S01.E02: Episode 2

[DanaK]

Premieres Sunday April 14 at 9pm EDT

Synopsis: Alan Bates and the Subpostmasters begin their fight for the truth and justice with new allies in Parliament. But first, they must convince an independent investigator of their honesty

[DanaK]

Egads, the Post Office folks are bunch of meanies for the way they went after and destroyed people, especially the guy who visited Fujitsu and saw things he shouldn’t. Mr. Bates is a hero for pushing for the truth

[zoey1996]

This is such a fascinating story, and I'm appalled at how the subpostmasters were treated.

The characters are portrayed convincingly. It's difficult to realize what the real-life people were put through. 

[AZChristian]

I am an afficionado of pretty much all British TV shows and movies, and have developed a hobby of trying to identify where else I've seen British actors whenever I watch something. 

So last night, I saw Professor Quirrell from Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone, and Edward VIII and Wallace Warfield Simpson from The Crown.  The latter pair really cracked me up, as I watched a scene when the actors - Alex Jennings and Lia Williams - were facing off across a conference room table.  When those same two actors were in The Crown, they had a conversation and at the close of the scene Edward looked at Wallace, folded up his newspaper, and asked, "Shall we f**k?"

MBvTPO is one of those "truth is stranger than fiction" stories.  I used to work in computer tech support.  If I had been getting multiple calls reporting the same problem, no way could my managers have gotten me to tell callers, "No one else is having this problem."  

[BusyOctober]

I have rewatched both episodes aired so far on PBS.  I still don’t understand what the programmer guy at Fujitsu was showing the former P.O. guy, Michael, when he went on site.  The IT a guy was showing him how to manipulate the data, but WHY??  What was the point of showing a P.O. employee how easy it was to f*** with the system?  IT guy was almost giddy showing him, but then got pissy when Michael was surprised/horrified that IT guy made a deliberate error and was hesitant to fix it.  I get that from that point on, Fujitsu started the cover up, erased Michael’s visit, etc.

Why would the guy do that in the first place??  And why wouldn’t Michael have reported it ASAP? What am I missing?  Did PBS chop out a scene (or 5) from the US version? 

[AZChristian]

Everyone at Fujitsu was arrogant enough or stupid enough that they did not think the subpostmasters would just believe everything Fujitsu and the post office was telling them.

When the Fujitsu guy was demonstrating how easy it was to run the Horizon system, it probably never crossed his mind that Mike was smart enough to ask, "Are these changes you're making being done live, in real time?"  I almost thought the look on the IT guy's face was, "Oh shit.  Maybe this is why all of the numbers are coming up wrong."  Until Mike's question, the IT guy didn't seem to have a clue that numbers on a screen had such a profound effect on real people.

We watched the "real story" on PBS through Prime Video.  It was ghastly to see what these REAL folks went through.

[Daff]

2 hours ago, BusyOctober said:

I have rewatched both episodes aired so far on PBS.  I still don’t understand what the programmer guy at Fujitsu was showing the former P.O. guy, Michael, when he went on site.  The IT a guy was showing him how to manipulate the data, but WHY??  What was the point of showing a P.O. employee how easy it was to f*** with the system?  IT guy was almost giddy showing him, but then got pissy when Michael was surprised/horrified that IT guy made a deliberate error and was hesitant to fix it.  I get that from that point on, Fujitsu started the cover up, erased Michael’s visit, etc.

Why would the guy do that in the first place??  And why wouldn’t Michael have reported it ASAP? What am I missing?  Did PBS chop out a scene (or 5) from the US version? 

Go back and watch it again. The main point was that the demonstration of currency exchange was being demonstrated on some poor postmaster’s actual LIVE account! The tech then sheepishly admitted to Michael that he would have to put the original figures back after the demo (fat chance, and how would he even remember?). Then, (even more creepy) when Michael realized every tech in that room had access to every PO account, he looked around the room. You should focus on what they’re all doing, too. They all look pretty suspicious. Later, as you probably did realize-the whole visit was denied and evidence of it conveniently “lost”. To quote an old movie, they must all be “stupid, stupid, stupid” to think they would get away with that.

Additional lie at the end, that Michael misunderstood and was shown a “test” lab isn’t going to fly either.

Edited April 16, 2024 by Daff

[DanaK]

47 minutes ago, AZChristian said:

Everyone at Fujitsu was arrogant enough or stupid enough that they did not think the subpostmasters would just believe everything Fujitsu and the post office was telling them.

When the Fujitsu guy was demonstrating how easy it was to run the Horizon system, it probably never crossed his mind that Mike was smart enough to ask, "Are these changes you're making being done live, in real time?"  I almost thought the look on the IT guy's face was, "Oh shit.  Maybe this is why all of the numbers are coming up wrong."  Until Mike's question, the IT guy didn't seem to have a clue that numbers on a screen had such a profound effect on real people.

We watched the "real story" on PBS through Prime Video.  It was ghastly to see what these REAL folks went through.

Did the techs themselves understand they were demonstrating/working on a live system?

Spoiler to note:

Spoiler

The investigations and hearings suggested the techs would go into the accounts and fix problems when data was dropped by the system, so it sounds like they did know they could do that

 

Edited April 16, 2024 by DanaK

[Daff]

Spoiler led me to question how rigorously Horizon employees were vetted to begin with. The whole system, regardless of the good techie intentions, seemed like a system begging for abuse by the day to day tech hires.

[merylinkid]

This episode literally made me cry.

Mike whose wife was blamed because he saw something he shouldn't.

Jazz just spiraling down before ooopsie evidence lost (too much publicity by that point).