History Main / FlashForward

* ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' has one from [[http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004018 here]] to [[http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004020 here,]] showing to readers in advance how Tavros got a pair of robotic legs, weeks after the events shown prior.

* ''VideoGame/SplinterCell: Conviction'' does this, showing what will happen some time later in [[spoiler: the White House. Grim will supposedly betray, capture, and hand over Sam to the enemy for execution.]]

* ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'' starts out with a flash forward to a BadEnding.

** The first episode of the fourth season has a scene set 6 months in the future [[spoiler:with Oliver and Barry standing by a [[TonightSomeoneDies grave of an unknown Team Arrow member,]] and an [[ManlyTears openly weeping]] Oliver vowing to kill the one responsible.]] The Midseason Premier picked up where that left off, and had Oliver join Felicity in a car where she told him "You need to kill that son of a bitch." [[spoiler:The person in the grave is finally revealed to be Laurel]].
** Season 7 has regular flashforwards in place of the island flashbacks from seasons 1-5.

* ''Rai'' #0, written by Jim Shooter, who also wrote the Adult Legion story.

* ''[[ComicBook/ArchieComics Archie Marries Veronica]]'' is stated to be a flashforward story arc, set after Archie and the gang have graduated from college.

* ''ComicBook/DaysOfFuturePast'', one of the most famous story arcs in Marvel Comics, is a series of stories in which various X-men and others get glimpses of a possible future where the USA has been conquered by the Sentinel mutant-hunting AIs, mutants are rounded up in concentration camps, and America has basically been reduced to a totalitarian nightmare. The storyline pivots around the activities of present day (fictional) U.S. Senator Robert Kelly, and it's left unclear whether or not that future has been prevented.

Not to be confused with {{Seers}} - characters who can view the future (or a possible future) inside the context of the story. Compare {{Futureshadowing}}.

* Season 7 of ''Series/TheWestWing'' opens with a Flash Forward of most of the cast in the future, waiting for Bartlet's successor (who we don't see the face of). Leo isn't present at this scene- a FunnyAneurysmMoment in retrospect, as his actor - Creator/JohnSpencer died three months later.

%% Administrivia/ZeroContextExample entries are not allowed on wiki pages. All such entries have been commented out. Add context to the entries before uncommenting them.

* ''Manga/TheQuintessentialQuintuplets'' has several of these to five years in the future, where male lead Fuutarou Uesugi [[MarriedInTheFuture is getting married]] to one of the Nakano Quintuplets. However, the identity of the quintuplet in question remains obscured for the most part until near the end of the story, [[spoiler:eventually revealed to be Yotsuba, the fourth sister]].

* In ''Lola Rennt'', a.k.a. ''Film/RunLolaRun'' in the US, an encounter with another pedestrian sometimes triggered a {{Blipvert}} showing what would happen to that person.

* The final issue of ''ComicBook/MegaMan'' had Dr. Light seeing visions of the future from ''VideoGame/MegaMan4'' all the way to ''VideoGame/MegaManLegends''

* ''Manga/TheQuintessentialQuintuplets'' has several of these to five years in the future, where male lead Fuutarou Uesugi [[MarriedInTheFuture is getting married]] to one of the Nakano Quintuplets. However, the identity of the quintuplet in question remains obscured for the most part until near the end of the story, [[spoiler:until it's eventually revealed to be Yotsuba, the fourth sister]].

* The ''WebVideo/DragonBallZAbridged'' version of ''Anime/SuperAndroid13'' does this when Goku gets [[GroinAttack kicked in the dick]] so hard that it flashes forward to the Buu saga and shows [[RetGone Goten getting erased from existence.]]

* One ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}'' episode ends with the kids as teenagers, another with one of the kids grown-up as a mom. A third shows one of the characters, forty years later, having a TV channel dedicated to his scientific exploits.

