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Person of Interest
Sep. 19th, 2021 03:36 pmI finished watching Person of Interest yesterday. I had been watching it as it aired originally, but wandered off in season 4. If you’d asked me at the time, I would have said too many filler episodes, but now having rewatched it—there aren’t really any filler episodes in season 4. I think it was more that I graduated business school and started a job with busy seasons that made me not have time for any media for several month periods that made me lose track of it.
I started the rewatch with S, and it turns out she loves it, so we kept going. She’s a computer programmer, and with the exception of certain exaggerations for sci fi purposes, all of the programming discussion was accurate enough to keep her very happy. She kept making me pause when code was on the screen so she could read it and go—ha! So big endorsement for the technical advisor from S.
It’s also an interesting show to rewatch right now, at the end of the War in Afghanistan and the twentieth anniversary of 9/11, since it is a show that is very much about those things. 9/11 is a key turning point for both Finch and Reese, and—while the show goes into a direction of heavy sci fi, wrestling with questions of AI and free will—the underpinning moral question is about the ethics of state surveillance during the War on Terror. It’s a Patriot Act show, and unlike so many at the time, is a show that is deeply uncomfortable with the surveillance, torture, and extra-judicial imprisonments and killings by the state. Yes, our main characters are extra-judicial vigilantes. But the show always depicts the government use of surveillance and extra-judicial methods as, at best, a devil’s bargain, and, at worst, the beginning of the apocalypse.
And it’s a show that changed its genre and format in the middle, starting as a standard procedural with a sci fi twist whose main plots were about gangsters and corrupt police, and turning into a high concept, Terminator-esque war against AI. Fortunately, I loved both parts of this show. I’m a huge sucker for procedurals, and once they started changing focus, well, Root is one of my favorite characters from any television show.
There were a few subplots over the years that weren’t that interesting (the privacy terrorists never worked for me, but were at least resolved well), but I think it stands as a pretty tight show with an overall narrative that stayed focused, excellent character arcs, and which stuck the landing. So, if any of that sounds interesting, you should check it out. With the warning that, depending on your tastes as a viewer, there are a few things you might want to be spoiled about (I was definitely glad to be spoiled).
Also, this show has a whole lot of on-screen violence, including torture. If you watch the pilot, though, that’s pretty much the level it stays at throughout.
( I know I'm late to this party--Spoilers through the end of the show )
So overall, great show! Next planned rewatch is Fringe, which I also gave up on mid-season four. We’ll see how long we stick with that one though, since from what I’ve heard did not have as solid a conclusion as POI does.
I started the rewatch with S, and it turns out she loves it, so we kept going. She’s a computer programmer, and with the exception of certain exaggerations for sci fi purposes, all of the programming discussion was accurate enough to keep her very happy. She kept making me pause when code was on the screen so she could read it and go—ha! So big endorsement for the technical advisor from S.
It’s also an interesting show to rewatch right now, at the end of the War in Afghanistan and the twentieth anniversary of 9/11, since it is a show that is very much about those things. 9/11 is a key turning point for both Finch and Reese, and—while the show goes into a direction of heavy sci fi, wrestling with questions of AI and free will—the underpinning moral question is about the ethics of state surveillance during the War on Terror. It’s a Patriot Act show, and unlike so many at the time, is a show that is deeply uncomfortable with the surveillance, torture, and extra-judicial imprisonments and killings by the state. Yes, our main characters are extra-judicial vigilantes. But the show always depicts the government use of surveillance and extra-judicial methods as, at best, a devil’s bargain, and, at worst, the beginning of the apocalypse.
And it’s a show that changed its genre and format in the middle, starting as a standard procedural with a sci fi twist whose main plots were about gangsters and corrupt police, and turning into a high concept, Terminator-esque war against AI. Fortunately, I loved both parts of this show. I’m a huge sucker for procedurals, and once they started changing focus, well, Root is one of my favorite characters from any television show.
There were a few subplots over the years that weren’t that interesting (the privacy terrorists never worked for me, but were at least resolved well), but I think it stands as a pretty tight show with an overall narrative that stayed focused, excellent character arcs, and which stuck the landing. So, if any of that sounds interesting, you should check it out. With the warning that, depending on your tastes as a viewer, there are a few things you might want to be spoiled about (I was definitely glad to be spoiled).
Also, this show has a whole lot of on-screen violence, including torture. If you watch the pilot, though, that’s pretty much the level it stays at throughout.
( I know I'm late to this party--Spoilers through the end of the show )
So overall, great show! Next planned rewatch is Fringe, which I also gave up on mid-season four. We’ll see how long we stick with that one though, since from what I’ve heard did not have as solid a conclusion as POI does.