I seem to agree with the man, the whole thing seems like a total "head fuck."

The new show will follow the path laif out by Robert J. Sawyer in his original book, but what's changed in the television version? We asked a few members of the cast to give us some insight into what's ahead for the story, but no one would (or could) tell us much.

It seems FlashForward really is aiming to be the next easter-egg-heavy show with hidden tidbits everywhere, including easter eggs hidden in one character's flash.

Dominic Monaghan is appearing on this new would-be Lost replacement, as a man named Simon. But that's about all he's got for us, aside from saying it'll screw with your mind.

"I just kinda know what you guys know. A world event takes place where everybody passes out for about two and a half minutes and in that two and a half minutes people have visions of their potential future. So every one becomes a prophet of their life. And it's the story of what happens to the world when you know what's going to happen next. Some people are gonna have great lives; some people are going to commit suicide and (yet) they know they're alive in the future; some people are going to have a baby with some girl and in the future they don't have a baby. It's just a huge head fuck. Head fuck!"

Joseph Fiennes and John Cho, who play two FBI agents, stress that in producer David S. Goyer's world, the rabbit hole can always go deeper. Cho, whose character doesn't actually have any vision of the future, says while that doesn't bode well for his character, nothing is ever written in stone.

"Certainly my character's very scared that he's going to die, because he doesn't have a vision, but ... I don't know, I honestly don't know whether he will die or not."

"In Goyer's world," said Fiennes, "you have to remember that nothing is as it seems."

"Yeah, I wouldn't bank on him dying — because if it's implied, as you say, I wouldn't infer."

Producer Goyer also mentioned there is plenty to throw people off track, but many clues to keep them entertained. FlashForward has already incorporated a thousand (ok, like seven) easter eggs into the first 17 minutes of the pilot to keep people engaged.

Goyer says the writing team has careful mapped out where they want these rabbit holes to lead, which meant incorporating such things in the pilot as the company Red Panda and ... a kangaroo we see jumping across the street as Los Angeles lies in ruin.

The kangaroo, says Goyer, will definitely be back.

And Cho's words keep ringing in my head, as the perfect tagline for every dramatically secretive TV serial today: "If it's implied ... I wouldn't infer."

FlashFoward begins September 24 on ABC.

During the FlashForward panel, producers David S. Goyer, Marc Guggenheim and Brannon Braga debuted the first 17 minutes of their show.

Opening on a shot of Joseph Fiennes upside-down in a car (next to some oranges), and it appears as though some catastrophic event has occurred in Los Angeles. Mark Benford is just starting to navigate the wreckage of a highway full of cars when the show jumps backward in time ala J.J. Abrams.

From there, the story is jumpy and cuts from one character to another too fast, introducing us to no less than seven potentially important characters in the first 10 minutes.

Penny (Sonya Walger) from Lost returns to ABC to become Olivia, Mark's doting wife. Or least a wife who knows the combination to Mark's safe which is where he stores his gun. As Mark heads downstairs, his daughter (who you just know is going to be pivotal) is watching crazy cartoons at 7 AM on what may or may not be a school day.

Next up in the revolving door of quick character intros is the Benford family's babysitter, Nicole. She enters the house and soon we see her "hanging out" on the couch with her boyfriend. We quickly move on to Bryce, a dysfunctional man on a dock with a death wish.

The show begins to slow slightly when we see John Cho as Mark's (I'm assuming) comic sidekick, though, sadly, we only see some of his sass here. He and Fiennes are buddy-buddy FBI agents tracking down some guys. And a girl. As with all drawn-out television shows intent on keeping you around for the long haul, you don't get many details up front.

There's a flash and we see about 30 seconds of Mark's personal flash into the future. It's grainy and full of easter eggs and totally confusing to the untrained eye. Words jump out at Mark and somewhere in there is a slight homage to Watchmen artist "D. Gibbons."

After the flash, Nicole the delinquent babysitter runs upstairs where the creepy daughter is sitting upright in her bed and she tells her babysitter, "I dreamt there were no more good days." What?! What does this mean?! Which is precisely what the producers are hoping we'll ask.

And now we've caught up to the true beginning of this show. Mark hops around trying to figure out what caused these crashes and runs into an oddly serene looking Cho. The two pair up to fight some crime and end up with more questions than before.

