FlashForward
ABC | Release Date: September 24, 2009
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
71
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 26 Critic Reviews
Positive:
19
Mixed:
7
Negative:
0

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
NewsdayVerne Gay
Season 1 Review: It's evocative, smartly structured, well acted and insists that the strange ride you are about to take will be worth every minute. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleTim Goodman
Season 1 Review: If you like big-screen-level thrills and complicated plot structures, you'll opt-in to FlashForward. And you'll be rewarded. Here's hoping it stays strong and compelling as it heads to April 29. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesPaige Wiser
Season 1 Review: ABC knows that "Lost" is coming up on its last season, and it wants to ease the transition for you with this sci-fi grand-mystery series. On the basis of one episode, it's hard to say whether it will live up to its promise. But there is promise. Read full review
88
Slant MagazineKris King
Season 1 Review: If FlashForward can keep the momentum it set in its premiere episode, the show's apocalyptic tone and fate-bending intrigue should prove deeply fascinating. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyKen Tucker
Season 1 Review: The show combines sci-fi-ish conspiracy suspense with excellent prime-time-soap drama. And I like the fact that, post-blackout, people don't Google each other; they say, ''I Mosaic'd you.'' A good sense of humor humanizes this grand puzzl Read full review
80
VarietyBrian Lowry
Season 1 Review: It's an intriguing, mind-bending concept that's mostly well executed, with a built-in payoff cleverly timed to coincide with the May rating sweeps. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterBarry Garron
Season 1 Review: Well-cast and full of expensive-looking special effects, FlashForward should hook a respectable number of viewers with its combination of surprise and suspense. Read full review
80
The New York TimesGinia Bellafante
Season 1 Review: Like so many contemporary television thrillers, FlashForward works just as powerfully as a domestic drama as it does as a mechanism of apocalyptic intrigue. Read full review
80
Baltimore SunDavid Zurawik
Season 1 Review: It's smart, richly textured, complex and filled with suspense and intellectual challenge--in short, it has all the things network television is supposed to have abandoned in favor of cheap reality shows. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsDavid Hinckley
Season 1 Review: ABC's new FlashForward requires concentration and endurance. It's well worth the investment of both. Read full review
80
Philadelphia InquirerJonathan Storm
Season 1 Review: That's a diverse enough crowd to interest almost anybody. Combine it with the fascinating plot and the action and emotional turmoil it promises, and you don't need to flash forward to see a show finally giving Survivor a Thursday-night ratings run for the money. Read full review
80
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteRob Owen
Season 1 Review: Whether a fantastic series follows tonight's strong pilot, well, it would take a flash forward to know for sure. But the show does offers a strong premiere that brims with future possibility. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMaureen Ryan
Season 1 Review: Assuming FlashForward can tone down a tendency toward pomposity and create a mythology and characters worth following, it may well be a worthy addition to the roster of sci-fi tinged TV programs. Read full review
75
New York PostMichael Starr
Season 1 Review: Whether ABC's new series, FlashForward, will catch on is anyone's guess. I can tell you, though, that it has a compelling concept and a solid cast. Read full review
75
USA TodayRobert Bianco
Season 1 Review: FlashForward may not keep you hooked for years or even months, but chances are good tonight's episode will bring you back next week. For now, that's as far forward as we need to flash. Read full review
70
Boston GlobeJoanna Weiss
Season 1 Review: FlashForward is a good idea, and while that’s no guarantee of a good series, the first hour gives us reason to hope. Read full review
70
SalonHeather Havrilesky
Season 1 Review: With such a knockout concept at its core, Flash Forward may still be on our minds six months from now--that is, if we're not too busy piecing together global mysteries or cheating on our husbands to notice. Read full review
70
Miami HeraldGlenn Garvin
Season 1 Review: It's only when the action (and the torrential cross-cutting) slows that you start getting to know some of the capable cast....And it's only when the characters begin revealing what they saw while unconscious that FlashForward turns interesting as it examines the interconnectivity of the human experience. Read full review
70
TV Guide MagazineMatt Roush
Season 1 Review: Even critics and fans who are intrigued (as I am) by the often riveting pilot--which ends on a whopper of a cliffhanger twist--can’t help projecting a bit into our own future, one that’s informed by a past that’s littered with ambitious pilot episodes that ultimately didn’t measure up. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesRobert Lloyd
Season 1 Review: It's a decent but not brilliant beginning. Read full review
60
PopMatters
Season 1 Review: If the procedural plotting in FlashForward was ordinary, all the conversations about destiny and free will--and what any of it means for the poor sap who didn’t see anything during the blackout--made the first episode feel vibrant, engaged with heady concepts and questions. Read full review
50
Newark Star-LedgerAlan Sepinwall
Season 1 Review: If Guggenheim can deepen the personalities and show how the flash forward really impacted them, then they might have a show here. Because right now, there's an interesting idea, some good production values and a cool cliffhanger, and not much else. Read full review
50
TimeJames Poniewozik
Season 1 Review: Like many of ABC's post-Lost attempts at serials, this one has a great premise with tremendous potential, but I wish more attention had been paid to fleshing out the characters and generally bringing a fresher voice to the dialogue. Read full review
40
Philadelphia Daily NewsEllen Gray
Season 1 Review: The pilot for FlashForward, by contrast [to "Lost"], feels more like deja vu, with characters who could've been rounded up from a disaster miniseries, tied to a mystery that's only compelling if we care what happens to these people. Read full review
40
Washington PostTom Shales
Season 1 Review: The new series seems to share a perhaps fatal flaw of that now-canceled show, which is that the premise becomes so byzantine and the complications so arcane that eventually people just give up on trying to make sense of the darn thing. Read full review
40
SlateTroy Patterson
Season 1 Review: Fantasy plots require fantastic details, but the show, rolling steadily downhill from a compelling premise, is utterly casual about the particulars of its speculative time-tripping and post-catastrophe atmospherics. Read full review
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