S01.E01: Pilot

[Arynm]

I watched the baby(Sam) in the first minutes of the episode and noted a couple things with his disappearance. The baby was unhappy to begin with, but he saw something that caught his attention and made him stop crying for a second, Then he started screaming like he was terrified, or in pain, and then he was just gone. Like he never existed, just gone. If that happened to me, I don't know what state I would be in, even 3 years later. How do you cope with the fact that your baby (or anyone) is just gone? I would go crazy, trying to find some kind of answer. The kids are coping by acting like stupid teenagers always do, but this time, they just don't care what happens to them, so their actions take on a nihlistic? (don't know if thats the right word) edge. They could be gone at any moment, so who cares what they do in the meantime.

The dogs basically snapped. If they saw whatever scared that baby so badly, it could have caused a break in their minds that they can't come back from. It's not like they have dog therapy, and no one really cares about the dogs anyway, they all have their own problems to deal with. I don't know if we are ever going to get an answer of why these people disappeared, but I would bet it happens again.

[captain1]

Palomar I don't think there were two cults in this little small town - it is supposed to be in New York, but the cult the son is in seems to be in the desert southwest to me.

[canter]

I watched the baby(Sam) in the first minutes of the episode and noted a couple things with his disappearance. The baby was unhappy to begin with, but he saw something that caught his attention and made him stop crying for a second, Then he started screaming like he was terrified, or in pain, and then he was just gone. Like he never existed, just gone.

I keep thinking about that too, how the baby seemed to see something and then started crying in a scared/hurt way. But if he saw something, wouldn't lots of the leftovers have seen it too? Or maybe it only appeared to those who we're taken? And ... the dogs...? I don't know.

[Constantinople]

Now I'm wondering what brand of cigarette the cult smokes.

 

For some reason I'm thinking Camel unfiltered, but I'm not sure.

 

Maybe generics.

[RedheadZombie]

When he was asked "Didn't you go crazy?" (paraphrasing) and he answered "No, that was my dad" -- I assume he did have some kind of breakdown and that he's not recovered.  The pills by his bed, over-sleeping, the visions/dreams -- guy's stressed.

 

I took that at face value - meaning that it was the chief's father who had the breakdown.  What I found confusing was this was supposed to be a small town where everyone knows everyone, but someone missed the fact that the chief is suddenly twenty years younger?  Maybe the point was that there's mental illness in the family.  If that was their point, it was unnecessary.  The chief is barely hanging on to his sanity, his wife has temporarily lost hers, the daughter chokes a kid while he jerks off because a game told her to, and the son is involved in a cult. 

 

The dogs were explained as having witnessed their owners' disappearances.  I believe one of Jill's friends told her that people who witnessed disappearances might then struggle on and rationalize from there, but that dogs were more or less unconditional about this too: they went straight ahead into freaked out, and didn't look back.  

 

You know I love dogs more than most people (in both senses of the phrase), and I anthropomorphise with the best of them, but even if a dog was staring at it's master when he disappeared, the dog would not become psychologically damaged, revert to a feral state, and secretly rampage on other living creatures.  Play peak a boo with a dog - they don't care.  The dog would have been distracted by something else and moved on.  Now if the premise is that when the humans disappeared, something horrific was seen, I could buy it.  But none of the humans seemed to have seen something.

 

I didn't think the pack of dogs was that large. And of course, there are still going to be people with regular pet dogs. 2% is one in 50 people disappearing. Assume half the citizens are dog owners, so half the disappeared had a dog. Many dog owners these days own two or more dogs, and odds are that half the dogs were with their owner when he/she disappeared. So if the town had 100 Disappeared and half had dogs, and half of those were with their dog at the time? That's 25 befuddled/feral dogs. And lone dogs will find each other, they are natural pack animals.

 

Again, I'm not feeling this explanation. In the one example they used, the dog disappeared when his owner did.  So my immediate thought was the dog was taken with the owner, and somehow came back - traumatized and wild from what happened.  I then could buy that the feral pack experienced the same thing.  It would also make sense that no one seems to know about this pack because they disappeared with the owners originally.  Otherwise, if these are truly left behind dogs, they would either starve to death inside homes, be taken to shelters, or cared for by family members.   I don't have a problem that the dogs became a pack.  I just don't buy how they became a pack, and why the town doesn't seem to notice.

 

Yeah, it was pretty obvious since they revealed the other featured characters to be his children. After the reveal that "attitude girl" is actually his daughter, I was pretty confident that Amy Brenneman's character would turn out to be his wife, since there had been no real point to her featured presence.