** Lisa as the first straight female president of the United States.

* In the original ''Roleplay/DawnOfANewAge'' roleplay, flashes of a potential future were shown to the players at periodic intervals. In ''Roleplay/DawnOfANewAgeOldportBlues'' this was modified so that the character Finn gained the power of [[{{Seer}} pre-cognition]], allowing both him and the players to see glimpses into the future. As said future is [[MultipleChoiceFuture malleable]], what is seen is only ever a potential future based on the actions of other characters at the time.

* ''[[Franchise/ArchieComics Archie Marries Veronica]]'' is stated to be a flashforward story arc, set after Archie and the gang have graduated from college.

* In ''[[Film/TheLordOfTheRings The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers]]'', Elrond warns Arwen what will happen if she stays in Middle-Earth and marries Aragorn, and there is a scene of Aragorn's funeral, after he has become king and has died of old age, while Arwen lives on in grief and loneliness.

''This page is about the trope. For the 1996 series, [[Series/FlashForward1996 go here]]. For the 2009 series, [[Series/FlashForward2009 go here]].''

* ''VideoGame/SplinterCellConviction'' does this, showing what will happen some time later in [[spoiler: the White House. Grim will supposedly betray, capture, and hand over Sam to the enemy for execution.]]

* ''Series/TheFlash1990'', a short-lived 1990 series about the titular DC superhero, had a Flash Forward episode, which had the name [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Flashforward]].

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'' starts out with a flash forward to a BadEnding.
* In ''Manga/DGrayMan'', the Alma Karma arc begins with a flashforward to the attack of the North American Branch by The Earl. It then cuts back to the events some hours earlier.
%%* ''VisualNovel/ChaosHead'' begins with one of these.

%%* ''ComicBook/{{Powers}}'', episode "Future Box".
* In the ''ComicBook/{{Legion of Super-Heroes}}'' comics, the infamous Adult Legion story from Adventure Comics #354-355, which even depicted the deaths of members who hadn't joined yet. Stories were written for almost two decades that seemed to work towards the future shown here (and other earlier Adult Legion stories) until it was finally revealed as an alternate reality.
* ''Rai'' #0, written by Jim Shooter, who also wrote the Adult Legion story.
* ''ComicBook/{{Witchblade}}'' #500 (which was a Wizard mail-in offer that depicted a future #500 issue of the comic).

* In ''FanFic/TheBugTypeQueen'', a ''Literature/{{Worm}}'' x ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' crossover, the interlude's take place six years ahead of the current story, after Taylor has returned to Brockton Bay years later. However, because of the time-shenanigans, she returns back at the moment she left.
* ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12037108/1/A-different-fight A Different Fight]]'', being an alternate version of ''Series/{{Arrow}}'' Season 4 (see below) also had one of these near the beginning. Barry visits Oliver DrowningHisSorrows in his apartment and asks about Laurel. Oliver replies that physically she should be fine, but they haven't told her about "the other thing" yet, and he says he's going to kill the one responsible. It later turns out, [[spoiler:the attempt on her life caused her to have a miscarriage.]]
* The ''WebVideo/DragonBallZAbridged'' version of ''Anime/SuperAndroid13'' does this when Goku gets [[GroinAttack kicked in the dick]] so hard that it flashes forward to the Buu saga and shows [[RetGone Goten getting erased from existence.]]

* In ''[[Film/TheLordOfTheRings The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers]]'', Elrond warns Arwen what will happen if she stays in Middle-Earth and marries Aragorn, and there is a scene of Aragorn's funeral, after he has become king and has died of old age, while Arwen lives on in grief and loneliness.

* OlderThanRadio: Charles Dickens' "Literature/AChristmasCarol" with the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, could be considered this or TimeTravel.
* Elie Wiesel's ''Literature/{{Night}}'' has this at one point, to show him meeting a woman he met in the concentration camps again, in Paris.

* ''Flashforward'' by Creator/RobertJSawyer centers around people all over the world having a glimpse of their lives twenty years in the future, and the subsequent consequences of this.

