Person of Interest - season 1 thread - Page 4

On Thurday's episode, Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

I hope Reese appears to Carter as "the Bum" instead of the "the Guy in a Suit", so she still won't know what he looks like.

Wow, this is the second show this week that has completely pulled the rug out from under the audience (after "Homeland.") The secrets of Finch's little enterprise are starting to crumble fast. Great hour of television.

It was a monumental surprise where they went in the last five minutes of the show last night, and with the revelation, I fear Person of Interest will now become just another procedural. The anonymous do-gooder who stymied the police made the show interesting for me. I will, of course, look forward to the new episodes in 2012 to see where they are going to take the series, but I have to admit I am concerned. Time will tell.

You had to figure Reese's past would come back to haunt him and intercede with his current assignments.  By the way, last night's episode had the series most viewers.

But not even halfway through the first season? Seems like something of a change of direction for me. Can't wait to see where they go with it.

Those hits don't seem survivable, but I guess that's the magic of TV.

Interesting take.  For me, I felt that if anything, the recent episode showcased how this show is *not* just another police procedural.

 

It's great to watch Nolan explore the dichotomy of the Batman character, while at the same time taking the story in interesting ways.

They haven't been up to the point of the end of the episode in question. My fears concern the episodes that are to come. We'll see.
 

 

It depends, having Carter on his side would be better than the other detective because she's smarter and at least trustworthy.

 

Smallville was like that. The first few seasons they filmed in the town or in Vancouver (as Metropolis) and it felt like a city. By, the last few seasons they kept using the same 2 backlot city streets and it looked like a backlot set. I understand financial constrictions. But, it was pretty obvious.

When in Hollywood take a tour of Paramount studios. I see soooo many tv shows and commercials that use their city streets set it almost ruins the whole thing for me.

At the network's TCA presentation today, CBS president Nina Tassler confirmed that it was the network that requested that Det. Carter be flipped from an adversary to an ally in the know: "We felt that the Carter [Taraji P. Henson] character was somewhat marginalized. We felt that the Carrter character was too peripheral."

^ Good request because her never catching them was giving me flashbacks to The X-Files when they always had to invent a way for Scully to deny or not see a paranormal event just so they could keep the status quo. Now the character can do more than show up at the clean up of Reese's adventures or sit at her desk trying to find him. Making her an ally also stops them from having the "Oops, I missed 'em again!" scene every week. Even though Reese and Finch are very intelligent and would be very hard to capture, Carter was really starting to look incompetent.

A good return for the show. Nice wrap-up of the mini-cliffhanger we were left with, and now we see it'll be the feds on the lookout for our crew rather than the NYPD (though Carter et al will have to pretend to be playing along).

I like that Carter didn't just leap into bed with them. She's an ally, more or less, but she's still conflicted and kept at arm's length. I also liked that Reese wasn't just back to his same old self after getting shot. They explained how he could undergo major surgery without popping up on the grid, and then they spent the whole episode with him basically in "Rear Window" mode. The bait and switch with the PoI of the week was a little obvious, since they were laying it on so thick with Trask, but it was worth it for all of the flashbacks we got as to the genesis of the machine.

What a really interesting concept, that Finch's partner wasn't the victim of some plot that the Machine failed to catch, but rather was the victim of the Machine itself, acting out of self-preservation. It really amps up the paranoid factor of the show, realizing that the Machine is perhaps self aware and, while generally altruistic, is really Skynet meets a HAL 9000. If the procedural aspect ever gets tired, the show could evolve to having them perhaps battling the Machine itself.

Agreed (re: recent previous posts).

I liked that they addressed that the sniper shot was meant to injure. I would agree that the 'bait and switch' with Trask was pretty obvious since they have already went to that well before. Nice reversal of roles with Reese behind the monitors and Finch doing legwork.

The revelations regarding the 'Machine' at the end of the episode were interesting. I liked the fact that Finch was going to take whatever steps were necessary to keep the Machine independent as the powers that be would subvert its purpose if given the opportunity. This provides a good setup for scenarios in which the Machine becomes an antagonist should they decide to go that route. Even though it has become a cliche I liked the final shot of the episode with the New York skyline going all 'Matrixy', as it ties in with the digital aesthetic of the show in terms of the ocean of data that surrounds us.

- Walter.
Edited by Walter Kittel - 1/13/12 at 8:13am

That was actually hilarious. I was thinking the guy had to be thinking, "What the hell IS all this?" Before going out the winda.

I have the opposite reaction.  I think its fun to notice.  Paramount is my favorite lot BTW.

 

 

I have been DVRing the episodes since the start of the season, and being snowed in meant it was time to give it a shot.  It turned into a mini-marathon.  My wife and I really enjoyed it.  I like the fact that for the most part each episode can stand alone, but there is still a continuing thread.  I hope that while Carter is now "on board" that it is still selective and she can walk a fine line between being an ally but not always giving her full support.

 

Minor quibbles: For a city that is soooo anti-gun, there are a lot of bad guys walking around with visible machine guns in some episodes with no discretion and how is it that Finch can hack into just about every website in seconds, but not the DMV?

Now Adam, you're thinking too much as you don't suppose to come up with that simple question.

  BUSTED!

 

I've been to the central repository for the New York State DMV system. It's less than 8 miles from where I'm sitting. Things were such a disorganized mess, it's no wonder Finch couldn't find what he's looking for.

Heads up, Paige Turco returns tonight.

I probably watched the first 4-5 episodes of this. Then gave up after reading a lot about Unforgettable being successful and this fading away, probably to be cancelled.

Now the exact opposite, Person of Interest seems to be coming out the winner.

I've been burned so many times, watching shows I think will succeed, only to watch them fade away and their rivals pull ahead.

Similar thing going on with Body of Proof. I really enjoy it, although they could lose a cast member or two, but now it looks to be cancelled while others go on. Oh well, life with TV ratings.

Fun episode. Now that Carter's on their side, they introduce a sort of digital Moriarty to Finch's Sherlock Holmes. I thought for sure she'd be revealed as Paige Turco's character, but the black nail polish says otherwise. It'd be hilarious if she ended up being played by Noomi Rapace or Rooney Mara.

I thought with the Machine going red, we were going to see whatever alphabet soup government agency that responds to the legit terrorism warnings from the Machine respond to the scene too. While the PoI of the week was an "ordinary", the Congressman had to have been flagged as an act of terror.

Yes, it was a very fun espisode with them using a gunman that worked for Elias.  So is there a connection there.  The show is becoming more interesting than we thought it was capable of.

 

 

 

 

 

Crawdaddy

Maybe the machine caught that he intended to kill someone but not that it was a Congressmen? Although I'm not sure that that idea stands up to scrutiny.

With Elias and now this super-hacker for the heroes to contend with, it's certainly not an open field for them to work in. Hope things don't get too complicated.