So I was watching the season finales of three US TV series I have been following diligently the past couple of months. All three of them have ended on cliffhangers…sort of. And I hope they return to tell us their stories. But here are some thoughts.
Person Of Interest
This Jonathan Nolan created cyber-and-real world thriller has definitely gone way beyond what the show creators intended. What began as a two-man vigilante team out to protect the innocent took a u-turn somewhere and is now a war of the machines. A battle of the Artificially Intellgent. Two advanced AIs are now fighting to control the world, or just the US of A, for the time being. The team of two has also grown, with a lots of friends in high places. The season 4 finale ended in a John Woo type super heroism. The machine has effectively given up, and is now copied from a grid or cloud configuration to a suitcase of RAMs. So it is a cloud system getting migrated to a traditional on-premise software system, to escape the other Samaritan. Nearly all of the recurring characters of the season had a role in the finale, except Sameen. I was hoping that she would show up at the last moment to save the day. Nope. Not this time. The story itself was too fast, about three parallel storylines being told at high pace. The 'control' part storyline was the least interesting, we are not worried about another attack, we simply wanted to know what happened to the machine. The last minutes of 'dialogue' between the machine and Harrold was …awkward. It felt as if the machine was sobbing to its parent like a little helpless child, not one of its finest moments. And is samaritan bad after all ? That is a question they have left ambitious. I think the only way for this show to end is to have both the machines wiped out, because human beings are much beyond algorithms. I think in a future episode we will see Harrold concurring Samaritan and wiping it out, followed by destroying his baby, the machine.
Forever
This was a brand new show this year, with an interesting premise and believable characters. Dr Henry Morgan, the immortal medical examiner of NY, does NOT die after all, even after being shot by the same centuries old gun, twice ! So Adam's belief that it could his immortality was wrong after all, something I was expecting. Again, the story was too fast, the build up to Adam's encounter with Henry , the misplaced flashbacks, Lucas's dialogue and faith in the awkward Henry…nope…all unexpected. Lucas did not have any questions about the dagger to Henry, when he has always asked questions for the audience. The scenes were Jo followed Henry in the subway was interesting. We had seen the subway in the first episode of the season, and this is the only time we are here again.
I am hoping this series gets renewed for a second season, so far there is no news. Apparently, viewership has not been great. But if it does return, this show can go on for a really looooong time. I also hope in the new season, that we see a few flashbacks from Adam's perspective. He has been around for 2000 years, and has seen and experienced that much more than Henry. We could go all the way upto the roman times from Adam's side.
Allegiance
This series probably ended for the best. But it had an interesting story. A little too cold-war influenced. A family of Russian sleeper cell agents living in New York have to decide whether to serve their mother Russia, or to act for the best interests of America. None of the actors in the series could act, except maybe the ruthless killer they introduced in the end : Christopher. The mom and dad team of the O'Connors are more effective than the entire FBI and FSR combined ! And the plotline of the planned attack restoring Russia to an energy super power was completely ridiculous. But it was interesting to see how the plot unfolded putting the O'Connor family in a powerful position at the end, now that Victor is the new resident. There was a time when spy work was all about secrecy, and stealth, and breaking code and finding patterns, and leaving the action to the forces. But now even the spies have to be in gun fights and standoffs. This show could do a lot better if they could replace all of the leading actor roles.
No comments:
Post a Comment