Person of Interest – 4×01 Panopticon

Something awesome, John.

Panopticon:

The concept of the design is to allow a single watchman to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) inmates of an institution without the inmates being able to tell whether or not they are being watched. Although it is physically impossible for the single watchman to observe all cells at once, the fact that the inmates cannot know when they are being watched means that all inmates must act as though they are watched at all times, effectively controlling their own behaviour constantly.

wikipedia

Person of Interest lives in the interesting conceit that it started out as a procedural with trappings of a science fiction deus ex machina engine that slowly became a serialized show that’s now operating on a premise of a sciences fact thanks to Edward Snowden’s revelations about PRISM.

The conceit being that Harold Finch created a massive system that collates and analyzes all surveillance feeds from the government and everything that’s connected to telecommunications and the internet in order to predict when and who will commit acts of terror, except it sees everything. Every premeditated crime that’s about to happen.

Person of Interest has gone through the motions of a Case of the Week procedural with a lot of elements of a serial with fantastic, layered writing with each story building upon the next.

Five Fall Shows 2014

The US Fall Shows are starting now and these are the 5 shows I’m looking forward to watching:

 

Person of Interest

Person of Interest is one of the top shows I’m looking forward to watching, I didn’t fully commit to the show until season 3 but once I got caught up with the show, its been nothing but fun.

Person of Interest started out about two men setting out to help stop crime with the help of massive surveillance system that can help predict acts of terror and crime. The government uses the surveillance system (simply known in the story as The Machine) to stop acts of terror, while the ‘irrelevant’ crimes are ignored.

This was a show, as the showrunners liked to joke, that started out as science fiction, and now with all the revelation about PRISM is science fact.

One of the reasons I love this show so much is how fantastic the characters are, and the long arc of the story. It was a long form sci fi story masquerading as a procedural and by the third season, the training wheels have come off.

Season 3 ended with a massive loss for the heroes, and I’m so excited to find out how the team of heroes will come back from it.

 

Elementary

 

I love the conceit of the show and that being, what if John Watson became Joan Watson, as played by Lucy Liu?

It was a brave premise and one I really loved exploring because first and foremost Elementary is about the partnership between Holmes and Watson, in whatever form they are.

It was also really fun to watch a series that took Sherlock’s addiction seriously and the repercussions of being a smart ass genius. So many shows let their Geniuses go with a light slap on the wrist, but in Elementary Sherlock has to learn to navigate relationships and he’s always held accountable to all his actions.

Lucy Liu certainly holds her own against Jonny Lee Miller’s Sherlock, never giving quarter but offering a real friendship which he seemed to lack growing up.

 

Sleepy Hollow

Of all the wacky premises out there in mainstream TV, this is the wackiest. Ichabod Crane died 200 years in the past, only to wake up in the present to battle the apocalypse along with Lt. Abbie Mills of Sleepy Hollow PD.

Its wacky in all the ways that involve America’s Found Fathers and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and judging from the premiere, we’re in for an even wackier season.

 

The Good Wife

This show, this show is a testament to the TV network’s 24 episode program. If you haven’t seen the absolutely fantastic episodes last season, I encourage everyone to go and watch.

Its an ensemble show even if Alicia is front and center and every relationship in that show just pays off so beautifully.

 

Gotham

This is also something I looked forward to a lot. I would prefer if it were Gotham Central but in lieu of that, I’ll have this. This is Gotham before Bruce Wayne donned the cloak and became Batman. This was the interim between the city falling into darkness, where organized crime and the police sat on a precarious knife edge and Jim Gordon is still coming into his own as the Commissioner everyone knew and loved.

How about you guys? What US Fall shows are you all looking forward to?