A 'Flash' of something tasty

After a Glee-ful entrée, let’s move on to the main course—a suspenseful science-fiction show. I read the book Flashforward by Robert J. Sawyer over the summer, and was very excited to see that a TV show was going to be made based on the book. The pilot of FlashForward lived up to most of my expectations, although there are several things that are quite different from the book, including a major plotline that was not in the book at all, which makes the two storylines vary greatly.

The show opens with one of the show’s protagonists, Mark Benford (Joseph Fiennes), regaining consciousness in his car, which has apparently flipped over in an accident. He pulls himself from the wreckage and sees a huge scene of destruction in Los Angeles—people are injured or dead everywhere he looks.



The scene jumps to four hours earlier. It’s a normal, peaceful day, and everyone is going through with his or her daily routines. Everything throughout the day runs smoothly—until everyone in the entire world loses consciousness for two minutes and 17 seconds. However, consciousness isn’t lost. The consciousness of the entire world’s population jumped forward six months.

Of course, this discovery (which has been proved because many people had the same “visions” because they were together six months in the future) changes everyone’s worldview. Some are worried—they saw themselves with someone who was not their significant other. Some are hopeful—one man saw himself with his daughter, who was presumably killed overseas in the military two years ago. And others are frightened—Demetri Noh (John Cho) didn’t have any vision at all, because six months in the future he is dead.

FBI investigators—Benford included—are put in charge of the situation to try and figure out why it happened. They reach a lead when they see a video of a stadium in Detroit. Everyone is unconscious except for one man, who is walking around. It becomes their goal to find this man and find out why these visions happened.

As for myself, now I am going to let my own consciousness go forward into sleep. Critique (and college student connection!) coming soon!

I leave you with a promo video for the pilot episode. Chew it over.

The first course: A giant helping of Glee

Hello, everyone! Well, it’s the last week of September, which means that many new TV shows have begun. My purpose in doing this blog is to inform people of what new shows are out there, what I think of them and how they can be relevant to the lives of college students. I’ll be reviewing a wide variety of shows, including Glee, FlashForward, Mercy and The Cleveland Show. Hopefully the reviews and opinions I give will be helpful to you as you find your new favorite shows, and you can chew them over as you eat some food for the eyes.

The first course that this blog will dish out is Glee. Glee originally premiered on May 19, 2009, which was a bold move as far as TV shows are concerned—if the show had flopped, then the entire season would have been a flop before it even started. However, this was not the case. Glee exploded, as can be seen here in a Los Angeles Times article. The second episode aired on September 9, and I have been hooked ever since.

Glee takes place at William McKinley High School in Lima, Ohio, where the football team and the elite cheer club, the Cheerios, rule the school. Spanish teacher Will Schuester (played by Matthew Morrison, who portrayed Link Larkin on the Broadway production of Hairspray) decides that he would like to take over the direction of Glee Club and restore it to its former glory (the school won a show choir championship in 1993).

However, the only students who try out are the social misfits, although they are amazingly talented. Mercedes Jones (Amber Riley), Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer), Artie Abrams (Kevin McHale), Tina Cohen-Chang (Jenna Ushkowitz) and Rachel Berry (Lea Michele) form the original five members of the club, with Rachel quickly becoming the obvious star and best singer of the group, although she is somewhat of a prima donna.

The first rehearsal is a disaster, and Will (known as “Mr. Shu” to his students) quickly becomes discouraged, wondering what he can possibly do to make students want to join the glee club. His colleague Emma (Jayma Mays) inspires him, telling him that if he can get a few of the more popular kids to join, others will follow. Unfortunately, he has no luck—until he blackmails star quarterback Finn Hudson (Cory Monteith) into joining the club. Finn is talented, a star who can keep up as a male lead with Rachel.

Things start to look up for the club, until Will’s wife reveals that she is pregnant, forcing him to make the difficult decision to leave his passion—teaching—to become an accountant. The club appears to be finished, but then Finn brings some new music to the group, and the first episode ends with a fantastic (at least in my opinion) rendition of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’.”

Glee has quickly become one of my favorite TV shows. The actors sing all of their own songs, and the acting is cheesy, but great. For example, the Cheerios coach, Sue Sylvester is played by Jane Lynch, and she is hilarious. She yells at her cheerleaders, telling them that the pain they feel in their workouts is similar to the pain she feels by living with hepatitis and has one-liners that sent me to the floor laughing, because she is so mean yet so funny. In an interview, Lynch describes her character as one who is “pure evil and doesn’t hide it.”

The rest of the characters all develop their own unique personalities throughout the later episodes as well. I know it sounds clichéd, but Glee is a sweet treat after a long day. Chew it over.

Preview of the pilot episode: