Summer Binge List: Person of Interest

It’s that time of year – summer is finally here! With most network shows on hiatus, it’s a great time for binge-watching a new show from beginning to end either on DVD or online. Each of us Nice Girls have our favorites, and several of us are huge fans of Person of Interest. If you haven’t been watching, you should be, and here’s why:

I love television, or I wouldn’t be writing about it, but few shows have been so “must-see” to me as Person of Interest. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten behind even one episode of the past 5 seasons because it’s been just.that.good. What always surprises me when I talk about Person of Interest, or POI, as its fans often call it, is how few people have ever heard about it, or seen it. After all, it was in the top 20 shows in terms of ratings during its first two seasons. While it’s become more serialized and the ratings have dropped since then, it still pulls better ratings than many shows that networks other than CBS consider hits and quickly renewed. And while the ratings may have dropped, the quality of the writing, acting, and production have definitely not. Yet it still remains mostly unknown and underappreciated.

For the uninitiated, the premise of POI  (which was created by Jonathan Nolan, co-writer of The Dark Knight) is that a computer genius, Harold Finch, (Michael Emerson of LOST fame) develops a super computer that is able to predict when crimes are going to occur. He sells it to the government for $1 where it is used to prevent terrorist attacks. The Machine doesn’t just predict terrorist attacks, though, it also can predict smaller crimes, and can provide the social security number of either the victim OR the perpetrator. The trick is that Finch doesn’t know which is which. As he’s a hacker, not a fighter, Finch recruits an ex-special forces soldier and CIA assassin, John Reese (Jim Caviezel of Passion of the Christ fame) who is presumed dead, to go out in the field, sort out whether the “number” is a victim or perpetrator, and prevent the crime from occurring. Along the way, Finch and Reese meet up with a cast of characters including a straight-laced cop, Detective Carter, (a pre-Empire Taraji P Hensen), her dirty-cop partner, Detective Fusco (Kevin Chapman), and later a hacker-assassin, Root (Amy Acker) and another ex-CIA assassin,  Sameen Shaw (Sarah Shahi) who at varying times both help and hinder Finch and Reese’s mission.

Unlike many current shows, POI is an intellectual show – at its heart, it’s a sci-fi show about the perils of artificial intelligence, man’s hubris, and how murky the line between good and evil can be in our world. Characters and ideas are introduced, and then disappear for weeks or even a season or two, before being reintroduced as important plot points. While the show started with a “Case of the Week” procedural format, over the seasons it has shifted to highlight more of its sci-fi mythology and focus on The Machine. These factors may have made it a hard sell for live viewers who couldn’t commit to watching every episode, but have earned the show legions of fervent fans. Binge watching the show has the advantage of allowing for better continuity and avoids the issue of a missed episode.

Another aspect that makes POI unique are that it has been creepily prescient. Many plot lines from POI have appeared on the news weeks to months later, having actually happened in some form, such as the story of Edward Snowden and the increasing use of surveillance footage to solve crimes such as the Boston Marathon bombing. The paranoia and the “you are being watched” aspect of the show is brought home by brilliant graphics that depict The Machine’s point of view of events – we get to see many scenes as the Machine sees them through surveillance cameras, from our own point of view, and that of the characters. The Machine also provides a unique mechanism for flashbacks – we see it basically rewind time to fill in pieces of the characters’ lives that help explain their current predicaments or actions.

And that brings me to the final reason why you should watch POI – the characters. As I mentioned, POI thrives in the moral gray-zone – it is predicated on the idea that just because you do bad things doesn’t necessarily mean that you are a bad person. A common theme in the show is redemption and we see the characters grow and change in thinking and alliances. While many of the characters are deeply flawed, they are also somehow relatable. We are drawn into their character arcs to the point that it is easy to forget that a particular character might not have initially been introduced as a “good” or at all likable person. The characters also don’t follow stereotypes – there are badass women, timid men, and plenty of characters that don’t turn out to be the way that we first assume them to be.

In summary, with three episodes to go in the series, I can say without hesitation that the entire 5 seasons of Person of Interest are more than binge-worthy! Come for the cool twist on a procedural and stay for the brilliant characterization, humor, fantastic fight scenes, moral questions and a wee bit of paranoia. Seasons 1-4 are available on Netflix and Season 5 will be out on DVD in late July. Your summer will never be the same!