Topic: Person of Interest

[DJ Doena]

Person of Interest @ Wikipedia
Person of Interest @ IMDb

After 9/11 Harold Finch (Michael Emerson, LOST) built a machine that scanned every internet communication, every phone call, every surveillance camera recording for possible threats to the United States. It divides the results into two categories: major casualties and minor casualties. The government was only interested in the list with the major casualties.

The machine cannot foresee accidents or spontaneous acts of violence but it does see planned crimes.

Harold has made it his mission to help those people the government deems of no interest to them. But he has to work in secret, no one can know the machine is giving him information. So the information has to be sparse - only a social security number. And that is not always the victim's number.

He needs help. Someone who can handle the "hand-to-hand" business. And for this he recruits a former special forces soldier the government thinks is dead (Jim Caviezel, Outlander). They also have the help of two detectives, one straight, one crooked. Together they try to protect people who don't even know that they're in danger.


Last year I ignored this show because quite frankly I had too much on plate already and the concept didn't sound that interesting. But this year the number of new shows that interest me at all was quite lacking, so I gave it a chance. And what can I say. I watched the entire first season in a weekend and am now up2date with the current episodes.

While it is technically a crime show, it's not one of the standard pattern "murder, wrong suspect, another wrong suspect, confession" shows because neither characters nor viewer know if the new client is a victim or a perpetrator. And that way they can tell a whole lot of completely different stories. And as much as I dislike LOST in retrospect, Emerson was great there and he's great here. But so is the rest of the cast.

Now I'm just wondering who'd win a hand-to-hand combat: PoI's Reese or Leverage's Eliot?

[goodguy]

I did watch a couple of episodes during the first season, but quickly lost, erm, interest.

[DSig]

DJ Doena, I agree.  I haven't caught all of this season but I think the writing tends to be quite tight.  Like the characters and usually care about what happens to them. 

[GSyren]

Season one just ended here in Sweden. I actually like this show a lot, despite the rather farfetched premise. I mean, if the machine can analyze peoples actions in order to know that a violent crime is about to happen, surely it should be able to tell who is the perpetrator, and not just that a certain person may be involved?

Still, if you accept the premise, it's quite good, in my opinion. I like Jim Caviezel in this. I'll definitely check out season two when they start showing it here. I see that season three just started in the US, and the show still seems to get good user ratings on IMDb. It'll be interesting to see where they are taking this show.

[DJ Doena]

Season one just ended here in Sweden. I actually like this show a lot, despite the rather farfetched premise. I mean, if the machine can analyze peoples actions in order to know that a violent crime is about to happen, surely it should be able to tell who is the perpetrator, and not just that a certain person may be involved?

Well the premise of the show is that Harold had to minimize the communication between the machine and him so none of the system administrators would take notice. And the machine knows who's the perpetrator and who's the victim. It probably sends the social security number of the person who's more easier to track down / approach and thus more helpful to prevent the upcoming tragedy.

[GSyren]

They started airing season 2 last night, showing the first two episodes. I still like it. We're over a year behind the US. Anyone still watching it over there?

[DJ Doena]

Not "over there" but "under there" : Yes, I'm still watching. I'm only this week's episode behind on current US airings.

[Kathy]

The last TV show that I watched while it aired was Cheers..and that was when it starred Shelley Long! 

[GSyren]

Wow! That must be like 20 years ago?

[DSig]

The last TV show that I watched while it aired was Cheers..and that was when it starred Shelley Long! 

In a way that is to bad.  There have been some good shows on during that time .. some quite short lived (usually if very good )

[Kathy]

If there is a series I want to see, I buy the DVD. I just can't be bothered to watch them as they air, I can't tolerate commercials.

[DSig]

No .. i get it as I HATE commercials also.  Bad enough that many shows are written around the 5-10-10 minute break pattern .. but most all the commercials are just so STUPID!

But if you don't watch any then how do you know what you want to buy?  but that is for another thread

[GSyren]

I hardy ever watch TV shows live, I record them so I can fast forward thru the commercials. Still annoying, but not quite as much.

[Dragonfire]

Commercials annoy me too. 
With some stuff, I have it on my DVR, and then fast forward through them. 

[Kathy]

I don't own a DVR and can't be bothered getting one. I don't want my viewing experience interrupted and having to fast forward through commercials does just that.