Minority Report Season One

[Christopher]

Fox has cut 3 episodes from Minority Report. Only 10 episodes will be produced.

http://deadline.com/2015/10/minority-report-order-cut-fox-cancelation-1201572471/

Oh, well. Let's hope the "fall finale" episode 10 has some closure, though I expect it'll be a cliffhanger. Maybe they'll have time to tack on some kind of brief resolution scene, though.

I would've been more disappointed about this if the show had been better, but the post-pilot episodes haven't really lived up to its potential. Ironically, I was just talking in another thread about how, 30 years ago, Steven Spielberg had so much clout that he was able to get NBC to commit in advance to a guaranteed 2-year run for Amazing Stories even though the show was pretty lousy. I guess things have changed.

 

[JD]

I don't think any of the TV series he's been involved with the last few years have been anywhere near as good as his movies.
I have been enjoying the show, but if 10 episodes is all we get I won't miss it.

 

[Taylirious]

Maybe a mini series would have been better? 6 EPs???

 

[Guy Gardener]

Or they could have just sucked less.

They didn't know that it would suck, and were probably surprised that it sucked.

Someone thought that this was a billion dollar idea, and they were not going to stop pushing this rock up a hill, until they made those billions.

The Network's expectations are unrealistic.

 

[Aragorn]

Fox has cut 3 episodes from Minority Report. Only 10 episodes will be produced.

http://deadline.com/2015/10/minority-report-order-cut-fox-cancelation-1201572471/

On another website I won't name (but BigFoot knows which one I'm talking about), their commenters flip out over every TV death and show cancellation like the network is personally attacking them. Even a crappy show like Minority Report getting axed has them raging, and they repeat the same "Fox" and "sci fi" sound bites without actually bringing anything to the table.

NBC cancels The Player, crickets.

FOX cancels The Player in Outer Space, time to burn the neighborhood down!

This was the same site where a commenter was upset at the direction Person of Interest was taking, and he wished it was episodic and that the characters should go home happy and unharmed at the end of every episode.

 

[Christopher]

The bits of futurism in the show are generally more interesting than the actual cases, though they have their issues. Akeela's a "Sprawl baby," apparently, whose facial tattoo is to confound facial-recognition software. Nice idea, although it's based on a limitation of present-day facial recognition; I imagine they might come up with a workaround within the next half-century. Similarly with the use of the music service's geolocation as a crucial clue -- that's cutting-edge present-day technology, not necessarily all that prophetic.

And in the future, the US still uses paper money, but it's very colorful, and President Obama is on the $500 bill and a woman I didn't recognize is on the $100.

I'm getting a little tired of how everyone in the show is a fan of "vintage" music from decades earlier. Sort of the same kind of contrivance as how everyone in the various Star Trek shows is a fan of music or fiction or historical eras from the 20th century or earlier but never from the 21st century or after.

For a moment, I thought that we were going to get the second bootstrap paradox of the week (Doctor Who viewers will know what I mean), and that Dash's interest in Freddy was going to provoke the guy to murder her out of jealousy, making it literally a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Is Agatha supposed to be coming off as a villain? Because she seriously is. Sure, in theory she's trying to protect herself and her brothers, but she doesn't seem all that benevolent. And the ease and thoroughness with which she sees the future makes her too powerful. Was she like that in the movie? I thought none of the siblings could get the whole picture without the others. (While we're at it, why was it treated as such a big deduction when William Mapother figured out she was a precog, when she's been blatantly showing him that she knows the future for two episodes now?)

I find myself not particularly minding that the show's ending after episode 10. I imagine a lot of people will be tuning out now that they know it's being cancelled, but I'm the other way around -- now that I know it's finite, I figure I might as well see it through to the end. It's just another six episodes, and I'm kind of a completist.

 

[Gryffindorian]

The moment Agatha took the man's money last episode, I knew she was no angel.

The woman on the $100 bill, could that be Susan Anthony?

 

[cylkoth]

The bits of futurism in the show are generally more interesting than the actual cases, though they have their issues.

I'm not a fan of the transparent video displays floating high over your desk, where everyone in the office can see your top secret precog lens transmissions from across the room.
Not to mention talking loud enough so that your conersations should be easily overheard, but I guess that's a nessesary convention that we should be used to.

 

[Christopher]

I'm not a fan of the transparent video displays floating high over your desk, where everyone in the office can see your top secret precog lens transmissions from across the room.

Yeah, I do wonder why Vega's boss/ex-partner wasn't looking over her shoulder and asking just why she was using police resources to investigate these people.

