S01.E01: Pilot

[SunnyBeBe]

Wllson Cat,

 

Must admit I didn't watch it.  But I loved this from the television critic with Chicago Sun Times:

"Note to TV Producers:  Please stop trying to make Katharine McPhee happen."

 

 

This is so true!  When will they give it up with this woman.  Of all the talented and gifted actors in Hollywood and they insists on pushing this woman into series after series.  It boggles the mind.  

 

I thought the show was okay.  I doubt I'll make a point to watch it, though I might.  I did like the plane scene, even though it was laughable.  

 

I just don't understand why McFee is so intent on acting.  It doesn't seem to be her thing.  It's rather sad, IMO.

[derriere]

I really wanted to like it but I just can't enjoy a show where the characters solve problems with fake techno-mumbojumbo.

[Kromm]

I really wanted to like it but I just can't enjoy a show where the characters solve problems with fake techno-mumbojumbo.

Not a Trekker, eh?

[izabella]

I liked it well enough while watching even though it was totally ridiculous.  But today I'm liking it less.  I like the idea of nerds solving crimes, but the implausible action/adventure style of this wasn't the "smart" crime solving I was hoping for.

 

And I loathe McPhee, so there's that.  I'll probably catch this if nothing else is on, unless this pilot isn't indicative of the way the rest of the show will go.  If every week is "watch while we solve crimes while swimming with submarines!" and "watch while we rappel down the Grand Canyon!"  all with smug McPhee smugging it up, no.

[Kromm]

Hmm.  I guess you just haven't caught the McPheever yet, eh?

 

Heh.

[izabella]

McPheever?  Ha!  That will never happen.  I'm immune!

[Kris117]

I went into watching Smash all ready to like her, but it never happened for me. On the other hand, she didn't actively annoy me: she was just there. She seemed more at her ease in this show, but still not enough to be the emotional heart of the group or the show. It's really early, so I'll reserve judgement, but I might be thinking of people who would be better in the part at the same time. 

 

I really liked it, it was fast paced and held my attention for the entire pilot. 

 

Same here. If the plot keeps moving, and I like the people on the show, I don't look too closely at the plot problems. This episode met those standards for me. I liked the genius crew quite a bit, so that can only get stronger as the cast gets more comfortable with each other. I'll definitely keep watching. 

 

However, I swear the guest casting was done on purpose because add Alimi Ballard and Elyes Gabel together, and I seriously felt like I was in a Numb3rs flashback.  Walter completely reminded me of Charlie.  Then, enter Robert Patrick, and it was like Numb3rs and The Unit merged together somehow, and dangit if I became hooked in spite of myself.

 

Hee! Yes, I had some of the same feelings you did. In fact, why didn't they get Diane Farr to play the waitress? 

 

It didn't bother me when Sherlock did it on Elementary, because he's Sherlock and that's his ~area. But Walter is a computer genius. That does not necessarily correlate with being able to do the Sherlock Scan on people. 

 

 

Yes! I did like that he was wrong about it, though. He based his anemia guess on her streaky fingernail polish, and it was because her son did the paint job. Also, making guesses about the nail polish of someone who is in and out of water all day seems rash in the first place. 

 

When Walter that his IQ was higher than Einstein's, I wished McPhee's character had taken a page from the Chandler Bing Book of Snarky Retorts and asked him, "And having an IQ higher than Einstein's gives you the right to be an arrogant jerk because…?"

 

For me, it was a fun hour. Good escape TV. 

[Beach Party]

Question:  While in the airport tower, they were not able to transfer data from the plane because of the speed.  They ended up using the ethernet cable to transfer the data.  But the sports car was right under the flying plane for many seconds.  Could they have transferred the data wirelessly while in extended close proximity to each other (instead of using the cable)?

[Beach Party]

I asked a question above.  So I'll try to answer someone else's question:

Second, when the math genius was talking to genius kid mom, he said something about parents not understanding these kids.  She asked what his parents did, and I missed his answer as dear hubby started talking just then.  Does anyone know what he said?  Thanks!

I believe the math genius said that he hadn't spoken to his parents in ten years.  The waitress lady had a quiet introspective moment of realization, which to me implied that she didn't want the same outcome in her relationship with her boy.

 

ETA: that math genius looks like a big lovable teddy bear who will grow on the audience's hearts.

