#How Do You Feel About TV Flashforwards to Grim Futures? (POLL)

“We have to go back!” Even if you never watched Lost, chances are you’ve heard that memorable line of Jack’s (Matthew Fox). When we think of flashforwards, that’s the moment we think of first.

The Walking Dead returned for the second part of its 11th and final season, and its premiere ended with a flash forward to six months after Eugene (Josh McDermitt) brought the people of the Commonwealth to what remained standing of Alexandria. We joined Maggie (Lauren Cohan) at Hilltop … as the Commonwealth’s army came to the gates. “Open up,” one soldier demanded. “It doesn’t have to be this way,” Maggie said. “Yeah. Yeah, it does,” the soldier replied — and it was Daryl (Norman Reedus)!

And so now we know that over the next few months, we’ll start to see a divide between Maggie and Daryl to get them to that point. That’s something we have to see play out on-screen. (We do start to see that with this episode and the way she takes out the Reapers.) Why is he with the Commonwealth, while she seemingly has a reason to distrust the community (and its people)?

Arrow also utilized a flashforward with its Season 4 premiere, showing in the last scene that in six months, someone Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) knew would be dead. The 18th episode of the season revealed that to be Laurel Lance (Katie Cassidy). But until then, it felt like the sword of Damocles was hanging over almost every character’s head. The same was true with the flashforwards that played a prominent role in Season 7, showing a dark future for Star City, its heroes and their kids, one that ended up being changed with the “Crisis on Infinite Earths” Arrowverse crossover — and would therefore have only held significance if Green Arrow and the Canaries had been picked up to series. So when it’s something like that, did you enjoy seeing that “what if?” or would you rather have seen the time spent there utilized for something else?

Ron Batzdorff/NBC

This Is Us started introducing flashforwards in Season 2, taking us to the cabin where the family is visiting Rebecca (Mandy Moore) and beyond. And so not only do we know Rebecca’s eventual fate, but we know that Kate (Chrissy Metz) and Toby’s (Chris Sullivan) marriage is going to fall apart and she’s going to marry Phillip (Chris Geere) among other things about the Pearsons’ futures.

NCIS even joined in on the flashforward fun in Season 18 (after jumping back in time as well), with the premiere showing Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon) shooting his team member, Timothy McGee (Sean Murray), twice to keep him from stopping a plane. A few episodes later, we found out why: to save his life, since there was a bomb onboard. Having that hanging over the episodes it did wasn’t too bad since we knew there had to be a good reason and the timeline meant we didn’t have long to wait for answers.

The aforementioned Lost is really a whole category unto itself, considering the flashbacks, flashforwards, and flash-sideways (which ended up being something else entirely). But there was still an element of having some sort of idea of what’s coming.

But how do you feel about knowing that in however much time in the future, something is going to go horribly wrong on one of your shows? Let us know in the poll below.