Thursday, September 24. 2015Dueling Reviews #1
This time we're reviewing Limitless and Minority Report, and Sideshow chimes in on the latter.
Next up we will be doing Scream Queens episodes 1 and 2 (they aired back to back, billed as a double-length premiere episode) and Rosewood. LimitlessJoey's pre-watch thoughts: The movie behind this series was, for me, the ultimate fantasy; basically, the culmination of my entire life's effort is to achieve this kind of perfect interface between brain and body. Joey's Summary: A good first outing. The main character first takes NZT (the super-brain drug) because he wants to diagnose his father's illness. Things escalate quickly when his source of NZT is murdered. Bradley Cooper shows up and reprises his role from the movie - and I suspect he's actually going to turn up to be a bit of a bad guy. Joey's Rating: 8 Joey's Season Prediction: 3 seasons, but the third one will largely be critically panned. Aaron's pre-watch thoughts: Sherlock Holmes in a pill? Aaron's summary: The first fifteen minutes are a lot like the movie. This will battle with Minority Report and Blindspot. Like the main character this show has a great deal of potential. Aaron's Rating: 8 Aaron's Season Prediction: Three seasons Minority ReportJoey's pre-watch thoughts: SIGH.The movie wasn't nearly good enough to warrant an entire TV show. If we're going to do Philip K. Dick stories as TV Series, why not "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" (film version: Blade Runner), "The Golden Man" (film version: Next), or "Paycheck" (film version: well...Paycheck)? All of those movies were WAY better, even when you consider the sub-par casting choices made in the latter two. Joey's Summary: So the pre-cogs were let go, and one of the twins (Dash) still wants solve crimes, because he gets the horrifying visions of all the deaths. The other twin, Arthur, is some kind of high-powered investment guy, because he gets the visions of the names and numbers (somewhat easier to turn to a financial advantage.) Dash partners up with a cop who consistently shows a wildly inappropriate amount of cleavage. Agatha has a foreboding vision of the future, but isn't sure how to stop it. Oh, and the Washington NFL team is renamed to the "Redclouds" at some point in this hypothetical future. I certainly hope that's not the best the NFL manages to come up with. Joey's Rating: 6 - slightly better than middle-of-the-road; the acting wasn't great, the plot was super-thin, but they showed off some cool tech gadgets for future cops. Joey's Season Prediction: Not finishing their first season, unless the writing and acting improve a LOT. Aaron's pre-watch thoughts:I will wish it was Blindspot. Aaron's summary: The weakest of the Precogs helps a police officer stop a killer... via murder?! Already I would rather be watching Blindspot, but hey future tech is cool. Aaron's Rating: 5.25 Aaron's Season Prediction: Cancelled before March Sideshow chimes in on Minority ReportPre-Watch Thought: Minority Report has always been a movie I've really enjoyed, and simultaneously been a little disappointed in, because it fell apart at the end. One thought I've always wondered is about life after the movie for the Pre-cogs. This show is supposed to tap into it. Sadly they're going the procedural route, but hopefully it's a procedural in the Gotham mold where there's individual stories and an overall story, and not the NCIS type mold where nothing ties in. It's one of two movie tie in pilots this season that I'm really concerned might be done an injustice in the procedural format, though it might work better here than in Limitless. Summary: A good reintroduction into the world. Initial exposition is enough to catch up those who hadn't seen the movie, and even gave new details to those who did. It's a little too dependent upon showing off and using "future tech" which is a fine line they'll need to balance. A good amount of tie-ins to Minority Report and the after effects of the events of the movie. Enough hints to an overarching story. Much like every procedural the question is can they do enough with the gimmick, and the overall story to avoid getting stale week to week. Rating: 7.5 - It's a solid pilot, didn't blow me away, but didn't disappoint me either. Prediction: Futuristic cop shows don't typically fare well. It's hard to get a hook into audiences who sometimes shy away from sci-fi fare, and the shows are typically expensive to make. Sadly I think this will get the same fate as Almost Human a few years ago where it runs out the string this year, and just is too cost prohibitive to bring back next. Also I think connection to the movie might hurt it, because it makes people think of Tom Cruise, and Tom Cruise the person turns people off no matter how good Tom Cruise the actor is. That's too bad because Tom Cruise has nothing to do with this show. Trackbacks
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