Edited September 24, 2014 by Beach Party

[NJ RadioGuy]

Everything but the plot was fun. Problem is, you market a show for geeks (which, face it, this is) and you defy every single law of physics, aerodynamics, electricity and who knows what else and expect to hold an audience?

Friendly Clues for my fellow viewers who know little to nothing about commercial aviation. At most airports in the country the pilots coordinate the landing sequence amongst themselves OVER THE RADIO. If all radio communications fail towers have light guns, which the local controller or ground controller aims at the aircraft to issue commands like cleared to land, continue circling, etc. Pilots can execute missed approaches or divert. ATC clearances and instructions can be refused by any pilot in command in the event of an unsafe condition. Here, obviously radios in the tower were working. "LA Class Bravo Airspace is currently closed, flights divert to your alternate." Then sequence anybody currently in the Bravo, land them and game-over. HINT: If the airplane can do a low-and-over at a small field they can land at a big one. Oi. And 500kV through that railway signal box? Bwahahahahaha. She'd have drawn an arc you could see from space if she were standing on the ground and within a couple of inches of 500kV, and they'd need a dustbuster to pick up what's left.

Edited September 24, 2014 by NJ RadioGuy

[Raja]

But-but- the pilot had the uncorrupted software and probably several hundred available laptops on the plane. He could have landed the plane at LAX, and handed off the software, downloaded onto his own or someone else's laptop, to whoever could do whatever needed to be done with it to get the system up again. Or, if that could only be done by the geniuses who weren't at LAX, it could be emailed at that point to them, no? [No, I'm not overthinking this! I'm just plain thinking!!]

That was what I was thinking. If the USAF could intercept that specific flight then they could have herded the 56 planes away from LAX unless the virus infected the entire world's Air Traffic control then problem solved,

 

For the show itself well I wasn't looking forward to hit until hearing the show runner and Walter on a podcast and coming down sick and bed ridden today gave me the opportunity to catch up. It was liked watching Die Hard 2 without the killings. Lin made a  good short action movie but can you keep it up for a show when characters are normally more important. Future episodes will tell. And Sleepy Hollow can out strong again.

[alexvillage]

 

This comment made me think of something else.  I know that Scorpion is inspired by a true story, and there actually is a Walter O'Brien.  However, I kinda wish there had been a handwave so that Ralph was a girl.  I realize that there was a heavy inference to autism, and autism-spectrum disorders do affect more boys than girls.  However, there are instances of girls with genius IQ levels and/or an autism-spectrum disorder.  These types of stories always seem to be told about a boy.  Going back as far as St. Elsewhere, Tommy was a boy.  More recently, there's been Charlie Epps and Jake from the short-lived FOX series with Kiefer Sutherland (Touch, I think).

Actually, the notion that there are more Autistic boys than girls is not true. It is harder for girls to get diagnosed because they can "pass" for neurotypical more than boys. I know many, many women who were diagnosed as adults. I live with an Autistic woman (who was diagnosed as a child).

 

It would have been great though, to have a girl instead of a boy playing a neurodivergent character.

As for how they come of age, there are many Autistic women who are scientists, working for places like Intel. and I do know a few that have a very high IQ, studying a variety of subjects - some have graduated - like Mathematics, engineering, medicine and law. 

 

I also know many who were told, as children, to have a very low IQ because they don't speak, but who actually have normal to high IQ, still not speaking but using AAC.

[Tonypitt]

The copilot was on Numb3rs.  Wonder if that was as tip of the hat to a kindred show. 

 

This was no Numb3rs (which was really, really unrealistic in its own right), but I'll probably stick around for a few more episodes at least.

[LoneHaranguer]

 

Could they have transferred the data wirelessly while in extended close proximity to each other (instead of using the cable)?

The cable would have transferred the data at a higher speed...once they got it plugged in.

 

 

If the USAF could intercept that specific flight then they could have herded the 56 planes away from LAX unless the virus infected the entire world's Air Traffic control then problem solved,

Shouldn't they have been able to get a fix from any uninfected airport using the same ATC system, i.e. lots of places? It was a bug, not a virus, so somebody at the company should have been able to just send the prior software version marked as an update, and this episode could have been spiked.

 

 

It was liked watching Die Hard 2 without the killings.

In Die Hard 2 the pilots were able to land without help from the tower, once they had something to aim for.

