TV Cliche #97: The Flash Forward

*****BEWARE SPOILERS FROM THIS WEEKS NIP/TUCK BELOW*****

When you invest in a TV show and it's characters you tend to think about their future. One of the great TV tools or cliches is to give the audience a brief look at the characters far in the future. Usually it involves an event like wedding or a funeral. Sometimes it's a farce, other times a dream, and almost always there is a caveat about how the future isn't set in stone and something can be done in the present to change the outcome. The constant in all these settings is the writers bending over backwards to show us it's the future. References to old pop culture and really bad make up are staples to this approach. On Tuesday this week Nip/Tuck pulled out the cliche and went overboard in embracing its conventions. On paper this sounded like an interesting ep, jump ahead 20 years and see how all the characters have grown old since Julia and Shawn's split by using the occasion of Connor's hand surgery. In an interesting turn of events, the show actually revealed that all of the cast had survived (except for poor Liz, where was she?). Usually these flash forwards maintain ambivalence but this ep was presented as the gospel, almost as if the show lasted 20 years this is what we'd get. Although I'd hope we could do without the horrible wigs. Except for Julia and Matt everyone looked bizarre. Christian and Sean sure seemed like the world's worst plastic surgeons because they could not heal themselves. Then there were the "hey look we're in the future" moments like when Connor refers to how hurricanes used to be rare or when the group discussed how gay marriage was still illegal but polygamy passed Congress. By the time the show was over I was more frustrated then pleased. There were some high points like the actress who played Annie all grown up and crazy. Plus, the story that got buried by all the future junk was actually really good and for the first time since I've seen the show, ended on an up note. However, I was still tired by the end and left with that lasting impression of disappointment.