 

 

Also, I'm sorry, but I hated the scene where they shot the dog. I hate violence against animals and okay, they have turned it around a bit in the end so that it does not feel quite as cruel with the poor deer being attacked by the dogs, but still. I hated it.

 

I completely agree, the animal violence really disturbed me.  I don't know what that says about me.  I watch GoT, where there's incest, newborn baby boys left out in the cold, pregnant women being repeatedly stabbed in the abdomen, child slaves being murdered, etc.  And those things have upset me and I've cried about some of them.  But probably one of the most moving moments (for me) was Arya watching Robb's direwolf being killed.

 

I keep thinking about that too, how the baby seemed to see something and then started crying in a scared/hurt way. But if he saw something, wouldn't lots of the leftovers have seen it too? Or maybe it only appeared to those who we're taken? And ... the dogs...? I don't know.

 

I'll have to rewatch, but I took the unhappy baby as being symbolic of a mother who was too distracted and disinterested to comfort him effectively.  And if the baby did see something horrific, why didn't any other human witness something.  How about the little boys in the parking lot whose parent disappeared while pushing a shopping cart.

 

Maybe part of my disgruntlement relates to having watched Lost, and over analyzing everything on this show.  I took Lost at face value (most of the time) and I didn't read anything online about others' frustration with the show, so it didn't add any frustration.  I think it's because Lost had so much going on in the first season, that it was the immediacy of what happened post plane crash that was the focus of the show.  This show, it's what happened three years ago that's relevant, and everything on the show is a result of what happened.  On Lost, we know the characters and even care for the characters, then we learned something that either taught us more about the character, or even knocked our understanding on it's head.  Lost was about now, supplemented by then.  And I think The Leftovers is the opposite.  Maybe that's why it's not working for me.

[Frisco]

Not sure what to think yet.  Confused by the pilot episode but will keep watching.

What' s up with the people in white who don't speak and smoke non-stop?  LOL

That party the kids were out..OMG what a disaster that was.

Justin Theroux is cute!

[GaT]

Something else that confuses me... no one seems to be thinking they could return. Unlike 911 no one knows if they are dead. I would think there would be a substantial group that would be waiting for their loved ones to return.

 

 

I wonder if the smoking good humour cult believes that people will return? When they interrupted the ceremony to honor the missing, their signs read "don't waste your breath" Maybe they meant don't waste your breath talking about them as the departed, they're all coming back.

[Arynm]

I am going with only those that were taken saw something, and because dogs can see(and hear) things that we can't, the dogs that were with humans when they were taken had a psychotic break and ran out into the forest. The humans that were left were so consumed with what happened with humans they basically forgot about the dogs(or they thought they were taken as well) which led to the rumors of feral dogs in the forest. Or something like that. The baby saw something it did not like just before it was taken.

Edited July 2, 2014 by Arynm

[ganesh]

The show seems to be being like "look! this is *weird*" than actually having a narrative direction of a tv show. But, for a first episode it's better than people just talking and over explaining everything. I except that why these cults were formed will be revealed. I know in a first episode, you want to tease and not give everything away, and that's fine. But this stepped over the line of throwing everything at the wall. 

 

I'm also surprised that after 3 years, there's no slang for the vanishing event. 

 

I don't really find the teen storyline interesting because tv rarely does good teen plots. Though, I agree with the daughter. That other girl came over and hacked at her with the stick and looked all snotty about it. Well, won't be doing that anymore, will you?

 

The chief is wound *tight*. It was hard to watch him.

 

Not for anything, but who the hell shoots a dog when there's a person standing like 2 feet away? No verbal warning? Come on. I'm not really buying the dog storyline, but I can suspend disbelief enough. 

 

Since the mayor was going to have the parade anyway, the chief probably should have taken precautions to avoid a mob scene. have a roped off area or something.

 

I actually did think the party was that bad. A bunch of teens drinking and doing some dumb shit? I didn't need that much time devoted to it. 

 

Now that I think about some more. If the vanished people actually saw something, isn't there visual footage anywhere? Surely someone got taken at a gas station, convenience store, bank, mall, airport? It's been 3 years and no one knows anything at all? In the world? Doesn't London alone have like a million cctvs? No one looks at the footage? That seems like a huge oversight. 

Edited July 3, 2014 by ganesh

[alexvillage]

 

I'm also surprised that after 3 years, there's no slang for the vanishing event.

Right, the media would call it a something-gate. 

 

I don't really like this kind of story, the weird/supernatural stuff but I was ok watching the pilot. Except for the cult. I am not interested at all in anything that has to do with cults. Or religion, for that matter. Zero. And the smoking thing, besides a terrible idea, was also forced. The actors were very unnatural smoking their precious cigarettes. 

