Person of Interest

CBS - 9pm Thursdays.

Plot: Nerd type teams up with Military lonely heart type to stop crimes they find out about before they happen and save everyday people (Person of Interest) in a superheroish mystery vigilantly action drama.




Spoiler Summary and Review

Spoiler:

Michael Emerson (Ben Linus from Lost) plays Finch, filthy rich, CEO and computer programmer who built a machine for the government that takes all the surveillance information collected through the Patriot Act and sorts the violent speech, behavior, motives and intentions to find terrorist threats.



While setting up the project he discovered that the machine is unable to distinguish a threat of national importance that would kill many people from 'irrelevant' threats that would only kill single individuals... what he calls 'Person of Interest'.



The government having that much information seemed dangerous to him, so he left himself a backdoor into the machine just in case he needed to shut it down.


Because it weighed on his conscience to have the information that someone is going to die and not doing anything about it, he used his backdoor to retrieve the social security number of the 'Person of Interest'.



Which he promptly looks up without trouble and learns everything about them - somehow.



But being a nerd type with a wimp, he needed someone else to help him do something. That's where the second half of this duo comes in: Reese, your typical and largely less interesting 'super military trained, lost the love of his life, depressed and needing purpose 'hunk'' type.



Finch offers Reese a job, he takes it and now we have a episodic serial drama with a new 'mystery' every week with a discovery of the situation the Person of Interest is in, a quick win by the super-hunk, who seems to prefer shooting bad guys in the leg, and the only thing that seems interesting about the show so far : Back flashes of Finch's life when he built the machine.


The writing so far is straight forward plot plodding but at times witty, more so when Michael Emerson is speaking, so it makes one wonder if it's the delivery.


The plotholes are huge, though. They build up this machine as being able to trace everyone's every step they make and yet both Finch and Reese hide from it despite their conspiracies to stop (shoot in the leg) people. (and sometimes use hand held rocket launchers in the middle of city streets).

I think it's got promise more than a new mystery every week because of the bigger mystery and drama surrounding the machine, what it does, who uses it, how'd Finch get his limp and what happened to his partner who helped him build it.

IMO, Finch is the biggest 'Person of Interest' in this show so far.

Oh. I thought you meant this guy:

Loving this show, Guri.

To quote my wife: "This is filling a LOST sized hole in my heart."

Solo - heh, those commercials are so over the top.

Nickytea -aw, she likes this show that much, eh? It hasn't grown on me quite as much, but it is so good to see Michael Emerson again. Over at the Lostpedia boards we're calling the partner 'Goodwin'. haha!

I LOVe this show!

The only bad thing is I wonder how they're going to keep 'Interest' on a week-to-week basis.

Guri said:

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Nickytea -aw, she likes this show that much, eh? It hasn't grown on me quite as much, but it is so good to see Michael Emerson again. Over at the Lostpedia boards we're calling the partner 'Goodwin'. haha!

Haha.
Yeah, we're really loving it. Something about those Nolan boys ... they speak my language. (In a storytelling sense.) It's like they're making it just for me.

Hobo badass, vigilante justice, personal motivation, parallel character development, thematic synchronicity. It's a pastiche of everything I love. I've found myself saying, "It's like _____" with a slew of my favorites filling in the blank. Batman. Lost. The Matrix. The list goes on.

I knew I'd love the show when he fired an m79 into an SUV in the middle of the street.

I was a huge fan of The Equalizer back in the day, and this reminds me very much of that show. Could be the NYC setting, might be the ex military type helping those in need.

I thought it wasn't very good. I haven't seen the second episode yet, but the premise just seemed really stupid to me. Oh yea, all of the CCTV cameras in the US are connected together and just by looking at people's faces, this program can tell that they'll be involved in a crime. If it could tell they were the one who would commit the crime or even that they would be the victim, I could see them logically explaining it, but to just say that they'll be involved somehow is nonsense. It goes far beyond suspension of disbelief. I like the actors involved and had hoped to be entertained at least, but the concept was so laughable I couldn't swallow it. I'll give it a few episodes to get going, but I don't see this show succeeding.

Risu said:

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Oh yea, all of the CCTV cameras in the US are connected together and just by looking at people's faces, this program can tell that they'll be involved in a crime. If it could tell they were the one who would commit the crime or even that they would be the victim, I could see them logically explaining it, but to just say that they'll be involved somehow is nonsense. It goes far beyond suspension of disbelief.

Did you read my extended review? I thought I explained how it worked... But in the second episode Finch explains it more and here's my take shorter:

The machine sorts not just video camera input but email, phone calls as well. So the MACHINE knows exactly what the person of interest is involved in but what the machine can't do is tell what is of interest to national security and what is irrelevant to national security.

Somehow, and this part I don't get yet, those that are irrelevant to national security have their numbers 'tossed'.

Finch isn't supposed to have access to the machine, so he can't get all that other information, his backdoor only gives him access to the tossed number.

Risu said:

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I thought it wasn't very good. I haven't seen the second episode yet, but the premise just seemed really stupid to me. Oh yea, all of the CCTV cameras in the US are connected together and just by looking at people's faces, this program can tell that they'll be involved in a crime. If it could tell they were the one who would commit the crime or even that they would be the victim, I could see them logically explaining it, but to just say that they'll be involved somehow is nonsense. It goes far beyond suspension of disbelief. I like the actors involved and had hoped to be entertained at least, but the concept was so laughable I couldn't swallow it. I'll give it a few episodes to get going, but I don't see this show succeeding.

