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."

How much were you influenced by your predecessors?

Cho: A great deal, though, I sort of had to get it out of my head a little. I don't think any of us wanted to do imitations although the temptation was there. We just felt it probably wouldn't have made sense and distracted people.

Yelchin: There's obviously an enormous influence and a huge desire to capture what made these characters so great and what's given them this legacy for the past forty years. But at the same time, like John said, there's a certain point where you do all of your research, and then you have your character and you've added your own thing. You come on set, and you just kind of do it. You're not thinking about it anymore.

There are also a lot of really important quirks that fans are looking for, like the accent and using certain words. Did you practice saying "wessels" over and over again?

Yelchin: Yeah, I mean obviously once you watch a series you see that and you register that. Then you take sort of specific things and you use them. It's fun to embrace that, you know, it'd be one thing just to play a Russian character but that's not the goal you know? The goal is to play Chekhov. And you if Chekhov changes his v's to his w's then that's what you do. And it's a blast.

Were there any other quirks that you guys picked up on that you brought out in your character?

Cho: Yeah, I think one day my voice went a little too high, even though I wasn't really sweating doing George, I wasn't trying to do this George Takei impression. But, one day I said, "Cap'n!" [makes a high squeaky voice], and J.J. comes over and says, "a little lower.. just… lower…" and that was the one time we had.

Yelchin: A lot of it the physicality as well. They all had a very specific kind of walk, and a very, very specific kind of smile and a very specific look. There's a very natural optimism about him [Chekov] and I just thought it was really important to capture that. It's beyond the accent, there's the body language and everything that comes with that.

You two have to work a lot of gadgets on the bridge. Did you study the hand motions of your former characters? Were there a lot of re-shoots on the bridge?

Cho: There was a little bit of a tension on the first day. We got together and said, "what's this gonna be" so we had a little pow-wow with J.J., who knows how much scrutiny this is going to come under and we sort of tried figuring out a finger language.

Did you ever have a couple of times you just thought "I'm just gonna go with it. Just move this around here, and then the ship goes forward?"

Cho: I remember when I was pushing the lever once and they were getting coverage on that and the camera person said to me "let's do it again… sexier." [Laughs] Really!

John, you really kick a lot of butt in this. Did you go and watch any of the original scenes, when Takei is going nuts and mimic any of those moves?

Cho: That was a little bit different. He was doing a classical fencing style and you know he had a rapier and I have a modified electronic, I don't know, samurai sword situation. So it was a different style altogether. It was sort of like a tribute to that.

M: John I read you're working on Flash Forward? And it is possibly a show that could rival Lost? Do you think that's true and can you tell us anything about your character?

Cho: I'll tell you the series is focused on a black out that the whole world experiences for two minutes and they see a vision. Everyone sees a vision of their future. Joseph Fiennes and I play FBI agents, partners, so we're trying to piece the whole thing together. Beyond that, I'm not sure I can say much more.

Joseph Fiennes, who played the Bard a decade ago before surrendering to being the less famous of the Fiennes Brothers, is up for the lead role in the new drama, according to the Hollywood Reporter:

Based on Robert J. Sawyer's sci-fi novel, "Flash" chronicles the chaos that ensues after everyone in the world passes out for 2 minutes and 17 seconds and has a mysterious vision of the future that changes lives forever.

The project centers on Mark Banford (Fiennes), an FBI agent who is patching up his life and his marriage after winning a long struggle with the bottle. Disturbed by the harrowing premonition during his blackout, he races to unravel the mystery, fearful of the murky future that might spell disaster for himself and his loved ones.

John Cho, Star Trek's latest Sulu, is also said to be in talks for a co-starring role according to the Reporter; the show debuts next year on ABC.

Joseph Fiennes looks 'Forward' [Hollywood Reporter]