The deer thing was also weird. I don't buy when shows just put things like that in the story just to make things weird. Otherwise it is just fishing for an audience

 

I don't think Liv Tyler looks good at all. It looks like she is overly botoxed to me.

 

And what does Jennifer Aniston has to do with all this? 

[bravelittletoaster]

I feel like maybe I would have liked this better if I read the book or something

Probably not. I really liked the book, but I thought this was fucking terrible for what it did to it. I sort of knew there'd be a lot of changes because the source material isn't really adaptable to a tv show, but I hated what they did with this and especially Kevin, who's the mayor in the book and (I imagined) less sweaty and unstable. Just as well, really. I don't need another tv show in the queue. I can definitely leave this one.

[shapeshifter]

I am going with only those that were taken saw something, and because dogs can see(and hear) things that we can't, the dogs that were with humans when they were taken had a psychotic break and ran out into the forest.

Dogs can't see color like humans, but I don't think they can see anything that we can't--in a world without magic. But dogs do hear things we can't. So maybe rather than a doggie psychosis, they are being controlled by sounds the Leftovers can't hear. Maybe the Clean Plates had sensitive ears.

[bravelittletoaster]

I don't think the dogs mean anything. They just went feral when their owners disappeared.

[ottoDbusdriver]

I don't think the dogs mean anything. They just went feral when their owners disappeared.

 

But would they still be roaming the town in packs 3 years after the event.  Seriously doubt it.

Animal control would have taken care of that (unless the entire animal control dept. of Mapleton were part of the departed).

[stormy weather]

The most unbelievable thing to me still remains the fact that 2% of the global population disappeared, yet the small suburb of Mapleton seems to have suffered more losses than the entire state of Alaska. It bothered me so much I kept mulling over it and re-doing the math throughout the whole episode.

I also think Theroux was cheating on the wife when the disappearance took place (that was no 20-year-marriage sex we saw in the flashback) but then why is he so desperate to get his wife back? Because she found out and she left and now he wants to make it up to her? 

What were the cuts on Tom's back all about? Are we supposed to believe he's been abused by the British leader of the cult before, maybe with the same knife he so menacingly waved in front of his face a couple times?

Lastly, I'd like to compliment the Police Department of Mapleton for providing such a reliable service and doing a wonderful job preventing what looked like 15-20 cult-followers from being torn to shreds by the angry mob. Couldn't they have formed a line at the entrance of the park before the ceremony started if they knew all along such an event was very likely to happen? 

Edited July 3, 2014 by stormy weather

[GaT]

I keep meaning to ask this but keep forgetting, didn't somebody (possibly the chief) refer to his wife as his ex wife at some point? I could sworn I heard that during the show, but I can't remember who or when said it.

[bravelittletoaster]

But would they still be roaming the town in packs 3 years after the event.  Seriously doubt it.

Animal control would have taken care of that (unless the entire animal control dept. of Mapleton were part of the departed).

Probably because the show doesn't seem to have thought things through very well.  Stray dogs were around in the book, though they didn't get their own deer-mauling scene.  I'm sure someone in the writers' room was like DUDE YOU KNOW WHAT WOULD BE REALLY COOL AND EDGY?

Edited July 3, 2014 by bravelittletoaster

[stillshimpy]

The most unbelievable thing to me still remains the fact that 2% of the global population disappeared, yet the small suburb of Mapleton seems to have suffered more losses than the entire state of Alaska. It bothered me so much I kept mulling over it and re-doing the math throughout the whole episode.

 

I don't know.  It depends on how many people are in that "small suburb" doesn't it?  I live in an area with 40k  just in the town and about 6k in a very small municipality.  

 

Just going strictly by the numbers -- which might and probably would break down a little more randomly -- that represents 800 people going missing.  In the relatively tiny valley I live in that's 120.   To put it in the 911 terms that seem to be a little easier to relate to, the current population of Manhattan as of 2013 is listed as 1,626,159 2% would be over 32k .   The losses for 911 in NYC were about 3 thousand, and it felt huge, because it was huge.  Losing that many people in a day in a city is a crushing loss. 

 

I don't know, I think I generally relate percentages to money, so 2% sounds like absolutely nothing when I think of it in terms of a dollar.  "Pffft.  Big deal, two cents.  Okay, ten bucks?  Fine, twenty cents.  Still unlikely to miss it." and you sort of have to keep going higher before I'd really start to flinch and say, "Yeah, okay that's a loss I'd definitely notice" but truthfully I personally can only apply that level of dismissive thinking to something inanimate.  Percentages are usually applied to something inanimate, at least in my experience. 

