Persons Unknown - NBC Summer Miniseries from the screenwriter of The Usual Suspects - Page 2

I kept thinking I recognized the new character from somewhere, but I couldn't place her. Even though she was familiar, now that I know who she is, she looked different. Smaller. I never realized she was that small. The character being so different from BSG also contriutes  to why I couldn't place her. She also looked convincingly psychotic in some of those scenes. I love acting that involves inhabiting a character rather than basically being yourself and reading lines while emoting a bit.

The character started so far out there and stayed there for so long that it was jarring to me how quickly she went from that to a member of the club. She went from, "I'll slit her throat," to, "I got your back no matter what." And it wasn't just the words. It was the total change in outlook and demeanor. It was explained within the episode, but I still found it jarring.

As for subverting the audience's expectations, I'm having difficult recalling any expectations I've had watching the show. It's pretty much an open book to me. I have few conscious guesses about where this is all going. There have been at least 2 major surprises, and the big picture continues to unfold, but I'm not sure what you mean by expectations.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adam Lenhardt 

Her role on this show is a complete stereotype, as most of the characters are, but it's fascinating to watch since none of her previous performances had even a wiff of urban ghetto.

There's stereotyping, and then there's 'Birth of a Nation.'  That was some whacked out shit there.

How would you feel if you were executed and then resurrected? I think her recovery was very quick, but the series ends (Does it really?) real soon now.

If the series really comes to an adequate conclusion, it won't be very fulfilling. I think it will short and dirty and leave many questions unanswered.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robert A. Willis Jr. 

If the series really comes to an adequate conclusion, it won't be very fulfilling. I think it will short and dirty and leave many questions unanswered.

The question is, will anyone even care?

Is NBC trying to lose viewers? Had no idea this show moved to Saturday but did wonder why it wasn't on last night.

Actually, it seems to getting more interesting. Many of the characters are a bit more three dimensional

I've been enjoying the show so far - but they're REALLY stretching the "suspension of disbelief" factor lately ... the reporter looked nothing like a priest with shaggy hair and a week's growth of beard ... and the anti-freeze down the drain scene was pretty silly in concept as well. 

But summer TV is pretty slim pickins so I'll stick with it - it's interesting enough to keep watching ... despite its incredulity....

Yeah - I'm still in but I find the new female character extremely annoying. Not sure why but every word out of her mouth brings me pain.

I'll stay through the end to find out what it is all supposed to mean, but so far it is mostly just bugging me.  I don't mind mysterious and even obnoxious characters, but I do object to stupid ones.  And the plot constantly relies on massive stupidity on somebody's part to advance:

1.  The elevator.  Could they seriously not have engineered that thing so the floor indicator moved when Joe is coming and going from the secret basement?  And how about warning him or not opening when someone is standing outside the door?  There are camera and motion sensors everywhere, but they can't protect their secret access point?  For that matter, why put it in the elevator - which everyone uses - in the first place?  Why aren't there multiple secret access points in places like Joe's room and the empty storefronts, where he can come and go without being detected. 

2.  Joe. Why tell the truth now, why not keep lying?  It was perfectly obvious that the new girl was going to withhold the antidote and let him die unless she got the answer she wanted.  So he had a perfect excuse for "confessing" to being the snitch.  And a very good way to turn the tables on her by accusing her of being the plant.  Joe should have been smart enough to do that. 

3.  The reporter.  The dumbest guy in the show.  From not making multiple backups of his laptop data on, this character is major league dumb and he never learns.  Even as a reporter for a sleazy tabloid he isn't plausible. Those guys have to have some smarts and they have to be able to win trust and convince people to let them get close.  Reporter boy is an obvious loon. The way he chased after the guy who pulled a gun on the ambassador is just one of many examples.

His editor, the supposedly level-headed one, is scarcely better.  They're attacked by the mysterious guys in blue.  She - not he - has the sense to grab a very heavy sculpture and whack one of them over the head with it.  (He follows her lead and hits the second guy with a chair.)  So they have the presence of mind to disable their armed attackers, but then they run out of the apartment leaving the guns behind and the attackers barely stunned.  At the very least they should have taken the guns.  Better still, they should have whacked the blue boys a few more times with the chair and the statue and to make sure they were out. Or just killed them outright.  Guys with guns break into your place, you have a very good case for self-defense.  In fact, the editor's first move - the strike with the statue - should have killed her blue guy anyway.  In real life that would almost certainly have caused a skull fracture, which would have killed the guy either very quickly or within a few hours without medical attention. 

And even if the reporter didn't have the brains to get a shave and a haircut before he tried to pass himself off as a priest, she should have had sense enough to make him - at least the way her character is portrayed.

Instead we find out that they're both dumb enough to take time out from running away from bad guys to just sit in the back seat of a cab openly discussing their problems and then failing to notice that the driver has slipped out of the cab and run away from it. 

Yeeesh.

Regards,

Joe

This week's show was interesting and moved the story line along a bit -- whatever that story is ... and raised some new questions. Who/what will replace Fried Won-Tom ... where did Joe go ... who da hell are the Secret Organization with no name ... and how da hell can a two-bit reporter and his mousy editor think they have a snowball's chance in hell to take down an organization of the world's most powerful people???

The questions are certainly beginning to grow. I just hope they resolve them satisfactorily.

What a strange episode this week.

Strange...and horrible...

I enjoyed this one (although parts of it were very disturbing). We are finally getting an idea on what the "company" is and its recruitment methods. We still need to know so much more.

That was a terrible episode - and I've enjoyed all the others so far to some extent or other.  Whoever invented "dreamy sequences" should be dug up, reanimated, disarticulated and shot.

I liked this week's episode - the show just keeps getting better, if not more far-fetched - but most good scifi does stretch the limits of the imagination. I wish the car salesman would've just fried when he tried to walk back past the fence - then he'd have been a fried donut hole.

So I finally looked up that "The way out is the way through" quote, and apparently it's an L. Ron Hubbard quote.  That, combined with the talk of "levels" for Joe, makes me wonder how much of a parallel this is supposed to be for scientology (obviously in an even more extreme manner, of course).

The other thing that made the ending predictable is that it really was the only possible end-game for the reporters.  I mean, either they die, which makes their storyline a complete waste, or they get brought into the town.  There's nothing else that would have made sense.

Yeah, you could see that one coming. Nevertheless, it was a good episode.

Was the billboard on the left side of the screen different as Mark and Janet entered the frame?  I only saw it for a second, but I thought it was different than what we've seen before.

Thanks Adam.  I had deleted the previous eps from my PVR (this show is no LOST), so I couldn't check.  For a second I thought maybe they had found a second town or something, or, heaven forbid, the show decided to introduce time travel (gah!).

Check your local listings. My station shows an episode scheduled tonight.