Well, you know, not every show can have the unflappable techno-babble drenched realism of a face-changing nine-hundred-year-old who travels in a blue, wooden time machine space ship.

Guri explains pretty well, above, for the record.

But it's not about the machine. We are told only as much as we need to know what effect the machine will have on the characters.

The machine is supposedly able to sort out what's of national security interest and determines the rest is irrelevant - at least to the big picture. I don't remember the line he gave 'goodwin', but it was something to the effect of it wasn't built to protect people, it was built to protect everyone. At the end of the day, the machine determines what's relevant to national security and gives them that information and after 24 hours, tosses the dangerous situations that aren't relevant to the big picture.

Gotta say I loved the opening of ep 2.

It's got 3 mysteries going for it now,

1. Who exactly is harold, and what's his backstory.
2. Same with Caviezel. All we know is he used to be 'with the agency'
3. What actually is happening with the 'important info'/machine?

nickytea said:

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But it's not about the machine. We are told only as much as we need to know what effect the machine will have on the characters.

I'm actually hoping it becomes more about the machine. They've already started to have Reese be trying to learn more about Finch and the backflash and all, so maybe we'll keep getting more on Finch's mysterious past building it and see that Finch knows how to thwart what it does and that's why he can hide so well - and protect Reese from it too.

More about Finch and his backstory, absolutely. The choices and repercusions are the meat, I only meant that we'd received all we really needed on the tech level, from a storytelling/setting-the-stage perspective.

Yeah, I think the REAL "Person of Interest" is Finch.

While the premise is pretty interesting the and lends itself well to a myriad of plot twists, this show runs the risk of falling into the formulaic, cliche ridden drivel that has come to be expected of mystery dramas such as this. The mystery that is Finch is an intriguing over arching element and I hope that it will be used to great effect in later episodes. My main critique of this show is the main actor. His delivery is exceedingly dry and monotonous. I'm a big believer in the idea that great acting and chemistry between the characters can save a seemingly mundane show, but i have to say, Person of Interest has none. I just hope that the writing can overshadow the shoddy delivery.

Love this show! The only thing missing though is Sinanju master, Chun!

I finally caught this show and am enjoying it tremendously. I can't help but hope there will be a group shown to be working to utilize the machine for their own ends...a group lead by terry oquinn.

protokev said:

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I finally caught this show and am enjoying it tremendously. I can't help but hope there will be a group shown to be working to utilize the machine for their own ends...a group lead by terry oquinn.

I'm definitely enjoying the show myself

protokev said:

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I finally caught this show and am enjoying it tremendously. I can't help but hope there will be a group shown to be working to utilize the machine for their own ends...a group lead by terry oquinn.

Ha! Apparently Alan Dale (Widmore) has a planned appearance.

The last episode was a bit boring IMO - too much Reese. He hasn't found a character hook yet and is still playing the empty shell hero.

Also, his ability to take down a group of armed cartel with his hands tied behind his back is just -

Well, they were tied in front of him, so that makes it much easier

Don't you love it in TV/Movies when the star gets attacked by a gang of baddies and they only go after him one at a time, almost as if in a single file line? Three 1-1's isn't too bad. All 3 at once is probably another story.

Don't you like how they clone cell's and pagers in a snap? Just while the marks back is turned for a split second?

cboath said:

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Don't you like how they clone cell's and pagers in a snap? Just while the marks back is turned for a split second?

I love the "Force Pair"! I want to use that to force my mouse to work with my laptop PC.

Impressive they can "Force Pair" just by touching phones and that means that they can listen to phone calls from miles away (and listen through the phone with out a call in progress!!!). Go Movie Tech!!!

Who else gets questions from family about "Wow, that machine it TOTALLY realistic!"

Improvements this show:
1) Reese actually got shot and didn't save the kid - sure it seemed impossible he could have gotten there that quickly and it was a plot contrived failure, but still, it showed he isn't bulletproof and can lose
2) Reese seemed to have more emotion and taking the case personally, that may have been bringing a kid into it, but whatever, it made his character more likable

Other things I liked:
- building on the friendship between Finch and Reese
- the whole police woman/bad cop insider/Reese dynamic is really fascinating. I get flashes of a real life batman type character who is a superhero doing the right thing outside of the law - but runs the danger of only having himself to be accountable to so if he messes up or goes too far he has to deal with that guilt. The bad cop insider seems to want to do help, like a side kick. And the police woman is going to have to search herself to weigh stopping him.

What I want more of:
- Finch
- Finch
- Finch...

Yeah, I thought it was a good episode. I especially enjoyed the scenes in the diner. Reese struggled a lot in this episode, even the hand to hand combat. It almost feels like they are building a group or team of individuals that will all eventually work with them to help these people.

Finally caught up on last week's episode.
I hope this show never ends. (WOO HOO, for a full season pickup!)

Guri, I agree, the blossoming of their relationship is being handled very well. The subtle set-up and payoff of the diner scene bookends was inspired. Really sensitively done.

The show has found a really great balance of episodic and ongoing storytelling that just feels RIGHT. I don't think I've ever liked a procedural this much. Each ep gives him something to go up against that helps to define our understanding of the character. In that way, he can be the same each episode -- allowing for a procedural setup with some consistency -- but each of these cases build and enhances our understanding of that man. Great, great stuff.

Man, it was tough not to think of Gieco during last nights episode!