 

I will stop talking about this now, I promise but I swear, if two out of every 100 people vanished, it doesn't take long before those numbers add up to a pretty substantial loss and it takes just a specific person for it to start being really "well, now my reality is completely fucked with hardcore."  

 

I too watched a bit of Flashforward and it was an awful show.  Just freaking awful as far as I was concerned.   Partially because whereas it did show things like planes crashing because the pilots were unconscious, what it concentrated on in the aftermath was just tedious.  If i had to hear "Mark was drinking in my Flash Forward" "I, Mark, was drinking in my Flash Forward!"  "God in heaven and devils in hell! Did you hear the news about Mark and the great demon liquor in the future!"   and I have to admit, the Cult of the Good Humor Smokers seems a little bit like that to me .  If I had to hear about Mark's fall off the Wagon one more damned time, I was going to stick an exceptionally long straw into an extraordinarily large bottle of rum and "Yo-ho-ho!" it up with a parrot on my shoulder.  Unless Mark was a damned cannibal as a drunk, oh well.  Leave him and quit fretting endlessly.  There was a woman who saw herself murdering someone in her flashforward, but Mark drinking was treated as a much bigger deal.  It was idiotic. 

 

So I quit watching the show.  Lost often missed because they had people failing to react to just mindscrew-levels of weirdness.  "Oh, a funnel of smoke killed Mr. Eko?  Pity.  Let's set up a kitchen on the beach and never ask each other any real questions like, "Hey, what are the chances this food is drugged as hell?"  Flashforward frequently missed because apparently the show forgot that alcoholics are usually just sort of uninteresting to watch and the answer to the "Mark was drinking! Oh where is my lace embroidered hankie to pull from my sleeve and dab at my eyes?  Whatever shall we do???"  Uh...how about you don't drink, Mark?  Get thee to a meeting and stop whining so much?  Act like you have agency?  

 

So I don't know, maybe this show is overcompensating a tad by having people actually still being so fully screwed up, but I liked it.  When the math of 2 percent represents a full human being for each of those losses, it's pretty big.  

 

What I'm waiting for is the inevitable flip-side to that coin:  there's bound to be someone who had their personal world's biggest monster go *poof*.   Someone who views this as the very best thing that ever happened.  Some poor person who was fleeing down a path with would-be-rapist/murderer/Alcoholic Mark right on their trail only to have them gone that next second.  

 

So outside of the Strange Smoking Cult (and yes, I was also annoyed by the smoking, as if silent, white clad creepsters hanging around wouldn't be unnerving as hell all by itself), there has to be the Happy Happy Joy Joy club of people who want to sing a hymn about "Thank God that Bastard is Gone!"  

[bravelittletoaster]

Of course 2% of the world's population doesn't mean that percentage was distributed evenly across the world.  Some communities could have been hit harder than others for whatever reason, just as some families were.  Kevin lost no one immediate to him.  Nora lost her whole family.

[RedheadZombie]

I keep meaning to ask this but keep forgetting, didn't somebody (possibly the chief) refer to his wife as his ex wife at some point? I could sworn I heard that during the show, but I can't remember who or when said it.

It happens in next week's preview, but the chief corrects the person. She's still his wife.

[Shermie]

I am going with only those that were taken saw something

 

The problem with that theory is that, while dogs and babies can't verbalize what they saw, the theory posits that several seconds passed between the Disappeared seeing something and actually disappearing. Most people would say something, even a "What the hell?" or "Oh my God". Many people disappeared in the presence of others, so they would have commented on it. Not to mention the afore-mentioned video footage that must exist of a number of disappearances.

The most unbelievable thing to me still remains the fact that 2% of the global population disappeared, yet the small suburb of Mapleton seems to have suffered more losses than the entire state of Alaska.

 

I don't know about that. I agree with stillshimpy; we don't know the population of Mapleton (and I understood it was a town, not a suburb of another city). Even so, how does it seem like they lost more than anywhere else? A town of 10,000 would have lost 200 people; that's pretty substantial to happen all at once. My town of 6,000 freaks out when one person dies suddenly or very young; I can't imagine what would happen if 120 people disappeared all at once.

 

And what does Jennifer Aniston has to do with all this?

 

Nothing, other than she is the real-life partner of Justin Theroux.

 

In my mind, I call the cig-smoking cult the White Walkers.

[annlaw78]

 

Of course 2% of the world's population doesn't mean that percentage was distributed evenly across the world.  Some communities could have been hit harder than others for whatever reason, just as some families were.  Kevin lost no one immediate to him.  Nora lost her whole family.

