This TV season will see the start of two shows based on books I’ve read: Flash Forward and The Vampire Diaries. I read Flash Forward about 9/10 years ago I think, and the story has always stuck with me. I’ve always thought it would make a great movie or a mini-series. An actual TV show though? I’m not sure how they’ll have enough material.

The problem with having read the book though is that I know most of the story. I think I can imagine how they’re going to make it more mysterious. For starters, in the book you know straightaway how and why the flash forward happened; I’m guessing the TV show will make that one of the first mysteries to “solve”.

Here’s the description from ABC: 

What if you saw your future 6 months from now? A glimpse of where you will be and who you will be with. Would you look forward to what was coming…or would you try to stop it? 

A mysterious global event causes everyone to black out simultaneously for two minutes and seventeen seconds, and each person sees a glimpse of their lives six months from now. When they wake up, everyone is left wondering if what they saw will actually happen. 

Los Angeles FBI Agent Mark Benford (Joseph Fiennes) is desperate to uncover why this happened and who or what is behind it. And he’s not the only one. Before long, everyone starts asking, “What did you see?” As Mark and his team struggle to figure out what caused this bizarre event, they begin to piece together the future by creating a huge database of people’s flash forwards from all over the world – The Mosaic Collective. No one knows what these flash forwards mean or exactly what the future really holds. But it is clear that across the globe people who’ve never met will somehow be intimately connected and will have an impact on each other’s lives in the next six months. Some will fear what’s coming, others excited; but not a single person will be unaffected. 

Anyhow, the show will air in the fall on ABC and will star  Joseph FiennesSonya WalgerJohn ChoChristine WoodsJack Davenport and Courtney B. Vance. Here’s the promo:

It does look like a great new series; I’m just wondering how intriguing it will be for some one who has read the book. So far, the city and all the characters are completely different, so I’m guessing it will still be pretty interesting.