[MizArk]

Watched on demand today with my own genius daughter (a scientist) and she laughed so hard during the airplane scene that she had to use her inhaler. But she said she'll watch again because it was stupid fun, and I'll give it another shot (though neither of us is missing Sleepy Hollow for it). We're calling it Big Bang A Team.

 

edited to correct grammar because grammar

Edited September 25, 2014 by Gina

[aradia22]

I wrote a recap for another site but to summarize a few points... This is sadly not going to be Leverage. This seems like it's all about Walter and McPhee and the other three are going to be useless. This is actually a good role for McPhee. It plays on her strengths and doesn't ask her to do much. All of the cliches. So many cliches. There was so much pointless technobabble and just babble in this episode with massive info dumps. At the same time it was very repetitive. Are they going to spend every episode finding new ways of telling us how smart the characters are? How about more show and less tell? For instance, if everyone's so brilliant why do they have to wait for instructions from Walter instead of figuring things out for themselves and why does Walter need to be spurned on by inspirational speeches from McPhee? How is Walter Irish? He can't even pass for "black Irish" like Colin Farrell. Good Christ, thank God they didn't make him keep the accent the child actor was doing. That was horrible.

[Kromm]

Watched on demand today with my own genius daughter (a scientist) and she laughed so hard during the airplane scene that she had to use her inhaler. But she said she'll watch again because it was stupid fun, and I'll give it another shot (though neither of us are missing Sleepy Hollow for it). We're calling it Big Bang A Team.

That's what on demand is FOR!  Not missing Sleepy Hollow.  Ever.  No excuses!!!  

 

Like your nickname for this.  I'll definitely use that myself.

[alexvillage]

Forgive my ignorance but who is McPhee (I know she is the girl in the shop, but the actress?) and why nobody likes her? 

I don't think I have ever seen her and I thought she was ok in the part, like most of the actors on TV these days

[marketdoctor]

 

Forgive my ignorance but who is McPhee

 

She was a finalist on "American Idol" about ten years ago, and expected to win, but finished in second place to Taylor Hicks--whom people have stopped trying to make happen.  On that show, she seemed like a really nice person (thanking the technical crew, for instance, and hopefully forgiving of a poster on another forum who had a comment get way out of hand...and again, really sorry about that.)  This is where the McPheever trope came from, which she didn't seem to like, but tolerated.

 

She then moved into acting, and was in The House Bunny, where she played the Ugly Pretty Girl trope, and couldn't really manage the "Ugly" part.  She was in one episode of Community, playing Chevy Chase's evil stepdaughter.

 

Most of the hatred, though, seems to come from "Smash", where she was supposed to play Marilyn Monroe and be more talented at that role and more likeable at it than...Broadway star turned TV actress Megan Hilty.  She used a lot of staring into space (her character was supposed to be completely new to Broadway)--whether that was an acting choice or a directing choice is still debated.  (There are a lot of discussions on how "Smash" could have been better.)   "Smash" lasted longer than it might have, because it had a big hate-watching contingent (at least online), and those viewers count the same as people who liked it.

 

That's why expectations were so low, and (edited to add) where all the "stop trying to make her happen" comments have been from--the hype for her on "Smash" was really high.  It's also possible she improved her acting, but "Smash" seems to have triggered most of the dislike.

 

On this show, making her part of the team instead of shoehorning the diner in every week seems encouraging.  OTOH, having so many reality holes in a show "based on actual events" was messing with my efforts to suspend disbelief. 

Edited September 25, 2014 by marketdoctor

[alexvillage]

Oh, thanks. I never watched any of those shows and only watched one season of American Idol, not her season, obviously.

Maybe that's why she does not bother me any more than most actors in other shows

[Actionmage]

Did anyone call the Wig Cops on "Agent Gallo"? Because he shouldn't be immune from laws other folks have to obey, just because Homeland Security. ::shakes head:: Damn shame.

[aradia22]

I was a McPhee defender during season 1 of Smash. Watching her in the pilot of Scorpion, I don't think she's dramatically improved as an actress. As in the beginning of season 1, the script is playing to her strengths. The danger is what happened later in season 1 and especially in season 2 of Smash where they make the show about her and give her too many things to do that it's harder for her to play. She was good at playing a breathy, vulnerable Marilyn while I still maintain that Megan Hilty was too bold and brassy and only became likable when they let her cut loose with songs like They Just Keep Moving the Line. Neither was a spectacular Marilyn. Scorpion, from the pilot, seems to want the show to be all about Walter and McPhee and the rest of the team (Sylvester, Happy, Toby) don't seem that dynamic which is very worrisome. I also think the dead eyes happened a lot more in season 2. While she was a little quiet in a way that fit with an ingenue in season 1 of Smash, in season 2 there were scenes where she was completely vacant. 