In one of the news reports that played annoyingly in the background (I hate that trope -- I'd much prefer to hear what the "experts" are saying than following bumbling "everymen") that there were phenomena like the Chef Anomaly and the Brandenburg Carousel, which I take to mean are either instances of either higher-than-usual concentrations of departed or lower-than-usual, but could very well be neither. 

[alexvillage]

 

Nothing, other than she is the real-life partner of Justin Theroux.

Oh, thanks. Poor guy!

[ganesh]

I thought the news reports were giving the number of people that vanished country by country. 

[shapeshifter]

I too watched a bit of Flashforward and it was an awful show.  Just freaking awful as far as I was concerned.   Partially because whereas it did show things like planes crashing because the pilots were unconscious, what it concentrated on in the aftermath was just tedious.  If i had to hear "Mark was drinking in my Flash Forward" "I, Mark, was drinking in my Flash Forward!"  "God in heaven and devils in hell! Did you hear the news about Mark and the great demon liquor in the future!"   and I have to admit, the Cult of the Good Humor Smokers seems a little bit like that to me .  If I had to hear about Mark's fall off the Wagon one more damned time, I was going to stick an exceptionally long straw into an extraordinarily large bottle of rum and "Yo-ho-ho!" it up with a parrot on my shoulder.  Unless Mark was a damned cannibal as a drunk, oh well.  Leave him and quit fretting endlessly.  There was a woman who saw herself murdering someone in her flashforward, but Mark drinking was treated as a much bigger deal.  It was idiotic. 

I happened to read the book FlashForward before the show aired. I liked the book and was looking forward to the show. I read some interviews that I posted on TWoP about what went wrong. Basically, it was allegedly a case of too many cooks--or rather, too many head chefs wrestling for control of the plot.

I haven't read the source material for this show (it wasn't available from the library by the time the show was announced), but, regardless of deviations from the original, I just hope egos don't get too involved.

[canter]

Not that this sheds much light on the whole smoking thing, but there was a sign in the GR house that said, “We Don’t Smoke For Enjoyment; We Smoke To Proclaim Our Faith.”

[bravelittletoaster]

I think the point of the smoking is to gaslight the fact that they think it's end of days and they're not worrying about their long term health.

[GaT]

It happens in next week's preview, but the chief corrects the person. She's still his wife.

Ah, so I didn't imagine it, thanks

[Shermie]

Not that this sheds much light on the whole smoking thing, but there was a sign in the GR house that said, “We Don’t Smoke For Enjoyment; We Smoke To Proclaim Our Faith.”

 

Okay, show. I require more of an explanation - their loved ones disappeared like smoke, their lives went up in smoke? 

 

I read some interviews that I posted on TWoP about what went wrong [with Flash Forward]. Basically, it was allegedly a case of too many cooks--or rather, too many head chefs wrestling for control of the plot.

 

See, I don't understand why these types of shows don't have a basic outline up front - here is the premise, here are the sub-plots, this is what we will reveal and when, etc. That's storytelling 101. And it sure helps avoid the random "oooh, let's add halucinations, that would be cool!" or "pandas are hot right now, let's write in a panda subplot!" nonsense.

 

Nothing, other than she is the real-life partner of Justin Theroux.

 

Oh, thanks. Poor guy!

 

Actually, Jennifer Aniston is very well-liked by most women and most guys think she's hot, so I'm not sure why Theroux is a "poor guy" for dating her. It actually would have been a funny and meta joke if she had been one of the disappeared celebrities, though. That the writers didn't think of that makes me lose hope for their writing skills.

[ganesh]

 

See, I don't understand why these types of shows don't have a basic outline up front - here is the premise, here are the sub-plots, this is what we will reveal and when, etc. That's storytelling 101.

I say it all the time. In this era of tv watching and rewatching and discussion boards, every show should have a bible going in, part of it being an outline, dos and don'ts, etc. The more you need the viewers to suspend disbelief, the more you need to have established rules like this.

 

Not saying that they don't here, but given how much they threw at the screen in this episode, I would expect that these will be addressed. Not all at once, but it should unfold with some regularity. One of the keys to storytelling 101 is doling out answers along the way. 

[tomorrowgirl]

Just watched this today and I'm not sure yet if I want to continue with it.  Maybe I wasn't in the mood for the doom and gloom.  It's always upsetting to me to see animals harmed.  I didn't want to hear that poor deer struggling under the car that hit it, or see the deer pursued and ripped apart by the dogs.  All those cult members smoking and not talking was very irritating to me too. I guess I'll try one more episode before giving up on it.

