Come Monday...Person of Interest

“Come Monday…” is a weekly series that will involve a review of, or commentary about,  websites, movies, documentaries, television shows, sports, music, and whatever else may tickle my fancy at the time.  Be assured that these reviews will be generally positive, as in accordance to the Jimmy Buffett song “Come Monday.”  This is subject to change, however.  In fact, I would be most derelict in my duties to neglect going on a rant every once in a while.  For rants promote change, and change can be good—right?  Therefore, since good is generally considered as being a positive force in 99.3% of the parallel universes that I am aware of, even a rant could be considered as being something positive, and a genuine hissy-fit would be even better (so I’m told).

When we first heard about [Person of Interest], my wife and I thought that it sounded real interesting.  For it touched upon the appealing (at least to us) themes of working in the shadows to bring criminal activity out into the light of justice, redemption and just plain trying to right as many as wrongs as possible.

Well, at least that is what we thought the show was about, and the pilot episode showed a great deal of promise.  For it started out with a bunch of punks hassling a bum on a subway car, and getting their teeth kicked in for their trouble.  From there, we are introduced to a really pathetic/creepy (depending upon the script) Mr. Finch, who used to be Mr. Linus when [Michael Emerson] was on [LOST], who fills us in on the details about Mr. Reese, who is being played by [Jim Caviezel].

On a personal note, I just noticed on the IMDB profile of Caviezel that he grew up around [Mount Vernon, WA], which is in the immediate vicinity of where my son and his mother lives.  I wonder if she realizes that she has had at least some contact with such a big star?  For with her spending most of her life in the area, it is highly unlikely that she has not had some contact with either him or his family.

Of course, she may not want to admit it now.  For Person of Interest never really comes out of the shadows when the plot could easily be having Reese and Finch working with the authorities instead of despite of them.

The clip at the end of this explains it better than I can, but the premise of the show is that we are all being monitored in a number of ways by the government.  All of this information is filtered by a special computer program to find terrorist threats, and it ignores all of the other stuff that is deemed to be of no great significance.

Ah, but what may not be much of threat to national security can be a great threat to the individuals involved.  This is where Reese and Finch come in.  For Finch was the one who developed the surveillance program for the government, and he left in a secret backdoor that allows him access to what it finds.  When he sees someone in imminent danger, he sends Reese out to eliminate the threat by any means necessary without exposing their little operation to the authorities.

Their definition of “by any means necessary” is what bothers me.  For that has Reese stealing arms from illegal arms dealers, gathering information through crooked cops, and generally wreaking havoc on both persons and property before slipping back into the shadows before Det. Carter, who is played by [Taraji P. Henson], can take him into custody when they could have them working with each other in the same way as Batman and the Gotham City police do.

Yeah, Batman is a comic book character, and the producers of Person of Interest are going for a more realistic feel.  So, does this mean that our society has become too jaded to accept that good guys can actually be good?

Link: [On YouTube]

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