- Audience-Alienating Ending: Being cancelled on a Cliffhanger, the series has No Ending, which can leave a sour taste in viewer's mouths even if they enjoyed the rest of the episodes leading up to the finale.
- Awesome Music: Practically every other piece of music played in "Revelation Zero" is pure audio bliss.
- Designated Hero: Mark is shaping up to be this way. It's actually Lampshaded in a conversation with Mark's federally mandated therapist.
- "Something happened in your flash that made you believe you were the center of the universe."
- Epileptic Trees: These will inevitably result now that 3 people's flashforwards have been revealed to not match up as neatly as first suspected — Zoey saw what she thinks is her and Demetri's wedding, but he is supposed to be dead by then. Aaron saw his daughter, but DNA evidence confirms she is already dead as well.
- Faux Symbolism:
- The New York Times review of the pilot included a list of historical events tied to the flash forward date of April 29, 2010, and suggesting speculation over the date's significance would be more fuel for Epileptic Trees. In actuality, it's just the 50th birthday of Robert J. Sawyer, author of the Flash Forward novel, which coincidentally falls close to the airing of the first season finale.
- December 12, 2016- The End. Hurm...
- Fridge Brilliance: In "The Gift", Al Gough sacrifices himself to keep a woman from dying. In "Course Correction" the head of the LA Blue Hand group, Raynaud, turns out to be after the same woman to kill her to make certain her death comes true. If this had never happened, Celia would have lived due to Al's Tear Jerker Heroic Sacrifice.
- Growing the Beard: About the time of Revelation Zero, the beard was fully in play.
- Harsher in Hindsight: Al's suicide after his actor Lee Thompson Young committed suicide himself in 2013.
- Ho Yay: Some between Simon and Lloyd. When Lloyd asks Simon is there was anyone he ever truly cared about, Simon looked at him rather shiftily and then changed the subject.
- Narm:
- Joseph Fiennes' acting drew much criticism, with many moments intended to be dramatic or profound instead coming across as unintentionally hilarious. A back-and-forth with his boss after a Senate hearing has become particularly infamous enough to spawn at least one
Voice Clip Song:
Mark: Because I was LOADED!- Don't forget Janis talking about how her baby is a friend she hasn't met yet.
- An abandoned doll factory? If you try that hard for creepy, it just becomes silly.
- Some of the scenes involving Gabriel. Such as when he was complaining about his hamburger in the hospital:
Gabriel: "I don't like pickles! I don't like lettuce! I HATE onions! ...I like tomatoes." - Joseph Fiennes' acting drew much criticism, with many moments intended to be dramatic or profound instead coming across as unintentionally hilarious. A back-and-forth with his boss after a Senate hearing has become particularly infamous enough to spawn at least one
- Nightmare Fuel: The doll factory and the children singing "Ring Around the Rosie".
- Toy Ship: Dylan and Charlie
- The Woobie:
- Bryce: The poor bastard contemplates suicide because he's got terminal cancer, Stage 4 Renal Carcinoma, then sees himself in his flash forward meeting a beautiful Japanese girl (Keiko) with whom he is apparently in love, then spends an episode trying to find her in Japan where he actually DOES figure out who she is and where she lives, only to have her angry mother disavow any knowledge of her and goes back to LA a dejected wreck. And did we mention he has CANCER so he's dealing with the dreadful side effects of chemotherapy??
- Keiko: Can't catch a break: she gets a job at a prestigious Japanese company, only to be treated as little more than a waiter to serve tea (she's an engineer) since they won't hire another woman just to serve tea. She quits in disgust, causing a rift with her family who thinks she's being ungrateful. Goes to America, gets a job as a Wrench Wench at an auto garage with a tough-but-friendly guy who tries to make her feel at home, gets swept up when ICE raids the garage under suspicion of hiring illegals, is put into the system and bound for transport back to Japan.
- Al Gough. Suffering from guilt over killing a woman he's never met; he decides the only way to change this fate is to kill himself. The letter he writes just breaks your heart.