[Ohmo]

"Smash" lasted longer than it might have, because it had a big hate-watching contingent (at least online), and those viewers count the same as people who liked it.

 

There was also the off-screen stuff related to McPhee and Smash.  She got involved with her (married) producer on Smash while also married.  I believe her marriage ended while the producer is still with his wife, working on his marriage.

[paigow]

Why was landing at military airbases ruled out? Even without radios, Maverick & Iceman (if not playing volleyball or showering) could have led the civilian jets to Miramar.

[lucindabelle]

I was bored. Cliched and stupid, I'm so over people announcing how high their iqs are, as if it means anything, of chess as a signifies for genius, as waitress as signified for normal person... On and on, the science in the rescue was preposterous... Even I know that and I was an English major (but around a lot of engineers at stanford some seeps in).

I also got confused because there was at flashback at the beginning and for a long time I thought the scenes in the diner were flashbacks too.

Clearly the boy has some kind of spectrum disorder since he can't process physical contact though there's no real reason Walter would get that but whatever, won't be back.

When sleepy hollow is ridiculous, it's also funny, humble and FAST.

This was slow, self righteous, pompous.

[paigow]

Did anyone call the Wig Cops on "Agent Gallo"? Because he shouldn't be immune from laws other folks have to obey, just because Homeland Security. ::shakes head:: Damn shame.

The Wig Cops are too busy working on the Blacklist.

[2KllMckngBrd]

They had names?

That made me have to do a victory lap it was so damn funny. U go!

[Tonypitt]

Why was landing at military airbases ruled out? Even without radios, Maverick & Iceman (if not playing volleyball or showering) could have led the civilian jets to Miramar.

I feel like in the real world--where this show is clearly not set, the military could easily have solved this any number of ways, including having an AWACS plane take over for the control tower. 

 

Really, none of the scenario made much sense.  But, it was fun TV.

[Hanahope]

I thought it was fairly enjoyable, tho a lot of contrived plot twists.  Oh no!  The people who house the back up copy went home early! We need to cause a brown out to open the lock, then figure out which server has the back-up.  All in 5 minutes.  Oh no! The 'geniuses' didn't protect the back up from a car speaker.  Must think up new plan in 5 minutes.  Oh no! We can't down load the secondary back up from the diner, must speed to small airport to be closer to a plane in 10 minutes.  Oh no! the plane flew by too quickly. Must do re-fly-by with speeding Ferrari (which just happened to be handy), with military pilot who can lean out of landing gear with power cord to plug into lap top, in 7 seconds.  Seriously???

 

That said, thankfully McPhee is playing the mother of a genius, and not the actual genius.

 

Not sure where the Leverage comparisons came from, other than I suppose the team used to do illegal hacking maybe?  If they are now working for the government, they aren't "illegal" now.

[aradia22]

 

Not sure where the Leverage comparisons came from, other than I suppose the team used to do illegal hacking maybe?  If they are now working for the government, they aren't "illegal" now.

Team of misfits who each have their specialties combining their skills under the direction of the white male protagonist. More intelligence and deception than brawn at work. Happy said that Walter found Toby and Sylvester when they were hacking banks (which seems like the wrong terminology) and we know Walter got into a bit of trouble from the flashback though other than that he seems like he's been on the straight and narrow. Regardless, they seem to have a general disregard for authority and laws. One of the things that worked so well with Leverage was that we had a team where everyone contributed. Even though there's a team here I feel like this is more like a Burn Notice where Walter is really the lead. I only watched one episode of that show but Scorpion seems like it's just one notch above Mind Games (the show with Christian Slater). It's not even up to the Burn Notice level where I actually cared a little about the characters and the way they thwarted the bad guys (at least early on) more or less made sense. 

[LoneHaranguer]

 

Cliched and stupid, I'm so over people announcing how high their iqs are, as if it means anything, of chess as a signifies for genius, as waitress as signified for normal person...

