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  • Showing only topics with the tag "crime drama". Back to normal view
    1. Recommendation: Person of Interest (2011-2016)

      I want to talk about Person of Interest. A CBS series created by Jonathan Nolan, more famously known for his work on Westworld (and brother of "that" Christopher Nolan, talent runs in the family)....

      I want to talk about Person of Interest. A CBS series created by Jonathan Nolan, more famously known for his work on Westworld (and brother of "that" Christopher Nolan, talent runs in the family). This is a spoiler-free post.

      Premise: An ex-military badass is hired by a rich ex-usgov genius who built an AI that is plugged into the NSA's spying supernetwork, and can predict crime based on all the datapoints.

      Strong similarities with: Westworld, Mr. Robot.

      Person of Interest is a series that really took me by surprise. I didn't really care for Season 1, which I left running in the background after it was apparent to me that this was a very run-of-the-mill CBS police procedural. I gave it a chance based on a friend's recommendation, and because IT/sec references were accurate and didn't make me cringe. It also had an interesting premise which was written pre-snowden and raised some interesting philosophical questions on privacy and crime prevention.

      Then towards the Season 1 finale, the music got pretty good, the scenes were very action-packed and the series started feeling like it was getting very entertaining. So I kept watching.

      Without spoiling: throughout Season 2, the series actually completely shifts genre almost unnoticeably, from "generic police procedural" to "long-arc Westworld-style tech scifi".

      I was stunned by how smooth the genre transition was. Of all the series I watched, it's something truly unique to that one, which is one of the reasons I rate it as one of the best TV series in my catalogue. It's also, from what I heard, Nolan's strategy from the get-go in order to get a very unique show greenlit on a "safe" network like CBS.

      By the end of the series, Person of Interest had inspired me. Made me extremely interested in AI and data. It affected my work and the way I think about the world. POI really toes the scifi line by taking concepts which are possible, but not there yet and explores the possibilities (again, Westworld); unlike most other Sci-Fi shows which take abstract ideas of what we may want to see in the future, regardless of how possible/reasonable they are.

      POI does require some suspension of disbelief. You have to accept the trope of a "supergenius" who can build an AI like this all on his own, for example. I think that's fine, and I found that the show was very rigorous at taking only practical shortcuts with very little fridge logic.

      I keep mentioning Westworld and that's no accident. POI predates WW and it feels that WW was a continuation of Nolan's ideas about the implications of AI, in a much higher budget setting. (And as an aside, if you haven't watched Westworld, you should)

      Tag spoilers in comments :)

      21 votes
    2. Breaking Bad on rewatch (Heavy spoilers)

      I just finished Breaking Bad, second run-through. I had first started watching it when Season 4 had just started; binging seasons 1-3 and followed it episode-by-episode after. I was surprised to...

      I just finished Breaking Bad, second run-through. I had first started watching it when Season 4 had just started; binging seasons 1-3 and followed it episode-by-episode after.

      I was surprised to notice that the content I binged stayed with me much better than the seasons I watched one-episode-at-a-time.
      Also… Holy shit. Breaking Bad gets dark towards the end (Jesse getting imprisoned and forced to cook for months; his ex-girlfriend getting shot). I had forgotten all about that. I had forgotten almost everything about the last … 4-5 episodes.

      The scenes that had stayed with me the most from my first watch: Box Cutter's throat-slicing scene, the Prison Shankings, Hank vs. the Cousins, Hank's death scene, Gus's death scene.

      But, seriously, rewatching it reminded me how good of a series Breaking Bad is. I couldn't help but binge the entire rewatch marathon. It's an incredibly intense experience.

      In the context of what happened to Game of Thrones I'm also very happy to see the consistent quality and execution in Breaking Bad's storytelling. It's a series that set out to tell a story. The story makes sense from beginning to end, and gets resolved nice and tidy.

      I'm a little disappointed we don't get to see more of what happens to the family while Walt is gone. The trial etc, that all seems like potentially interesting stuff.

      On rewatch, I noticed my sympathies changing. I have a lot less sympathy towards Walt, even very early on. Knowing some things in advanced completely changed my view on him; whereas on first watch I rooted for him quite a bit.

      My sympathy towards Skyler also flipped. On my first watch, I disliked her a lot at first, but grew to like her when she "went dark". On this rewatch, I disliked her less and sympathized more with her, though her behaviour beyond season 4 became incomprehensible to me.
      I like Marie a lot more this time around as well. She's still pretty unbearable when it comes to shoplifting and generally the way she talks to people; but I hadn't realized just how much she loves Hank. How much she supports him through his PT (despite how atrocious Hank is specifically to her). Knowing Hank's death was coming, my heart broke into pieces when I heard their last phone call end in "I love you. // I love you too.". Hearing her say "He isn't picking up, probably because he's in the thick of it".

      I don't think I even noticed anyone's grief the first time around, most likely because I was dealing with my own. Hank's death was a shock then. This time, I knew it was coming, and I had a lot more time to process how people felt about Hank before and their reactions to the news.

      Just a bunch of random thoughts about that series. I usually only rewatch "comfort series" such as comedies, animated series, etc; I very rarely rewatch epics (except that I used to re-marathon GoT before a new season). But I don't regret giving Breaking Bad a full rerun. It is such an intense experience; during Seasons 3&4 I yelled in my pillows a few times on credit roll, just from the adrenaline.

      You too should give it a shot.

      10 votes
    3. When does Person of Interest start to get good?

      I have watched the first season, and started the second season. I have been told a few times, it gets better once they get more into the AI aspect behind "the machine". So far the episodes are...

      I have watched the first season, and started the second season. I have been told a few times, it gets better once they get more into the AI aspect behind "the machine". So far the episodes are pretty formulaic, so I am wondering if there is a specific episode or season where these little plot bits about this machine everyone is trying to find come to fruition and the series pivots to more of a sci-fi sub-plot.

      Also, how come nobody calls him out for talking to himself all the time?
      I do like the dog, good addition to the second season.

      EDIT: I am now on season 2 episode 10, and yeah its starting to get a lot better. It seems to be a slow transition but they are getting my attention with all this hacker history talk.

      11 votes