The whole world has been affected by this phenomenon, and it appears the first order of business is deciphering exactly what happen. It's an intriguing idea, and with Goyer on board, we definitely shouldn't take for granted that it will follow the original novel by Robert J. Sawyer.

In fact, Goyer said, they crunched the timeline from a hard-to-film 21-year vision of the future into a six-month one, to help move the plot along. Everyone sees 2 minutes and 17 seconds of their future as it happens on April 29, a date which will sync up nicely with at least part one of the season finale.

Despite the changes, however, Robert J. Sawyer apparently approves. The producers haven't lost any of the death and destruction of Sawyer's original novel, even showcasing the collapse of Los Angeles in the wake of the flash, up close and personal in the first two acts of the pilot. Goyer said Sawyer is the show's "unofficial science advisor" and that he will be writing an episode for the first season.

The show looks decent despite a rough beginning, and it sounds like the writers have an endgame in mind.

And, finally, at the very end of the panel came our glimpse of Dominic Monaghan as a man named Simon.

In the clip, Mark chokes a dashing Lloyd Simcoe (played by Jack Davenport), holding him against the wall and demanding to know who he is and who he works for, dammit. And then Dominic Monaghan appears, looking oh-so-fine in his suit and saying, simply, "I am Simon."

Says Monaghan:

I keep saying this... When people ask me on the street if I'm coming back to Lost, I say, "That's the equivalent of asking Huckleberry Finn if he's gonna be in the next Mark Twain novel.

I'm a fictional character — I have no control over that. If it was up to me, maybe I would make a decision, but it's not.

Is Charlie ever coming back? How do you deal with the rumors and not knowing if he will ever be back?

It's definitely difficult. There was a lot of hearsay and rumor. What ABC did, which was very sad, was that they just did not confirm it. So people would call them and they would say, 'We're not going to confirm it.' Which never truly allows people to believe it's going to happen unless the studio confirms [or denies] it. So obviously now if you were to call ABC they would say, "oh yeah, what time is it, oh yeah yeah yeah." But before that time they didn't tell anyone.

Was your new show FlashForward influenced by Lost?

There's certainly an influence in FlashForward in the model of the show, in the same way that Lost was modeled. It's a large impressive international cast. It's a world wide show. It translates to different world wide markets. It's world event that deals with mystery and drama and suspense, but ultimately it's the characters. It's heavily influenced by Lost but then it's also it's own beast at the same time.

Video and additional reporting by Julia Carusillo.

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello was told by ABC that Monaghan's appearance in a recent trailer for ABC's upcoming 2009-9010 season doesn't mean that he's returning to Lost, as many - including Ausiello himself - has presumed. Instead, according to the network, he'll be joining another hour-long drama on the channel... but it's supposed to be a surprise, so they won't say which.

Thankfully, we already know what dramas the network have planned - thanks, network upfronts - so it's just a matter of guessing whether he'll be showing up on Castle, new crime procedural The Forgotten, Eastwick, Flash Forward, Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice, Ugly Betty (It's an hour-long show, but surely it doesn't count as a drama?), or mid-season shows The Deep End, Happy Town or V. While I'm all in favor of actors stretching themselves, I think watching the career of Monaghan (Lord Of The Rings, Lost, X-Men Origins: Wolverine and a Chuck guest-shot) shows that he knows that his bread is buttered on the geek side, meaning that Flash Forward and V are the most likely candidates to bring a short pouty Brit into their fold. Add in that his joining the cast (as a series regular) is, according to Ausiello, meant to be "a big surprise," and I'm putting my money on his ending up an alien in V before too long.

Of course, now that I've said that, he'll turn up as McDreamy's brother in Gray's Anatomy.

Spoiler alert: 'Lost' mystery solved! [EW.com]

Monaghan plays Tyler Martin, a rock star whom Chuck has to help protect from some very bad guys. Monaghan describes the character as a lunatic who's not much like his Lost character, Charlie. Tyler is a superficial guy, a definitive rock star who got into music because it was the easiest way to get free flights around the world. (As opposed to Charlie, who got into music to soothe his troubled soul.) "He’s like Charlie in a hallucinogenic dream. He’s like what Charlie would be in his most brilliant moment, but Tyler is like that all the time. So I thought it might be something that would tickle people to see."

(We read a ton of pages from the script to this episode a while back, and you can read a detailed summary here.)

[Doc Arzt]

Observe the first trailer over at Fangoria.

Teaser:

[I Sell The Dead]