Despite appearances, I am not that avid a Person of Interest fan, I just like the strength/flaws of Shaw/Root…a symphony. The program was basically the problem of machine intelligence and the role of human ethics in its construction with a world of human conceptions of power. And then there were the human relationships with all those foibles in an NYC setting. A video game with no controls. More unequalizer than Equalizer.
It is ultimately another post 9/11 procedural crime show except that justice remains fluid and cybernetic as well as underground with an emphasis on protecting the marginalized “when your number’s” up someone might actually care about you.
And yet it’s Star Warsian Manichean with an A.I. called Samaritan serving the state versus the good guys’ “the machine” run by its creator and a small rebel band, because there are no white hats, ever.
Early episodes showed that is was about citizen control of the NSA and CIA (big word alert) yet it was Foucauldian among other things about a global surveillance state facilitated by self-maintaining autonomous artificial intelligence that maximized its access to all networks and especially security command and control.
It had both issues of governmental command/control and the misuse of capitalist economic power. That all terror is counter terror is its lasting legacy and criminal classes and crooked police were seen simply a result of the barbarism that is an unfortunate natural state that cannot be corrected by the technology of a scientific anarchism.
‘Person of Interest‘ Season 5 Cast, News & Updates: J.J. Abrams Heartbroken Over Show’s Cancellation. “Person of Interest” Season 5 is confirmed to be the sci-fi drama’s series finale on CBS after the network officially announced its cancellation…
All the signs had been pointing to a pending cancellation — POI in May was given a reduced, 13-episode order for Season 5, it was left on the bench for fall and was not scheduled until today. In January, executive producer J.J. Abrams articulated fans’ worst fear — that the upcoming fifth season of POI would likely be its last.
“The only heartbreak there is how much good story there was to come if it were to have continued,” he said, confirming that Nolan and Plageman were treating the upcoming episodes as the series’ last. “Jonah Nolan and Greg Plageman have done such an amazing job on the show.” deadline.com/…
Hard to say what the reasons for the end, probably quality costs, erosion in the ratings and the continuing scheduling interruptions of March Madness among other things… audience fatigue perhaps in the integration of reappearing characters…could have used a cross-over episode with Elementary (there was at least one episode where that could have happened and wasn’t there a promo that did).
This program could have lasted forever because Manning, Snowden, and Assange, and could have even overlapped with reality elements, which is how I would have pitched a sixth season to Les Moonves (as well as giving Julie Chen a cameo). And how hot would a Shaw /Sara Gilbert arc be…
Just another well-written, well-directed, high production values vehicle for good actors that will be gone but perhaps more prescient than most franchise programs. And we’re all still paranoid, so keep those close-quarter-battle skills close.
Nicole Plyler Fisk
Gene Howington
FFS Guest Blogger
Joy of Fishes
Chuck Stanley
shortfinals
Terry Welshans
ann li-summers
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Flowers For Socrates 
NOW I find out about the series! 😉 One to watch for on netflix or the like. TY, ann.
I’ve been catching up on it, off and on, this year – really like the interplay between the characters, but what a paranoid premise!
Found it on Netflix!
I don’t watch TV dramas since my wife passed away. She watched a lot of TV, and I sat with her.
I especially don’t do crime TV dramas. Two reasons: Too much like work; and secondly, they get way too much wrong, either visually or technically.
Chuck, I have to promise to be quiet when kiddo and hubs are together binging on their favorite medical drama. “Don’t yuck my yum,” kiddo once told me. OK, I try, but the HIPAA violations!! They can’t do that!!!
It isn’t anything like real life, Chuck. They shoot for the knees, no center of mass, and only shoot people who really deserve it (mostly).
Okay, snark aside, I prefer my fiction to be flawed. I refuse to watch Silence of the Lambs and Misery simply because they’re too true to life.
Whenever a movie or drama is done which requires a B-29 bomber, they turn to the Commemorative Air Force and rent FIFI, the last remaining airworthy B-29. Full disclosure here. I am a CAF Colonel with command pilot privileges. I have not been checked out in FIFI, but do have a nice photo of me sitting at the controls. In a movie about the Atomic Bomb, it showed the Hiroshima bomb drop by a hand pulling a massive red handle on the center console.
Ummmm…..that is the landing gear retract lever. I suppose a single finger pushing a small button on the panel is not dramatic enough.
Ann Summers and Chuck Stanley, Person of Interest is very entertaining.