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Mr Robot is Coming.

It's become quite a cliche these days to build shows around non-neurotypical investigator characters of one sort or another, hasn't it? Besides this, there's the much dumber new show Stitchers on ABC Family, whose lead character has an apparently made-up condition called "temporal dysplasia" that leaves her with no sense of the passage of time, which somehow renders her devoid of emotion. (When I looked up her condition online, the only site that actually referenced it with the symptoms described in the show turned out to be a viral site for the show itself. It has a similar name to a totally different condition that can cause epilepsy, but that uses "temporal" in a totally different sense -- and the word "dysplasia" has no possible relation to the condition the Stitchers lead character has. Which makes the show even dumber than I'd realized.)

Of course, Mr. Robot is clearly much smarter. And it's rather daring, I suppose, to build a show around a lead character who's not just quirky, but actually schizophrenic and possibly suffering paranoid delusions. Yet something can be done well and still be a cliche.
 
Watched it. Loved it.

The lead actor is one of the saving graces of the movie Need For Speed too (along with the car scenery).
 
Interesting first episode. I'm a little concerned that they're getting too cute with the "who is real?" nonsense, though. Hopefully, Slater will be the only non-real one, and the main character will figure it out within the first few episodes.
 
I just watched the pilot, and wow. I haven't been hooked by a new show like this since Fargo. It has a great Fight Club vibe to it, which I'm really enjoying.

Casting Slater was a good choice, which makes a nice connection to Pump Up The Volume, another old favorite of mine.
 
It started off well, could potentially turn into a very cool series. Seemed a more contemporary take on the "cyberpunk" genre, more hoodies less mirrorshades. The use of social media is a nice touch. Also made me think of how The Matrix might have played out with Anderson if there wasn't actually an external Matrix.
 
I watched the pilot again for the first time since last month, and yeah, Slater is definitely a hallucination to represent Elliot's more confident and criminal alter-ego Mr. Robot.

When the F-Society guy first opened the door to the arcade, he stared directly at Elliot and never even set eyes on Slater.

When Elliot was asking Slater questions in the arcade, they made sure the young woman was wearing headphones so she didn't hear what he said, but she was always looking at Elliot out of the corner of her eye wondering why he was talking to himself.

When Elliot asked her where her boss was outside, she got angry with him and told him to stop screwing around because she obviously considers him the boss.

Plus, as mentioned before, no one on the subway reacted when Slater yelled at Elliot. You mind your own business on the subway, but you'd still look up if someone yelled "Hey!"
 
Sto-Vo-Kory said:
I enjoyed the pilot, too.

The lead is mesmerizing with his unique look and erratic narration. I remember him from 24 and the Pacific miniseries on HBO. He's finally found a role that really plays to his strengths here.
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If you haven't seen "Need for Speed" he's in that too
 
Lol, I thought there was something wrong with my DVR until I realized that the episode names are intentionally made to look like DOS file names.
 
Someone pointed this out to me last week but I didn't realize they silenced out the F-bombs until tonight's episode. They also silenced out "shitty" which I don't know why that would be a problem on the USA Network when Suits can have a drinking game to it.

Anyone notice the one time someone was talking to Mr. Robot he was standing directly in front of Elliot?
 
I'm afraid I lost interest about 15 minutes in. The lead's drug use is distasteful to me. The villain, the new "Evil Corp" boss, was too broad and cartoonishly malevolent (unless it turns out Elliot was hallucinating him too). And the guy in the mask in the YouTube video was way too derivative of V for Vendetta. I'm just not interested enough in the rest to stick around.

Anyway, I don't see how Mr. Robot could be a hallucination, because that was obviously Christian Slater's voice coming from under the Guy Fawkes-ish mask. Unless this is another instance where what we see and hear is filtered through Elliot's hallucinations, but I'm not sure I have the patience for that kind of trick. (The whole "Evil Corp" thing is kind of silly, even knowing that it's not real.)
 
You do know you're not required to take up the bad habits of a fictional character that you like?
 
Aragorn said:
Someone pointed this out to me last week but I didn't realize they silenced out the F-bombs until tonight's episode. They also silenced out "shitty" which I don't know why that would be a problem on the USA Network when Suits can have a drinking game to it.

Anyone notice the one time someone was talking to Mr. Robot he was standing directly in front of Elliot?
Click to expand...

^Yes, I noticed that. So, what, this is going to "Fight Club" with hackers?
 
Does anyone else say "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEl-iott" whenever Elliot puts his hoodie on?
 
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