4.01: Panopticon

[J-Sun]

'US Viewers' Reminder: Season Premiere Tonight (9/23)'

*happy*

 

[Lenny]

Huh, so it is!

 

[Michael Colton]

I watched it and had absolutely no idea what was going on since I have not seen the show before. It felt like someone went to a 4chan conspiracy thread and created a near-future world out of it.

 

[The Bluestocking]

Just watched it.

So happy that the POI gang are BACK!

 

[J-Sun]

I watched it and had absolutely no idea what was going on since I have not seen the show before. It felt like someone went to a 4chan conspiracy thread and created a near-future world out of it.

Yeah, I don't suppose they gave much slack to new viewers. That's a problem with shows with really complicated storylines - they get so that only "insiders" can follow them and it puts a ceiling on growth. I'm afraid this may be the last PoI season as redoing the sets often marks a final season[1]. (Finch used to operate out of an abandoned library and is now apparently setting up shop in the last scene we saw.) Sorry you didn't seem to like it - if you have a chance to catch earlier episodes, maybe give those a try. (Though, even there, it took a bit for PoI to really hit its stride. I think when they introduced Zoe Morgan (who they seem to have unceremoniously dropped) was when it really started hitting on all cylinders.)

[1] Not to mention that this should give them the new-minimum of 88 for syndication, though five seasons would still be better for that.

So happy that the POI gang are BACK!

Me too.

I just hope they toe a tricky line well - on the one hand, this episode was really uncomfortable as things were very discombobulated but, on the other, it was almost too comfortable as, within that context, the number was an almost ordinary number (though serving to get them the private comm net). I'd like to see them get more coherent as a unit again, but the show can't lose the genuinely "futuristic Orwellian" thing they have going, at the same time. They have to be stainless steel rats.

 

[Dave]

I watched it and had absolutely no idea what was going on since I have not seen the show before. It felt like someone went to a 4chan conspiracy thread and created a near-future world out of it.

I guess that would be true, first time I caught it I watched some odd 2nd Season episode and had no idea what was going on either. It has got even more complicated since that point. Try watching it from the start.

 

[Michael Colton]

Yeah, I don't suppose they gave much slack to new viewers. That's a problem with shows with really complicated storylines - they get so that only "insiders" can follow them and it puts a ceiling on growth. I'm afraid this may be the last PoI season as redoing the sets often marks a final season[1]. (Finch used to operate out of an abandoned library and is now apparently setting up shop in the last scene we saw.) Sorry you didn't seem to like it - if you have a chance to catch earlier episodes, maybe give those a try. (Though, even there, it took a bit for PoI to really hit its stride. I think when they introduced Zoe Morgan (who they seem to have unceremoniously dropped) was when it really started hitting on all cylinders.)

Question that may involve a spoiler (?) for those that have it recorded but did not watch it:

Spoiler

Was the group that had people taken hostage with the pseudo-trial a significant group of people throughout the earlier parts of the show, or more of a one-off storyline? The depiction of that group is primarily what I disliked, so if they are not in the rest of the show I would be willing to watch the earlier seasons.

 

[J-Sun]

Question that may involve a spoiler (?) for those that have it recorded but did not watch it:

Spoiler

Was the group that had people taken hostage with the pseudo-trial a significant group of people throughout the earlier parts of the show, or more of a one-off storyline? The depiction of that group is primarily what I disliked, so if they are not in the rest of the show I would be willing to watch the earlier seasons.

Just wrapping my reply in spoilers just in case:

Spoiler

Not sure about precise details - I want to say they were not present in s1-2 (certainly to no great extent) but were introduced in s3 and I never much cared for that element either, but it's only one element of many and they were generally portrayed much more interestingly than in the trial, which was especially weak. The finale to s3 was frustrating to me because it was still excellent despite that, but that definitely weakened that episode. After the trial got broken up, I thought the depiction - not spoiling you but - between the Decima guy (the other-AI/anti-machine group) and the Vigilance guy (the civil liberty/terrorist trial group) was excellent, anyway. It was just the trial itself that was lame.

 

[Michael Colton]

Continuing the spoiler thing.

Spoiler

Just wrapping my reply in spoilers just in case:

Spoiler

Not sure about precise details - I want to say they were not present in s1-2 (certainly to no great extent) but were introduced in s3 and I never much cared for that element either, but it's only one element of many and they were generally portrayed much more interestingly than in the trial, which was especially weak. The finale to s3 was frustrating to me because it was still excellent despite that, but that definitely weakened that episode. After the trial got broken up, I thought the depiction - not spoiling you but - between the Decima guy (the other-AI/anti-machine group) and the Vigilance guy (the civil liberty/terrorist trial group) was excellent, anyway. It was just the trial itself that was lame.

It was the Hollywood absurdist misinterpretation of Anonymous-by-another-name that irked me so much. So much near-future fiction in various mediums have started to make any and all anti-establishment groups obvious plays on Anon, but without any remotely realistic connection to what Anon actually is. They are just deifications of it that are so implausible and over the top to be absurd, in my mind. That is what put me off the most.

 

[J-Sun]

Continuing the spoiler thing.

Spoiler

It was the Hollywood absurdist misinterpretation of Anonymous-by-another-name that irked me so much. So much near-future fiction in various mediums have started to make any and all anti-establishment groups obvious plays on Anon, but without any remotely realistic connection to what Anon actually is. They are just deifications of it that are so implausible and over the top to be absurd, in my mind. That is what put me off the most.

Yep, I get that. (Not sure how direct the comparison was supposed to be but it's still similar principles, I guess.) You may not like the show anyway, but I wouldn't let just that put you off. There's a lot to it and it's often quite ambiguous.

