shows of the multi-character, sci-fi mystery, Big Myth genre - didn’t seem to know their final destination back when they started the journey.

 So instead of a clearly defined path, with a few interesting scenic side-trips, we got one of those road-trips from hell, where daddy refuses to look at a map, and mom has a permanent migraine and Billy is dangling Jenny’s pet hamster out the window. (Play along with me, my metaphorical family took their bleepity-bleep hamster on their vacation, OK?)

These shows are more infuriatingly coy and self-satisfied than every reality show diva on the planet combined. They provided fewer straightforward answers than a Family-Values senator or preacher who’s just been caught wearing diapers with a hooker or taking a rent boy to Europe.

Oh, they tease us with their shiny new toy of a premise. Only for us to find a few weeks or years after we started playing with the toy that it was filled with Grade A Chinese lead.

I stopped watching Lost regularly sometime while they were all still on the island (or dead, or whatever they were) the first time. Before some of them left, or came back, or flew sideways, or whatever. Then this year I got into the habit of flipping over to it in between other shows, keeping it on for background noise while I cyber-surfed.

But I didn’t really know what was going on. Which means I could’ve been one of the writers.

Ba-dum-bump.

And then there’s Flash Forward. I’ve read the novel by Robert Sawyer, the Canadian writer of science-heavy science fiction.

It’s a hell of a premise, a great twist on the sci-fi theme that’s been a favorite fantasy of mine since childhood - time travel.

In fact, my recent movie script, Do Not Delete, is a time-travel theme. I’ve also dabbled with other time travel plots. And read a zillion short-stories and novels and seen numerous movies and TV shows utilizing the topic.

So Flash Forward, the TV show, naturally grabbed my attention. But oh, what a hot mess it was from Episode One, FADE IN. Right through the Calvalcade of Cliches that was the abrupt and unsatisfying season/ series finale.

Take that last episode. S’il vous plait. Bitte. Please.

I don’t have the faintest clue what was supposedly going on with the building blowing up, or why the Bad Guys With Guns were also there. But everything in those scenes was so clichéd it looked like a parody:

• The “ruthless” gunmen jittery, jumping the trigger at just the sound of a cell phone ringing.
• Ralph‘sLessTalentedBrother hiding behind a shuttered closet door and not one of the Bad Guys glancing that way as they entered the room.
• And Die-Hard, the Dork Version, with Our Hero running in shampoo-commercial Slo-Mo toward the window as the building explodes.

Joseph Fiennes spent most of Flash Forward 

searching for a consistent American accent.

Plus, why was the threat to the building a surprise. Didn't all of the law enforcement people (including the extras) see themselves there in their FFs. Or not see themselves, in the case of the ones who were mowed down just before 10 p.m.


And then there’s the silly Oh she wasn’t being drowned, she was being saved. Oh, she wasn’t dead, just has a really thready pulse. Oh, oh, oh …

The only characters I found the least bit interesting were Janis, and to a lesser extent, Lloyd. (I know, I know, but I like his English accent and puppy-dog eyes.) Oh, and the savant, whazizname.

I did have one happy association when I watched a few of the last episodes, though. Every time the show mentioned April 29, I remembered my fun trip to an ice show in Canada on that day this year.

Until I realized, if there’d really been a (second) worldwide blackout on that day, I might’ve driven off the Ambassador Bridge.

Ew, I’ll probably dream that now.

And my five-second dream will be more interesting than Lost Seasons 2-6 and Flash Forward, Season Everything, put together.

This is How Olympic Athletes Think

OK, so this is how Olympic-caliber athletes think. It’s a warmup before a Canadian Stars on Ice show. Vancouver bronze medalist Joannie Rochette, sorta done practicing, or maybe just taking a break, sits near the ice. Two other Olympic-eligible skaters land triple jumps, in sync, at opposite ends of rink. JoRo gets up, goes back on the ice, lands a triple-triple jump, sits back down. Just like that. As if to say, hello, I'm a frickin' Olympic medalist. I’ll see your solo triple and raise you a triple.

That is how Olympic athletes think. Even at an ice show practice.

Sneaking a Peek at Athletes at Their Peak

Life is mainly regular old stuff, stuff you have to do, stuff you really don't want to do, stuff you just do. Then every once in awhile, you get a treat. Like for me, it's spending warm nights in cool rinks, watching people who can race around on ice skates like Horowitz used to race around the keyboard. It's watching people who are my stars on ice, in places like this arena, from center ice 10 rows up.

Good thing I saw the warmup, 'cos my show seat was way over at rink's end, up top. The kind of low-rent seat that can distance you from the performances. (Of course, I’m someone who’s been spoiled rotten, able to watch top skaters close up at these kinds of practies many other times. How you gonna keep 'em up in the peanut gallery once they've sat downtown?)

The Main Show

Among the actual show highlights for me at this 2010 edition of Stars on Ice, Canada, were Rochette's “Summertime” followed by Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir's adaptation of the Mahler program that won them World and Olympic gold this year. Just magnificent performances by skaters at the peak of the power.


Another fave - the “Intermission” program, skated by three of the guys and Ms. Rochette. This cast meshes well. If they secretly hate each others’ guts, they’re faking friendship superbly.


Of Course, I'd Be Charmed if They Just Sat There Texting
Informal practices are always fun to watch. Saw lots of cute stuff, like when Kurt Browning was practicing footwork, and Rochette started to playfully imitate him. I just wanted to pick them both up, put them in my purse and have them with me to do charming things like that all day. (BTW Dear AllSkatersEverywhere: Mr. Browning is a good person to try to imitate footwork-wise.)


It took me awhile to realize some skaters were running through parts of programs, not skating to random warmup songs. Duh. (I had been secretly giving props to former world champ Jeff Buttle for what I thought was a brilliant ad-libbing to Stones music.)


