Minority Report Season One

[JD]

This one was pretty good. I think I probably enjoyed it about as much as the pilot. The overall case wasn't anything that unique, but we got some nice character stuff, and some cool future tech.
The preview for next week made it look like they were going to be dealing with Blake being suspicious of Vega, so I hope actually either bring him into the loop on Dash or come up with a decent explanation for what she's up to. It's going to get ridiculous pretty quickly if she keeps ending up at crime scenes before the crime occurs and nobody starts to get suspicious or concerned.

 

[Christopher]

The preview for next week made it look like they were going to be dealing with Blake being suspicious of Vega, so I hope actually either bring him into the loop on Dash or come up with a decent explanation for what she's up to. It's going to get ridiculous pretty quickly if she keeps ending up at crime scenes before the crime occurs and nobody starts to get suspicious or concerned.

Yeah. And if they have to keep up the "use the victim as bait and wait for the crime to be attempted" routine, that could get old fast, not to mention ethically problematical. (Although Precrime was not lacking in problematical ethics of its own.)

 

[Guy Gardener]

What's the alternative?

A secret prison?

Heroes don't have secret prisons.

 

[DWF]

The preview for next week made it look like they were going to be dealing with Blake being suspicious of Vega, so I hope actually either bring him into the loop on Dash or come up with a decent explanation for what she's up to. It's going to get ridiculous pretty quickly if she keeps ending up at crime scenes before the crime occurs and nobody starts to get suspicious or concerned.

Yeah. And if they have to keep up the "use the victim as bait and wait for the crime to be attempted" routine, that could get old fast, not to mention ethically problematical. (Although Precrime was not lacking in problematical ethics of its own.)

That's oversimplfying things, Vega and Dash got both the victim and killer wrong without Arthur giving them her name they'd never have found her in time.

 

[DWF]

Agatha is a real mastermind anda hypocrite jsut as Authur is, they both are using their gifts to manipulate people instead of helping them. And I did like it that Dash has openly said he's not a detective, but he's reallt risking it working for the police now. And I still don't like using a computer to ry and solve crimes ahead of time, it seems as though they didn't learn anything from precrime.

 

[Christopher]

This was better than last week, but I'm still lukewarm about it. At least we're getting to see the show's status quo getting settled in -- on the one hand, Dash is finally folded into the group as Vega's regular partner, while on the other, the arc/conspiracy storyline with Agatha and Arthur is kicking into gear. I'm glad it's not just going to be Vega hiding Dash's existence week after week. That wouldn't have been sustainable.

The Hawkeye program seemed a bit heavyhandedly dystopian at first, with the suspension of rights for red-flagged people, but then I realized that it fits pretty well with a world where Precrime led to people being arrested, frozen, and brain-damaged for crimes they hadn't actually committed. The greater inconsistency is with Vega. Before, she seemed to think Precrime was the greatest thing since sliced bread, but now she's raising ethical objections to its direct spiritual successor.

The show's budget limitations are showing. We get a glimpse of one of the high-tech, futuristic motorways from the movie, but it's cartoonishly CGI, and most of the rest of the scene is from low angles inside the car so you can't see out the windows. And then the other driving scenes are out in the woods on a dirt road. Plus the guest star is conveniently a fan of "vintage" cars. (I'm reminded of the early Doctor Who serial "The Dalek Invasion of Earth," where they set the story two centuries in the future and kept having to concoct excuses for the lack of futuristic stuff, like the heroes having to steal a vintage vehicle from a transportation museum.)

 

[Gryffindorian]

How did they get away with using the word Hawkeye? I would think Marvel had it trademarked.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Marvel Comics Hawkeye predates M*A*S*H* Hawkeye, but that was based on a novel about things that mostly happened, about a real guy in the Korean "War" who was named after some bugger in an old as dirt book that would one day be a movie with sexy as hell Madelin Stowe in it.

It's murky.

 

[Starbreaker]

The show's about to get axed. It's the lowest rated show on the network now.

 

[Taylirious]

I like it and it is a shame it isn't doing well. The HUGE problem with precrime is potential criminals not being in some sort of therapy instead frozen. There are other problems for sure but just locking people up for something they haven't actual done was always a bad idea from when I watched the movie.

ETA: The Hawkeye thing is loaded with problems too.

 

[Guy Gardener]

They must have population problems and unemployment issues.

They need to manufacture problems, like making crime impossible not to commit, to deal with both of these problems.

The only other answer would probably be mandatory conception restrictions.

Which means that you have to start building "Breeder Prisons".

 

[Mach5]

http://tvseriesfinale.com/tv-show/minority-report-season-one-ratings-38073/

It's dead, Jim.

 

[JoeZhang]

What's the alternative?

A secret prison?

Heroes don't have secret prisons.

We discussed the really creepy blog that Cisco was keeping in the tie-in media where they turned up the creep factor to 11?

 

[Christopher]

I like it and it is a shame it isn't doing well. The HUGE problem with precrime is potential criminals not being in some sort of therapy instead frozen. There are other problems for sure but just locking people up for something they haven't actual done was always a bad idea from when I watched the movie.

Me too. The whole "cryogenic prison" trope makes no sense. The purpose of prison is supposed to be to rehabilitate people so they won't want to commit crimes anymore. If you just freeze them for years, then they come out no different than they were before (assuming it doesn't fry their brains). Although I guess that's marginally less counterproductive than the current American system where prison is so harsh and damaging that they're likely to come out even worse than when they went in.

Come to think of it, if they have TMS to reprogram people's behavior, why didn't they use that on Precrime arrestees?

 

[Guy Gardener]

With the abolishment of capital punishment, the price of keeping a deep freeze running until the prisoner is someone else's problem has to be cheaper than life imprisonment.

I'm only assuming the end of state sanctioned murder.

It could be more assholey than than that.

Appeals + death row + termination > Running a deep freeze until the "prisoner' is someone else's problem.

Precrime only ran for 6 years, no bugger would have gotten close to serving a full life sentence unless there was no designated date to thaw these buggers, and life did mean life, even if you had become immortal at these temperatures.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Come to think of it, if they have TMS to reprogram people's behavior, why didn't they use that on Precrime arrestees?

And because healing pyramids cure cancer, chemotherapy is for chumps.



Either those cops are morons, who have to have basic ordinary accepted and real science explained to them like babies, when was the last time you had to explain a microwave oven to anyone, or it's hippy sunshine out of your ass pseudo science.

 

[Taylirious]

But they had yet to commit a crime so locking them away is wrong. Unless they did something criminal prior to killing someone. Therapy/rehabilitation of some sort is much better.

 

[Guy Gardener]

You're not as morally enlightened as future people.

It's fine.

If there was only one possible future (without precog meddling) then it would be more fine.

 

[Taylirious]

I am too lazy to go back but I guess marijuana is legal? The pot strip?

 

[Christopher]

I am too lazy to go back but I guess marijuana is legal? The pot strip?

Yup. There was also a bit in a pilot where a targeted ad for marijuana played for a nervous Dash on the subway. It's not a very daring bit of futurism, given that legalization seems increasingly inevitable. I've been getting flyers in the mail for a legalization issue on my state ballot this November. If it's reached Ohio, then it's becoming mainstream.

The strips seem like a good idea. While marijuana is far less harmful in most respects than tobacco, inhaling the smoke of burning leaves of anything is still bad for your lungs and potentially carcinogenic. So a different delivery system makes a lot more sense from a health standpoint. Although if I were the sort who were inclined to use it, or had a medical need to (and if it were legal where I lived, which it might be soon), I think I'd prefer some sort of brownie or cookie, like in that dispensary on Person of Interest last season.