Person of Interest Season 1 Review

And CBS decides to do something good for a change.

In A Nutshell:
So, POI is about John Reese (no, not John Connor's dad), an ex-CIA agent who lives in Manhattan as a homeless bum. He's damaged, to say the very least. And then one day, presumed-dead computer genius Mr. Finch contacts him; years ago, Finch created a machine for the government that spies on everyone, at every hour of every day. It's job is to use the information to detect acts of terror before they happen. The problem? The machine sees everything, including ordinary violent crimes committed by average citizens, crimes the feds deemed "irrelevant". So, Finch,whose also got some damage, both emotional and physical, decides to stop the crimes before they happen with by using Reese and his very particular set of skills, all amid a backdrop of government conspiracy, police corruption, Mafia, and complex back-story. And we have our series.

The Good:
When I first heard about this show, I thought the same thing 90% of people thought: "oh joy, a crime drama with a twist. Because there clearly aren't enough of those." Fortunately, my friend convinced me otherwise and I gave the show a shot. I'm glad I did.

The premise itself is really cool, and makes the show almost universally appealing: it's part crime drama, part action movie, part techno thriller, part twist-fest, part conspiracy-theory-fest. In other words, part 24, part the Bourne Identity, part Enemy of the State, part LOST, part the X Files, all awesome. Just imagine that in your head.

The characters themselves are great, too; Reese is a full-on badass. Seriously, words can't describe how much ass this guy kicks. I'll break it down for you: you can ask yourself who would win in fight between this guy and Jack Bauer and not immediately disregard it as a stupid question. At the same time, Reese is a complex, compelling, and conflicted anti-hero, clearly ashamed of the things he's done but tired of feeling guilty, so he decides to atone the only way he knows how (so maybe it's part Angel, too?). Jim Caviezel plays the part perfectly, with a hushed, incredibly menacing voice and all the awesomeness you can imagine. And then you've got Finch, the intensely introverted, enigmatic computer genius, whose also clearly got some guilt issues. Some of what he's guilty over is obvious, but other aspects are still mysterious as of this season. Michael Emmerson does a great job of bringing this character to life. You've also got the two cops, Carter and Fusco, who are clearly plot catalysts, but they are kind of interesting, and they serve there purposes.

A huge part of what I like about the show is that it's cinematic. That's not a quality a lot shows on right now get to boast, and I'd expect nothing less from show creator Johnathon Nolan (Christopher Nolan's brother and one of the minds behind the Dark Knight) and producer JJ Abrams (do I even need to explain?). At it's best, POI is a action-packed thriller, full of brilliant characterization, that manages to tell a self-contained story ever week (it's on CBS, so they've gotta make the network heads think it's sort of a cop show even though it really isn't) while still generating a story-arc that lends itself to plot-twists, cliffhangers, and full on awesomeness. While we're on the subject of twists, the season ends with multiple cliffhangers, brought on by a twist that was the result of previous cliffhanger that we were still wondering about. Does that make sense? Probably not. Watch it and you'll see what I mean. Either way, the season finale was truly excellent and left the door open to a potentially amazing second season.

The Bad:
I've got no illusions about the fact that, for the most part, this show episodic. Don't get me wrong, most of these episodes are great, but what really keeps me watching are the subtle story-arcs and twists. The thing is, the show is at it's worst when it gives you a standalone story that you just don't care about. And there are one or two of those. They were plot irrelevant and they just plain bored me. There are barely any of those, don't worry, but they are there, and they are tedious. Maybe I just didn't care about what the issue was, but certain episodes were just lost on me.

Final Rating: 94%