[Mei]

When he was asked "Didn't you go crazy?" (paraphrasing) and he answered "No, that was my dad" -- I assume he did have some kind of breakdown and that he's not recovered.  The pills by his bed, over-sleeping, the visions/dreams -- guy's stressed.

Lol, yeah, he's definitely stressed. I get your thinking, but I think that was just informational (see below).

 

Grim Weepers.

Loved this coinage, lol!

 

Oooooh, one thing, before I forget again: There was a dog -- and it looked like some form of 'doodle (Labradoodle, Goldendoodle) at that commemorative ceremony.  So we have located a Poodle derivative, GaT. 

'Saw that too! 

When I rewound the "didn't the chief go crazy?" flashback, I thought the man we saw going crazy had a different body/no tattoos and balding hair -- leading me to believe it was his father who went crazy.

I think there's a reason for that 

I knew I'd seen this somewhere, so I looked it up--Kevin Garvey, Sr. will be played by Scott Glenn, according to Imdb.

 

ETA- It was truly unrealistic how that all went down at the statue unveiling ceremony. I take emergency management classes, and every conceivable possibility is planned for, well in advance of any such event.

Edited July 5, 2014 by Mei

[KaveDweller]

Now that I think about some more. If the vanished people actually saw something, isn't there visual footage anywhere? Surely someone got taken at a gas station, convenience store, bank, mall, airport? It's been 3 years and no one knows anything at all? In the world? Doesn't London alone have like a million cctvs? No one looks at the footage? That seems like a huge oversight. 

 

If it was something only visible to the people that disappeared, it might not have been caught by cameras.  

 

Right, the media would call it a something-gate. 

 

I don't know, there's not really any slang term for 911.  I think with tragic events they are less likely to come up with catchy nicknames.    But I'm surprised there aren't more theories about what happened.  They said religious groups couldn't agree on anything and scientists decided they didn't know.  But none of those people or even just random crackpots came up with a guess? Rapture and alien abduction seem to be the obvious guesses, but I'm sure people could come up with more after three years.

 

I was thinking 2% sounded like nothing at first.  I even thought it was dumb to call people the "leftovers" when it was such a huge majority.  But, if you think about it, 2% of the earth's popular is 140 million people.

[shapeshifter]

I don't know, there's not really any slang term for 911.

"911" (or often "9/11") is the slang term. Prior to early 2002, "911" was always pronounced "9-1-1" and referred to an emergency phone call. I recall right after the event people referred to it as "September 11," and then when it became "Nine eleven" spelled "911," some TV announcers at first pronounced it"9-1-1" because that's how they were used to reading 911 aloud. Similarly, the terms "Holocaust" and "The Killing Fields" didn't exist at the times of the events. We don't now say "Hurricane Katrina," but rather just "Katrina."

So, since this is only the first episode, I expect there to be a term for this event too, 3 years later. If not, there should be at least a character who asks why there isn't a name--perhaps a young school child. But that doesn't make sense either, because if there isn't a name, it is those school kids who would coin one.

Edited July 5, 2014 by shapeshifter

[Miss chi chi]

The smoking really confounded me and took me out of story. I should have felt compassion for everyone, but didn't. Finally get why Jennifer with Justin. Really confused about overall story. I have a five year old daughter and teenage party turned into horror film quickly!

[90PercentGravity]

Also, to me it looked like Liv Tyler's character was covering a black eye in about half her shots.  Right eye, bruise underneath.  So maybe that was part of the reason she was being targeted.  She was so anxious to pretend that things were still the same she was planning a wedding....and judging by her face in that restaurant scene, I thought she was battered.

This was really bugging me. I couldn't tell if Liv Tyler had a black eye and the makeup did a bad job covering up or if the character was supposed to have a black eye.

 

I thought the pilot was really boring, but Justin Thoreaux is really handsome. He kind of reminds me of a better looking Rob Morrow.

 

Right, the media would call it a something-gate.

And blame it on Obama. The Obamanable Evaporation.

[alexvillage]

 

Actually, Jennifer Aniston is very well-liked by most women and most guys think she's hot, so I'm not sure why Theroux is a "poor guy" for dating her

As with everything celebrity related, it is my perception of her. I have no idea of how she really is because I don't know her, but she strikes me as shallow, too concerned with looking forever young (she will soon be completely paralyzed by botox). I think she is the opposite of sexy and I am bisexual, with a preference for women. My observation is to be taken as tongue in cheek.

 

 

And blame it on Obama. The Obamanable Evaporation.

Ha!