* ''Literature/BreakfastOfChampions'' provides a few glimpses into Kilgore Trout's later life.

* Season 7 of ''Series/TheWestWing'' opens with a Flash Forward of most of the cast in the future, waiting for Bartlet's successor (who we don't see the face of). Leo isn't present at this scene- a FunnyAneurysmMoment in retrospect, as his actor - Creator/JohnSpencer died three months later.
* ''Series/That70sShow'':
** There is a Flash Forward showing where the kids will be at their 10-year high school [[ClassReunion reunion]] -- in the 1980s, including big hair and New Wave Music.
** There's an episode when Eric imagines his future with Donna as 1950s style with her at home and him at work and she's rather upset and then comes back at him with her working and him at home with the kids. Both times it was shown to the audience.

* ''Series/SavedByTheBell'' featured an episode set in 2003 (then 10 years in the future), where an aged Mr Belding watched a video from the gang in 1993. However, it was an excuse for a ClipShow.

* The entire final episode of ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'', "These Are The Voyages" is both a FlashBack ''and'' a Flash Forward. The main story is set some six years after the rest of the series, and is told as a holodeck reenactment. The framing story takes place two centuries later during the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "The Pegasus", which aired over a decade earlier. As the entire episode is recreated on the Holodeck of the Enterprise D circa 2370 and the only real people we see are Riker and Troi the rest being holographic recreations, it's really only a Flashback episode as we are viewing an historical event.
* The final episode of ''Series/MadAboutYou'' is a Flash Forward to the two main characters' baby daughter, now a grown woman (played by Creator/JaneaneGarofalo) following in her father's footsteps as a filmmaker, talking about their lives and hers since the penultimate episode, with specific scenes and clips which span the years in between shown to the audience.
%%* ''Series/NipTuck'' has done this at least twice.
%%* Used in the finale of ''Series/TheOC.''
* ''Series/{{Lost}}'':
** The typical FlashBack story in the Season 3 finale is revealed to be a Flash Forward at the very end, when Jack meets Kate outside an airport.
** Ji Yeon appears to show a flashforward with Sun and Jin-Sun is giving birth while Jin is trying to get there in time...until, at the end, Jin's story is revealed as a flashback when Hurley and Sun visit Jin's grave.
** The Season 5 premiere opens with a flashforward to Daniel in [[spoiler:DHARMA]]. Strange, since this is a flashforward to [[spoiler:an event that occurred 30 years prior to the present]], but that wouldn't happen until [[spoiler:towards the end of the season]].
* There have been a couple of flashforwards in ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'', ranging from short (about a week, to Lily and Marshall's wedding) to long (21 years, when Marshall open Lily's death letter).
* ''Series/{{NCIS}}'' routinely uses flash-forwards of the final image of an upcoming scene. These shots generally show insufficient information to the viewer to understand the scene until it occurs in the normal flow of the story.

* The framing story for the Christmas episode of ''Series/PowerRangersZeo'' shows an elderly Tommy and his wife, Kat, telling a story to their grandchildren. Arguments as to whether or not this marriage is Tommy's canonical destiny (since his continued bachelorhood in later seasons suggests otherwise) persist to this day.
** Most of the arguments against this still being his destiny are based on the massive amount of history-changing time travel that's happened since then and as a result the butterfly effect throws it all out the window , whereas the arguments ''for'' it argue that none of the time travel directly interfered with it, so we should assume it still happens.
*** What some of these fail to overlook is an element in it that ''has'' been overruled by canon: In the Flash Forward, Zordon is alive. ''Series/PowerRangersInSpace'' nixes that possibility.