 

[markpud]

I'll ship in too, before discussing this week. But this is definitely a show you'll want to go back and watch fully if you haven't seen it before - its incredibly dense in mythology at this point - so you can probably enjoy the action and paranoia as a new viewer, but there's a lot more that will make sense if you go back

Spoiler

Yep, they weren't the best realised group out of all the players, but given what was revealed about them in last season's finale it made more sense - they were entirely a puppet of Greer/Decima to force Northern Lights out of the picture and open the door to Samaritan

As for this week, I loved that we see the cut scenes from Samaritan's POV now, it's interface is so cool compared to the minimalism of Finch's creation. How long do we think their identity masking will last? Especially now that Shaw's joined a (presumably) criminal gang and Reese went "off the reservation" with his heavy weaponry?

I love the humour beats in this otherwise dark show, although Shaw's make-up counter gag was a little laboured, especially as Reese gets to be a cop and Finch a professor. She caught the short straw. The flirty student who left Finch's lecture in a huff after he said "don't ask he to alter your grades" was great. I wonder if she will turn out to be more important? That's the way this show makes me think...

Interesting that Decima is no more and the Senator "hopes" they'll be there to be accountable when manure meets fan....

New badguy lady also looks like she'll be formidable, any excuse for some girl fights eh, network producers?

PS can a mod rename this thread to "4.01 : Panopticon" please, it'd make me feel better

 

[J-Sun]

PS can a mod rename this thread to "4.01 : Panopticon" please, it'd make me feel better

Yeah - my first post won't make any sense (maybe the original title could be moved into it?) but I could go for that as that's what this thread turned into.

Oh yeah - and it's probably too late but markpud's spoiler will be a spoiler to you, MC, and not just a spoiler in the context that we were, um, spoilering in. Might want to avoid it if you do intend to watch. (But I agree with what you say in it, markpud.)

 

[markpud]

I watched it and had absolutely no idea what was going on since I have not seen the show before. It felt like someone went to a 4chan conspiracy thread and created a near-future world out of it.

I love this - it should be the show's tagline

 

[Winters_Sorrow]

Yeah - my first post won't make any sense (maybe the original title could be moved into it?) but I could go for that as that's what this thread turned into.

Done. And the spoilers thing is probably redundant in a thread about this episode so for those who haven't seen it (like me) beware because "Here Be Dragons".

 

[markpud]

Thanks

It is a bit odd to spoiler talk of last season, but I like to join in!!

 

[J-Sun]

Yeah, this started as a reminder thread for folks to watch the episode, so it wasn't an episode discussion thread where spoilers would be understood, plus Michael got in on it but said he hadn't seen any before, so I didn't want to spoil him and he apparently didn't want to spoil anyone else. Usually, there aren't quite so many spoiler tags.

Got bad news, though - I looked up the ratings for this episode and it was the lowest rated of CBS' shows that night, the lowest rated in its time slot and lost a third or more of its lead-in. A 1.7 for isn't good for most any episode on most any network but for a season premiere (usually one of the highest-rated shows of the season for most shows) on CBS (which has higher ratings standards than the other networks) this is not good. (Only saving grace is that 10PM shows usually do run lower than 8/9PM shows.) It's almost certain to survive to the end of the season just to get syndication but it's almost certain not to be renewed if the ratings don't climb.

So everybody enjoy this season, at least, but we've gotta recruit new viewers if we want more!

(I personally don't want it to run forever and get ridiculous and past-its-prime but I could certainly stand five-six seasons, at least.)

 

[ctg]

I looked up the ratings for this episode and it was the lowest rated of CBS' shows that night, the lowest rated in its time slot and lost a third or more of its lead-in. A 1.7 for isn't good for most any episode on most any network but for a season premiere

I wouldn't be worried at this point because there are at least 21 episodes to go. But the thing is POI wasn't very well advertised before the run began. It was almost at bar with the Blacklist, and it was an absolute surprise for me to see it back this week. However, a lot of people have seen the show, some doesn't like it because the concepts fly well over their head and if they haven't been on from the very beginning, it's going to be like people have said earlier, difficult to get into unlike Friends or Frasier or Sex in the City or something like that. But we're going to see in few weeks how this will develop as the season progress and the people get interested again.

By the way, what timeslot they have for this series?

 

[J-Sun]

By the way, what timeslot they have for this series?

In the US it's airing Tuesday at 10:00PM Eastern on CBS.

 

[Dave]

It would have been a difficult watch for a new viewer. There is a lot going on and characters we haven't seen for some time - looks like Elias will play a bigger part now. They could have done with a recap - 'previously on Person of Interest'. Someone asked last year after the previous final episode of the season if it had 'jumped the shark'. I'd still reserve judgement on that. Certainly, the episode format with the 'number of the week to rescue' seems to have gone, but they had almost run out of different twists and combinations of that.

Samaritan seems uber powerful but don't forget Root added servers and programming to it before it got up and running, so it is not invincible. I think we will see that student again. Nothing in POI is not done or shown without a reason. I'd also like to see Zoe Morgan again. I'd also like to see the three guys Root worked with (Lone Gunmen???) in the previous episode again.

One thing about the show that seemed wrong was that, to begin with, they only ever got numbers from New York - given that they were US social security numbers and that crimes are committed everywhere. Later they began going further afield (even on the airplane - which is still my favourite episode.) This new method of communication they have been given, that will be invisible to Samaritan, is going to tie them down to the city limits again.

J-Sun - I will alter your first post in this thread as suggested so that it makes sense - rather than you just being generally *happy*

 

[markpud]

Tying things down to NYC is something I can live with, as the logistics of going continent/worldwide on a TV budget/timescales. But the occasional foray out there has definitely been good.

It's such an intelligent show that nothing happens by accident, so anything you notice (and plenty you don't) is likely to be significant.