[BooBear]

You know I love dogs more than most people (in both senses of the phrase), and I anthropomorphise with the best of them, but even if a dog was staring at it's master when he disappeared, the dog would not become psychologically damaged, revert to a feral state, and secretly rampage on other living creatures.  Play peak a boo with a dog - they don't care.  The dog would have been distracted by something else and moved on.  Now if the premise is that when the humans disappeared, something horrific was seen, I could buy it.

 

This. If eventually the show does provide an explanation that something supernatural caused these things... fine, but in a lot of the making of specials they said they didn't want to focus on what happened but rather how people act after something like this happens. At the moment, however, I find most of the reactions to be unbelievable. Dogs just do not act this way. So to have it be such a massive part of the pilot was simply distracting.  I even feel like three years should have been long enough for a lot of the reactions to have been less.. as if this should have taken place 6 months after the vanishing.  Perhaps it is just me but every major disaster I have ever been subjected to... from the challenger to my own parents dying .. the thing that most shocks me is how life just goes on ... how everyone just adjusts... and forgets.  So the show takes a premise I just don't buy and asks me to wallow in it.

 

And I didn't appreciate the animal carnage in every second of this show. 

[ganesh]

If it was something only visible to the people that disappeared, it might not have been caught by cameras. 

Regardless, however, one would think that all law enforcement are looking at video footage of *everything* to see if they can glean some clues. If the vanished person saw or heard something that's not recordable on camera, they're still reacting to it. So after 3 years, I would expect something like "we can confirmed they saw something but don't know what." In the opening scene, the baby was quiet then cried, then vanished. If they're going to establish that in that way then it's reasonable to assume that someone would be curious enough to ask these questions. And if someone is, then 2 people are, 10, 100. With the internet, I'm surprised there aren't any amateur groups devoted to this. We have regular people irl who process data for SETI looking for alien communication. 

 

But on the news on the show, they were like "no one knows anything after 3 years." If you, show, need me to suspend my disbelief that's fine, but it still has to fit in a logical framework. After 3 years, it's doesn't wash.

 

So, since this is only the first episode, I expect there to be a term for this event too, 3 years later. If not, there should be at least a character who asks why there isn't a name--perhaps a young school child. But that doesn't make sense either, because if there isn't a name, it is those school kids who would coin one

 

I don't think they are going to. I would have thought that people on the news would be using whatever colloquial term by now. "Nine eleven" didn't take that long to make it into the vernacular. I know it's not a show about investigating this vanishing event itself, but these type of things are part of necessary world building for these kinds of shows. These are the things that go in the show bible. You may not need to directly address them in the show, but if you are using the trick of 'news report exposition' then this is something that you would use.

[A Boston Gal]

On Demand has a behind-the-scenes piece with the showrunner describing the purpose of the smoking: to be annoying to others outside the cult, and to show the "life is not long nor worth staying healthy for" mindset of the GR's.

 

Like others have noted, I'm wondering who's picking up the bill for the cigs. Must be cost a pretty penny. Does RJ Reynolds sponsor this cult, or what?

[shapeshifter]

Like others have noted, I'm wondering who's picking up the bill for the cigs. Must be cost a pretty penny. Does RJ Reynolds sponsor this cult, or what?

If I were a show writer/runner who had just noticed this flaw in the script, I'd have the cult started by someone who was an heir to a tobacco company when the owner of more than half of the company disappeared and was later declared legally dead. Of course, that's assuming the insurance companies have settled on allowing the Clean Platers to be declared dead--which they might not have done. Edited July 5, 2014 by shapeshifter

[GaT]

Regardless, however, one would think that all law enforcement are looking at video footage of *everything* to see if they can glean some clues. If the vanished person saw or heard something that's not recordable on camera, they're still reacting to it. So after 3 years, I would expect something like "we can confirmed they saw something but don't know what." In the opening scene, the baby was quiet then cried, then vanished. If they're going to establish that in that way then it's reasonable to assume that someone would be curious enough to ask these questions. And if someone is, then 2 people are, 10, 100. With the internet, I'm surprised there aren't any amateur groups devoted to this. We have regular people irl who process data for SETI looking for alien communication. 

 

But on the news on the show, they were like "no one knows anything after 3 years." If you, show, need me to suspend my disbelief that's fine, but it still has to fit in a logical framework. After 3 years, it's doesn't wash.