More generally, I've never understood why shows and films set in the future are so obsessed with transparent screens. Why would anyone want a transparent screen? That would make it harder to see the picture.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Although apparently Demolition Man did include a rehabilitative aspect in the form of some kind of mental programming, but it clearly didn't work very well.

Actually, it did work. Stallone was given a normal rehab program and Snipes was turned into even more of a psycho, but the latter was because his programming was deliberately altered. The process itself was solid.

What if the cryogenic stasis (or whatever) includes a neural interface that subjects the person to torment, such as an illusion of a harsh prison life that lasts much longer than real time, or being forced to endlessly listen to Celine Dion songs?

Kor

Sounds like something O'Brian went through in DS-9

And David Hyde Pierce on The Outer Limits. Linky

 

[kitik]

I'm hoping that the creators will be able to give us a satisfactory ending for the 10th episode. Hopefully they weren't already 100% done with it last week.

I am questionable on letting Fredi go after she shot the guy. That really doesn't seem like proper police procedure.


On a different note, I took a look at the pilot that was released (leaked) a few months ago, and there were some rather obvious differences compared to what was actually aired a few weeks ago. The scene at the hospital/recovery place was a little different, the scene with them eating dinner (who wants Chinese) was very different afterwards, and the big showdown with the birds at the very end was pretty much completely different. The brother also played a different role. I almost wonder if their initial plan was to have him already be captured/running from the visions Agatha has been seeing. But then they figured the two lead actors needed some more help, so they added him in to the final version of the show to up the charm factor.

I fast forwarded through most of the other parts. Were there any other differences? I noticed that most of the musical selections were completely different too. Some were actually better in the old version, but probably not by a lot.

 

[DWF]

I don't like what they've done to Agatha, she was a victim in the movie and here's she's something of an evil big bad. Hawkeye could turn into the show's versikon of the Machine on Person Of Interest.

 

[JD]

Yeah, I'm with you guys on Agatha. I've been trying to figure out if they are purposefully making her evil, or if it's just weird writing and/or directing. It seems a little weird to turn one of the main heroes of the movie into a villain, but guess that kind of thing isn't unheard of.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Been catching only a few of these so far, but I caught this week's. I don't like Agatha as a big-bad, either. The look of the future is interesting, but the injection of cliches such as, "OK, I'm going to unhook myself from the live feed around this woman I just lost my virginity to* even though she might be a murderer," is pretty lame.

* - Don't know for sure it was what's-his-face first time or not,** but it's silly either way.

** - Maybe not psychically, even if physically.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Above a certain level of attractiveness things like "murder" aren't important enough to make a fuss about.

 

[bryce]

Um, what's up with the pilot change...the version of the pilot of Hulu looks very different than the version that was :leaked" online months ago...I guess people didn't like the reaction to the pilot so they did a re-shoot, ala' TOS...???

 

[bryce]

You can call me a horrible person, but I don't get it.

Why push himself, risking sanity and life, to stop random murders of almost certainly know nothing schlubs from happening?

Sanctity of human life, my ass.

Saying that he has a higher calling, is just another description of insanity or addiction.

You can't trust this mook to behave rationally.

(Yes, I know, I'm shitting on the entire concept of Superheroism.)

Actually, dropping this online a month ago like they did, is kinda like "seeing the future" a little isn't it?

I don't know about you, but if I could see every murder withing a 100 miles, I would damn well be doing my best to stop them. I don't care if it's people I know or not, that really doesn't matter to me.

Of course, you are talking to a schlub who helped (and still is helping) his ex-wife raise the two other kids she had *after* she left him for another guy (who turned out to be an even BIGGER deadbeat loser than me) so I am a kinda a...something...sap, sod, I dunno...)but I love them as much as I love my own 3 biological kids)...

 

[Guy Gardener]

Stopping a murder from happening, doesn't stop the pain and terror from afflicting dash days earlier.

Dash can't see his own future.

If he vows to murder anyone who will murder, before they plan to murder someone else, if he can't see his own future, then Dash effectively selfcockblocks his own precognition.

 

[Christopher]

Um, what's up with the pilot change...the version of the pilot of Hulu looks very different than the version that was :leaked" online months ago...I guess people didn't like the reaction to the pilot so they did a re-shoot, ala' TOS...???

TOS didn't do a reshoot, they did a whole different pilot from scratch. There are plenty of other shows that have reshot portions of their pilots and restructured them, e.g. Gilligan's Island and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

How did the leaked pilot differ from the aired one?

 

[JD]

Did the leaked pilot still have the guy who plays Dash playing Arthur too? I know at one point they were going to have him playing both roles.