Minority Report Premiere Review
by Adrea Scheidler
Minority Report the tv show carries on where the film left off - add on a dozen years or so. The precrime division has been shut down, the precogs (Agatha and twins Dash & Arthur) in hiding - having promised not to interfere with the regular world again.
Except for one of the twin boys (Dash played by Stark Sands) who opens up the episode trying but failing to stop a murder on his own. It becomes clear that Agatha is the group’s mother hen and tries to stop Dash from getting involved with the police - warning him that the detective that he’s reached out to (Lara Vega played by Meagan Good) will only use him as a tool just as the precogs were used back in Tom Cruise days.
It should be noted that the precogs can see visions of events only within about a 100 mile radius and nothing about their own future. Also, they are stronger together in a hive than individually. In fact, Dash is explained to be the weakest - his vision only filling in flashes of details where Arthur had all the names and solid info and Agatha… I can’t remember what Agatha did special except be the strongest.
So, once the partnership between Dash and Vega solidifies, it is soon clear that they need help from Arthur since they are in a time crunch. I was actually relieved that Arthur didn’t end up being the series bad guy since they waited so long to introduce the twin brother that I was sure we were looking at a Cain & Abel kind of situation.
They do hint at some trust issues between the precogs which promises to be a conflict throughout the show’s run, but I am hoping none of the precogs end up in a Magneto/Professor X relationship.
The show sprinkles in a lot of the smooth special effects from the film Minority Report. Though for quite so far into the future it’s a tad disappointing that the only technology advances seem to have been in advertising. Still, I didn’t mind it - I only bring it up because when reading about the show online that seems to be a big complaint with some other people. What I did mind is that, for all of the amazing advances in law enforcement (including almost rocketman packs), at the climax of the show, Detective Vega could barely subdue the bad guy. She had one moment with a gadget, but considering how gadget heavy this future could be I found it ridiculous that she had to have an old fashioned grapple to save the day AND then not look for, notice, or have a special way of finding a hidden weapon. I mean, I would think that would be an important problem to solve.
Also when Vega and her co-worker, Akeela (played by Li Jun Li) reminisce about the Precrime Unit they talk about it like it was a generation ago: “That was way before our time” Akeela says. I looked it up. It’s only TEN years in the future from when the film Minority Report took place. And these guys are young, but they aren’t particularly brand new to the police force. I mean, considering how long the political and media coverage of such a huge scandal, I wouldn’t think it was SO far away from these gals like the way they are talking. I’m guessing it was just put in there to tell us “Hey - these guys weren’t part of the precrime unit.” Ok, thank you show - we get it. It had already been implied and I don’t even think it was necessary, but ok, thanks for the heads up. It’s hard not to compare Minority Report and Blindspot. In Minority Report there’s a gender reversal where the anchor authority figure is the female and the spiraling key to everything is the male. That’s interesting and fun to explore, but I don’t know - something here feels less polished, less mature than Blindspot. I’ll tune in maybe to see where it goes. It’s always so hard to judge on the pilot. The pilot episode is always either the best it ever gets or the worst it ever was - so… we’ll see.
0 comments:
Post a Comment