 

 

 

You're right, this is a huge flaw in the show, unless they have plans to explain everyone's behavior on upcoming shows. For example, on the show Masterchef, there was an incident where somebody picked up the wrong ramekin & presented it as their own. The people on this board alone have been dissecting this incident since the show aired, complete with screenshots of the show showing contestants taking ramekins out of the refrigerator. The thread is pretty much 99% devoted to this mystery. I kind of believe that having 2% of the world's population suddenly disappear would be considered a bigger mystery than "who took the ramekin?". If they wanted to give us a glimpse of how the world is now, there should have been some kind of mention of what people (law enforcement or civilians) were doing to figure it out & what they know. Telling us that nobody knows anything after 3 years is not realistic, but like I said, maybe we'll be getting that information in upcoming shows.

 

And if anyone is interested in the mystery of the ramekin, here's the thread :-) 

[bilgistic]

I don’t know why I never caught on to the fact that Tom and Jill are siblings.

I didn't get it either, until reading it here, in the thread. I thought Tommy was maybe too old to be the Chief's son, and in the family picture that Jill looked at, I thought there were only two daughters and no sons. The younger daughter on the right was a blonde, making Jill the older. I guess I was quite wrong!

The kids at the party playing "spin the bottle" with a cell phone and that horrific app made me so glad I am old enough to have played the game with an actual bottle and very tame "consequences" (kissing). Good lord, I'm happy I don't have kids.

[ganesh]

On Demand has a behind-the-scenes piece with the showrunner describing the purpose of the smoking: to be annoying to others outside the cult, and to show the "life is not long nor worth staying healthy for" mindset of the GR's.

 

This is a general problem I have with shows nowadays too. Showrunners need to stfu more. For one, I shouldn't have to consult additional information to be able to follow a show. For the other, I inferred from watching the show that the smoking was pretty much a bleak affect; i.e., why bother living? Or, live in the moment. I don't need the showrunner to explain things to me. Yeah, I get "then don't watch the extra material." I don't, but it's hard to avoid things like this because I like connecting online over tv shows.

 

Telling us that nobody knows anything after 3 years is not realistic, but like I said, maybe we'll be getting that information in upcoming shows.

 

And that's fine if they do. I would expect that they'll be getting into how this cult was started more too. I get that you can't do that in just the first episode. I'm skeptical, however. In the process of Making The Show Not About The Vanishing, it seems like details like this are overlooked. 

 

I really, really hate the "sensible people don't do sensible things because plot" device of storytelling. Why don't shows have like a bullshit consultant. Someone who will go over the spec or treatment and ask these kind of questions before the show goes to camera?

[BooBear]

 

Telling us that nobody knows anything after 3 years is not realistic, but like I said, maybe we'll be getting that information in upcoming shows.

 

Something that struck me too is that in real life... no one ever has the guts to say "I don't know." Typically they come up the faux science to explain it or a theory is struck that everyone likes and they adopt. It is a way of dealing with things. I think it is obvious in health studies today... many  of them are faux science and they give people hope where they might not be any. Or people come up with their own theories on the internet and cling to them and write books about them with no evidence. So I do find it hard to believe that everyone would just be... we don't know.  Perhaps that will come up in the future.  But I found that another thing that seemed to strike me as not consistant with human behavior. I know one theory is the Rapture but I feel like it was strange that the normal people didn't seem to have their own theories that made it easier for them to go about daily life.

[ganesh]

Not that I want to see this on the show, but I would think too that there'd be loads of documentaries on tv too. Using actual video footage and first hand accounts. 

[sadiegirl]

I never thought about the legal aspects, but now I want to know how those things are being handled.  if your spouse disappeared, are you considered divorced and can you get remarried?  If your parents disappeared, does their will go in effect and you can spend their money?  An occurrance like this would certainly keep the lawyers and judges busy.

[GaT]

I think in the US it's mostly 7 years before you can file to have someone declared dead, so even if people plan on it, in this case they still have 4 years to go before they can do anything. I would think that if a large chunk of the population actually disappeared like that, that the government might declare some kind of blanket "they're dead" kind of thing rather than have the courts tied up forever with separate cases. 

[Malachi]

Hey guys.

The very first scene totally took me out of this show. The woman who wouldn't stop talking on the phone made me almost irrationally angry. It's bad enough to have really long conversations in public places (IMO anyway) but to do it while ignoring your screaming baby makes it so much worse.

That, and her conversation while putting the baby in the car is asking a woman to squeeze her in for an appointment. Then a minute later, she's talking about something completely different and then says to whoever is on the phone (her spouse maybe?) that she'll be home soon and to start heating the baby's formula. There were NO breaks or jumps in time. It was very confusing.

Edited July 6, 2014 by Malachi

[bravelittletoaster]

The baby stopped crying because it was gone, not because it saw something.  The people who disappeared just vanished: poof.  Gone before people's eyes.