Illegal Geese

Later in the practice Tessa and Scott - that's Virtue and Moir to you non-obssessed - practiced their signature move, the Goose, with a fantastic (but deemed “illegal” for competition) dismount.  And some of their elaborate lifts. (TBH, who’d just put her eyes back in her head from the eligible skaters’ JumpFest, was all *eek* again.)

And then the hubby/wife dance team of Dubreil and Lauzon ran through a bit of their “newspaper” program, all slinky and everything, as if to say, “No one even has to ask US if we’re sleeping together.”

Javier Fernandez - Will He Reign From Spain or Mainly Stay Kind of Plain?
Of course, being an obsessed fan also mean the joy of discovering new talent. (Once upon a time JoRo and V/M were my new little finds.)


Here's another one who might make a big splash (by not splatting) someday. A kid from that hotbed of ice sports, Spain. Javier Fernandez. I don’t know when he got on my radar within the past several months, but he did.

I was looking at this drunken pirate’s website/ wiki entries (his long program was a wacky routine to Pirates of the Caribbean). Not a lot of detail yet. Because again - Spain?!? (A few weeks ago I was reading some condolences posted at Joannie Rochette’s website. It popped out at me that one of them began, “I’m from Spain - ice skating isn’t very big here …” It’d be interesting to see if that would change much if this young man progresses to a high level.)


It’s just always fascinating how people get into something, no matter what their circumstances, as if they’re just destined to do it.


And you know who that kind of person is? The kind of person who gets up in the middle of an ice show practice and throws down a damn hard old jump combo. Just for the hell of it.

The Olympics: How I Mostly Love Being Half-Canadian

Croooosby! [Shakes Fist.]  I - living in Detroit of all places - have been a fan of yours for two or three years. But maybe a little less today.  Because I did want the boys from this side of the border to win. The way I figure it, you folks have clean, safe cities and great healthcare. You could've thrown us the bone of one little hockey game.

But mostly, I do love Canada and Canadians. And although I haven't spent much time there, I'm proud of my Canadian ancestry. (My dad's side came across Lake Huron from Ontario and from way on up in Beauharnois, Quebec.)

And I especially have adored Canadian figure skaters. Brian O. Kurt. Jamie & David. Virtue and Moir. Joannie.

I've been a fan of the latter since well before the Torino games. Like so many others, how  long I had waited for the times she would pull it together at a big event.

And in the meanwhile, I too have faced my share of hardships over the years.

So how much more personal did this second week of the Vancouver games seem to me.

I think I've handled my challenges as well as I could. But if there's ever a day I feel myself faltering, I will look back on the way that beautiful (on the inside and out) young woman acquitted herself in the face of tragedy and with the eyes of half a billion on her. And pulled out two of the performances of her life. Merci, ma petite.

And Tessa and Scott. Temporary transplants to my state. The millennial Torvill and Dean. How special, how ethereal, yet how down-to-earth. I'm thrilled to witness the gift of your talent.

Thank you, Canada. Ya got some good kids there. Even the one who scored the OT goal. I'm fully proud to be half Canadian.

OOOOOhhh! The 2010 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremonies

The Opening Ceremonies. What'd ya think?


I’m an Olympics freak. I want to like any Olympics’ Opening Ceremony, and I really want to like anything Canada does. (Technically I’m half-Canadian, with ancestors from Quebec and Ontario).

Sport, art, music, drama, spectacle - this is my thing. But … how can I say this politely, and friendly, like a good half-Canadian.

Um, I liked the whales on the floor.

Semi-Hot Mess 
Really - the best parts were those that celebrated nature more than that big noisy hot mess involving violins on the moon and mohawked dancers. Grungie tapdancing fiddling kilted lumberjacks. (And I’m still confused where the Maritimes thing turned into the Quebec part.)

Aside from the music going on forever, and the not-particularly exciting dancing, the set and costumes for that long East Coast section were just jarringly unappealing to me. Even the neon-blue boat against that weird scary orange-yellow moon. Yuck.

The Good, The Meh and the Whimsical 

I liked flying prairie boy. The evocative rainforest. The dudes in red going completely vertically down the tissuey white mountain. And those whales.

But oh, the many phallic symbols. And the cauldron malfunction. And Wayne Gretzky in a fecking pickup truck tooling around downtown Vancouver with a giant doobie. Worst torch light in my memory. Not exactly like the guy coming down the ski jump with the torch (Lillehammer?) or the flaming arrow lighting a cauldron (Barcelona?).

And O, Canada, one of the most beautiful national anthems ever. That dirge version was an early indicator of more missteps to come.

Bob Costas Will Be Back to Say Something Dumb In a Minute 
It also almost seemed like the long musical “codas” were there so US TV could cut away for commercials. Switching back and forth from NBC to online viewing of Eurosport feeds I noted one of the few times NBC missed a really new music section was the Samuel Barber piece - yeah, they missed the *American* composer* - at the end of the rainforest section.

Why We Love the Winter Os 
That said, I still love the Winter Olympics. The small, cozy feeling just makes you want to move to a quaint mountain valley and ski and skate all day. Even if you can't do either.

I enjoy watching almost all the Winter Olympic sports except curling. (Brooms? A top?)

In light of Friday's tragedy, I don’t want to come across as insensitive - but the very fascination of the Winter OOOOOs as a whole IS just how dangerous almost all the sports are. People hurtling down icy mountains and even icier roller-coaster-like tracks. Or in a rink, crashing onto the ice or each other.

And that highest ski jump? I don’t even want to go to the top of that thing and cling to it for dear life. Let alone ski down it and leap off. How breathtakingly insane.

[Photos 1,3,4: TylerIngram. Photo 2: © VANOC/COVAN]