* In ''Series/{{Dollhouse}}'', the unaired thirteenth episode, Epitaph One, shows several of these that will seemingly happen in the next five years of the Dollhouse future. After a tease that this could have been a computer simulation, the series ended with Epitaph Two, which continued from that episode.
* In ''Series/StargateSG1'', Daniel got a flashforward to one possible path after Shar'e died in ''Forever in a Day''. That future never really happened, though. He did this ''again'' in ''Absolute Power,'' when Shar'e's ''son'' showed him what would happen if they accessed the genetic memory of the Goa'uld. That didn't happen either.
* ''Series/TheFlash1990'', a short-lived 1990 series about the titular DC superhero, had a Flash Forward episode, which had the name [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Flashforward]].

* In the ''Series/BoyMeetsWorld'' episode "Seven the Hard Way", the gang has gotten into a fight that has tested all of their friendships. There is a flash forward to a potential future where the gang has broken up, and takes place when they reunite for the first time at Mr. Feeny's retirement party seven years later. In this future, Cory and Topanga have had a baby, Shawn and Angela are both traveling journalists, Jack is a "captain of industry" ([[RidiculouslySuccessfulFutureSelf in his late twenties]]), Rachel moved back to Texas, and Eric became an insane [[TheHermit hermit]] who calls himself "Playswithsquirrels". However, when the episode returns to the present everybody reconciles and this future is averted. [[spoiler:[[Series/GirlMeetsWorld 15 years later]], not so much for Shawn and Angela]].
* In the old ''Series/DarkShadows'' supernatural soap opera, at one point the vampire-hero Barnabas Collins and his sidekick Dr. Julia Hoffman, while crossing over between parallel time lines, are thrown forward from 1970 into the then-distant year of 1995, where they discover the family mansion wrecked, overrun by zombies, some relative dead, others insane, and a demonic ghost haunting the property.
* The first episode of season 4 of ''Series/{{Being Human|UK}}'' starts with a jump to a few decades in the future - a future in which the vampires have apparently taken over the world, with only a small resistance movement fighting them.
* ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'': The nature of Phoebe's power of premonition is that she sees visions of what might happen, and sometimes what had already happened. Then there are spells that have been cast by others to see scenes from both the past and the future.
* The season one finale of ''Series/{{The Flash|2014}}'' had Barry glimpsing scenes from the future as he enters the Speed Force.
* ''Series/{{Arrow}}'':
** The first episode of the fourth season has a scene set 6 months in the future [[spoiler:with Oliver and Barry standing by a [[TonightSomeoneDies grave of an unknown Team Arrow member,]] and an [[ManlyTears openly weeping]] Oliver vowing to kill the one responsible.]] The Midseason Premier picked up where that left off, and had Oliver join Felicity in a car where she told him "You need to kill that son of a bitch." [[spoiler:The person in the grave is finally revealed to be Laurel]].
** Season 7 has regular flashforwards in place of the island flashbacks from seasons 1-5.

* ''VideoGame/EternalDarkness'' uses AnachronicOrder and [[FlashbackCut Flashback Cuts]], so that, for example, Anthony (chapter 3, 818 AD) has Flash Forwards of Ellia (chapter 2, 1150 AD). [[MindScrew Try not to think about it too hard...]]

* At the beginning of the "Futures Trading" arc of ''WebComic/TheAdventuresOfDrMcNinja'', while Doc is caught up in the TimeyWimeyBall, he ends up in a scenario where he's [[http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/21p05/ injured and trapped in a building, being ordered to surrender or be bombed]]. Doc doesn't recognize the incident, and Chuck Goodrich reveals Doc's gone a little too far ahead in his own timeline before pulling him back in and stabilizing their time-jump. [[spoiler: In "The End, Part 2", while fighting [[PresidentEvil King Radical]] in his Presidential Warehouse, Doc begins to realize [[http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/33p95/ he's been there before.]] [[http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/33p126/ Sure enough...]] (though it turns out it's [[DragonAscendant Frans Rayner]] making the threat)]].

* ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' has one from [[http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004018 here]] to [[http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004020 here,]] showing to readers in advance how Tavros got a pair of robotic legs, weeks after the events shown prior.
* In ''Webcomic/EightBitTheater'' Black Mage gets pinned to the front of an airship while it's traveling at high speed. While pinned there we see a conversation between him and another character years in the future as Black Mage finally turns against the Heroes and asks why they left him pinned to the ship. The same conversation occurred in-story much later.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
** "Lisa's Wedding" is almost entirely Flash Forward (in spite of her advanced age, Maggie [[TheVoiceless never gets the chance to speak, or sing as the case may be]]).
** "Itchy & Scratchy: The Movie" ends with Homer taking Bart to see the movie he banned him from seeing forty years before.
** Lisa as the first straight female president of the United States.
** Generally the Flash Forward episodes have NegativeContinuity with each other, but "Holidays of Future Passed" contains several {{Continuity Nod}}s to the others - Bart married (and then divorced) Jenda (his future girlfriend according to "Future-Drama"), Lisa ended up with Milhouse and Maggie became a famous singer as "Lisa's Wedding" predicted.

* The ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'' 10th anniversary episode "All Growed Up", showing life for the main characters ten years on, was a PoorlyDisguisedPilot for a SpinOff show, ''WesternAnimation/AllGrownUp'', featuring these older versions.
%%* ''WesternAnimation/RockosModernLife'' uses Flash Forward in its finale.

* Used in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy'', which showed the three now-elderly Eds still together and still bickering in a delapidated house. Some have taken to mean the entire series was the three [=old!Ed's=] flashbacks. WordOfGod states this was originally how the series was supposed to end, before another season and a movie were put onto production.
* The last episode of ''WesternAnimation/XMenEvolution'' ends with Charles Xavier's speech as he recalls a glimpse of the future (courtesy of Apocalypse's mind control). We learn that the anti-mutant sentiment will continue; Magneto reforms and teaches a new generation of mutants; The Brotherhood will become S.H.I.E.L.D operatives; and Jean Grey becomes the Phoenix. This is pretty much a DownerEnding to anyone whose read that story arc in the comics.
* Possibly (or just a dream) in the ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' episode "Lemonhope" at the very end, flashing forward 1000 years to see Lemonhope reach the end of his journeys and return home, just as he was, even after the Candy Kingdom has withered away...
* ''[[WesternAnimation/{{Archer}} Archer Vice]]'' ends the first episode of the season with a montage of snippets from every crazy plot point that's going to happen through the season. Apparently it's all being imagined by Archer and it is awesome. Although only about half the plot points actually appear in the actual season.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Clarence}}'' has "Pilot Expansion", which has the show's pilot set up with a frame story of Clarence, Sumo and Jeff in a retirement home 78 years afterward trying to remember the first time they met.

* In the ''Series/{{Merlin}}'' episode "Queen of Hearts" we get a glimpse (though Morgana's [[DreamingOfThingsToCome dreams]]) of the future of Camelot, in which Arthur has become king and is crowning Guinevere his queen. She ain't happy about this...

* ''Series/{{Charmed}}'': The nature of Phoebe's power of premonition is that she sees visions of what might happen, and sometimes what had already happened. Then there are spells that have been cast by others to see scenes from both the past and the future.

* ''[[WesternAnimation/{{Archer}} Archer Vice]]'' ends the first episode of the season with a montage of snippets from every crazy plot point that's going to happen through the season. Apparently it's all being imagined by Archer and it is awesome. ALthough only about half the plot points actually appear in the actual season.

* ''Series/{{Arrow}}'': The first episode of the fourth season has a scene set 6 months in the future [[spoiler:with Oliver and Barry standing by a [[TonightSomeoneDies grave of an unknown Team Arrow member,]] and an [[ManlyTears openly weeping]] Oliver vowing to kill the one responsible.]] The Midseason Premier picked up where that left off, and had Oliver join Felicity in a car where she told him "You need to kill that son of a bitch." [[spoiler:The person in the grave is finally revealed to be Laurel]].

%% ZeroContextExample entries are not allowed on wiki pages. All such entries have been commented out. Add context to the entries before uncommenting them.