Person of Interest: Canon gripes.

[rheasilvia]

I am the kind of person who goes to a James Bond movie and is then bothered by Bond getting his novelty gun to Shanghai on a commercial flight, and being immune to hypothermia. So it will not surprise you that I have my share of gripes concerning Person of Interest. They don't diminish my enjoyment of the show, at least not generally. But even so,

Comments

[killabeez]

Not a gripe, per se, but this is something I wondered. Why do they call it a machine? Or more ominously, "The Machine" (which sorta makes me giggle). I'm married to a systems engineer and programmer, and I gave up on getting him to watch it with me after the first episode, because the way that Finch talked about The Machine seemed supremely... unlikely, coming from its designer. I'm not an engineer myself, so I am curious whether anyone else finds it odd. (I also wonder a lot about how the system could know enough to identify the culprit/victim with such astonishing accuracy, and yet have NO IDEA whether the person is likely to be a victim or culprit...)

Anyway, not gripes, but, curious.

[rheasilvia]

Good question about The Machine's naming - I wondered that myself, in the beginning. Maybe it's precisely because it sounds so ominous...? :-)

I also wonder a lot about how the system could know enough to identify the culprit/victim with such astonishing accuracy, and yet have NO IDEA whether the person is likely to be a victim or culprit...

Another very good question indeed. :-) For some reason I have a vague idea floating around in my head that the machine actually *could* know this, too, and just isn't programmed to calculate and/or divulge that particular bit of information. But I have no valid theory as to why on earth that very relevant bit of info should be so neglected... so in the end it really doesn't make more sense than the theory that the machine simply has no idea.

[killabeez]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I don't think I'm likely to watch the rest of the show, but... never say never and all that, and I was curious. :)

[rheasilvia]

If you can get past The Machine, I think it might be worth it! I had my own troubles with POI... my first attempt to watch it failed dismally because the first ep gave me the creeps in a number of different ways.

It does get better. :-)

[neery]

I think my number one "most ridiculous thing to happen in a POI ep" is still that scene where Reese intubated the social network billionaire with a giant tube he'd ripped out of a faucet. After his throat had already swollen shut. There's indeed a live-saving thing you could do with a tube and a knife when someone's choking to death, but THAT WAS NOT IT. I'm still giggling about that one.

The foreign language nonsense in the Stasi ep was kind of annoying, too. I was really pleased how right they got that in the Sarah Shahi ep, though - everyone who was supposed to be a native German speaker sounded like one, and and Shahi did a good job of sounding like she actually knew what she was saying (and wasn't pretending to be a native, which she could NOT have pulled off.)

[rheasilvia]

that scene where Reese intubated the social network billionaire with a giant tube he'd ripped out of a faucet

LOL, yes! I'd forgotten about that! God, that was hilarious. :-)

The foreign language nonsense in the Stasi ep was kind of annoying, too.

My bar on foreign language nonsense is very, very low. ;-) I mean, I considered grumbling to myself about the "Stassi" that cropped up in one scene, but then I thought - hey, I should be thankful it wasn't the "Staßi" or "Stubi" or some such.

But yes, they definitely did a much better job in the Shahi ep, which I was also pleased about. They didn't get all the details of the setting right, but it was a very valiant attempt, and I salute them for it. :-)

[giandujakiss]

I hate the thing about Reese and body armor!!

With the kid in 2x11, my biggest issue is really more, why does the prodigy computer whiz always have to be male? But that's me.

Also - Finch's "paralegal" who lives in a luxurious brownstone. Try a tiny one bedroom in Queens shared by two other paralegals.

Finch's plan to buy up the stock of that drug company in the Fix and then dump it - he'd have had the SEC crawling up his ass in a minute. And the excuse can't be that he hid the transactions - he was pretty open about that particular identity buying the stock and selling it.

The plot to bring down the bad guys in Risk didn't make a whole lot of sense either.

[rheasilvia]

I hate the thing about Reese and body armor!!

I try to think of it as just another aspect of the unrealistic fight scenes.

Yeah, the computer prodigies (or the prodigies in general) do tend to be male - but OTOH, this show does have Root. Granted, she is the villain, but still.

POI seems to be making an effort to break through the usual gender roles in a number of ways, and I think they're doing a rather good job of it, comparatively speaking. Stanton, Shaw and Carter (and also Root) are all very strong women in roles that would traditionally fall to a male character.

Finch's "paralegal" who lives in a luxurious brownstoneHe must have been an independently wealthy paralegal. Or someone's boytoy

[laurakaye]

And now for another female tech whiz, we have Monica! I was really really happy to see they didn't cast that role as Yet Another Twentysomething White Dude.

[mareen]

I found Foe totally ridiculous. I am still wondering how exactly that eastern German soldier saved that woman's life when the Berlin Wall fell? What exactly was so dangerous? Did a piece of the wall almost fall on her head?
They made the whole thing sounds as if something really horrible happened during that revolution, when actually it was a totally peaceful and even happy day. The complete episode made no sense to me at all.

[rheasilvia]

You know, I don't actually remember anything about how they depicted the actual historical events. Nothing at all - nada. Zip.

I suspect that I have suppressed the memory, or else managed to watch those bits without ever storing the information. It wouldn't surprise me. I have grown so leery of how series like this one depict historical events of the kind that I tend to run the other way (or just shut down higher reasoning, if at all possible *g*).

[killabeez]

I am still wondering how exactly that eastern German soldier saved that woman's life when the Berlin Wall fell? What exactly was so dangerous? Did a piece of the wall almost fall on her head?

That made me laugh out loud.