Someone with a high IQ ought to know that high IQ numbers are meaningless; you can't measure genius. Winning at chess just requires exceptional spatial skills, like a withdrawn kid might get playing video games to the exclusion of other activities. Good point about it being a waitress; why can't it at least be an employee at Starbucks or McDonald's?

[lucindabelle]

Hey and people who are accountants, journalists, teachers,...

The particular trope of diner waitress just... So.... Cliched.

The whole blue collar worker people, real and decent.sigh. They only do this to women. But I'm way over it since it could happen to you.

I guess they couldn't figure out any other way to shoehorn her in, couldn't be a private home where they installed wifi... Has to be a diner.yawn.

Edited September 26, 2014 by lucindabelle

[LoneHaranguer]

 

The particular trope of diner waitress just... So.... Cliched.

It's not always a diner; Penny on The Big Bang Theory was a waitress at the Cheesecake Factory when she met the geniuses on that show.

[DrSpaceman]

Yeah I found this ending totally implausible and that is why I couldnt get behind this. Lots of other options seemed much more likely to work. Even if the runway was short at that airport or if landing at LAX was dangerous, they could at least try it, there were thousands of lives at stake.

SOme of the writing seemed over the top and predictable. "We're geniuses that don't relate to society because we are so smart". Great. Never seen that before.

Its a pilot though, I will give the show a chance. Anymore airplane to car ethernet cables though and I might be out pretty quick

[Kromm]

Yeah I found this ending totally implausible and that is why I couldnt get behind this. Lots of other options seemed much more likely to work. Even if the runway was short at that airport or if landing at LAX was dangerous, they could at least try it, there were thousands of lives at stake.

SOme of the writing seemed over the top and predictable. "We're geniuses that don't relate to society because we are so smart". Great. Never seen that before.

Its a pilot though, I will give the show a chance. Anymore airplane to car ethernet cables though and I might be out pretty quick

Wow.  I thought that was the single most awesome part.  I mean I understand it's stupid contrivance of epic proportions to get to that point, but it was SO over the top it spared us from the mistake a lot of shows like this make--taking themselves too seriously (and thus boring the shit out of us).  

[tomorrowgirl]

The voice of the female genius was very distracting to me.  I  kept thinking it was dubbed.

 

I liked some aspects of the show, and I'll tune in for more episodes, but I'm not sure yet if I'm in it for the long haul.

 

Robert Patrick was indeed spooky looking in that flashback.  I know they were going for a younger look for him, but the results were more like a Halloween mask.

[jhlipton]

"He recognizes 'one of his own'."  Well, alrighty then!

 

This was a definite LOL moment for me, and the highlight of the show.  Far too many better shows in that time-slot.

 

(BTW, that would have had to been both the crappiest lap-top and the crappiest speaker for it to corrupt data like that.  Jeez.).

[sadiegirl]

The voice of the female genius was very distracting to me.  I  kept thinking it was dubbed.

 

Yes, I found it really annoying, but couldn't figure out why.  It sounded dubbed or un-natural (to me at least).

 

The guy I was watching with said the tower talks to the planes via radio, so it didn't matter that they were having software problems.  They should still have been able to communicate.  I was really looking forward to this but I won't be back.  It was just too ridiculous.

[shapeshifter]

The voice of the female genius was very distracting to me....

Me three. Does anyone know if that's her usual accent/dialect? It sounded sort of Brooklyn-ish.

...Good point about it being a waitress; why can't it at least be an employee at Starbucks or McDonald's?

I didn't notice what her uniform looked like, but I'm betting it was a cute skirt--which she wouldn't be wearing at McD's.

[DrSpaceman]

Wow. I thought that was the single most awesome part. I mean I understand it's stupid contrivance of epic proportions to get to that point, but it was SO over the top it spared us from the mistake a lot of shows like this make--taking themselves too seriously (and thus boring the shit out of us).

If this was not a show about geniuses and it was not advertised about how its "based on" some sort of true events, though honestly I never know what that really means, I might feel different.

However 4 geniuses with an IQ of 700 or whatever they said and they best they can come up with is a physical ethernet connection between a sports car and a plane? It seems there are a handful of ideas that were likely more plausible and would have worked. (Download it onto something, have someone parachute down with the code??? ). This idea was step away from sharknado bad. I expected more of a genius solution from this group. You can be plausible without being boring.

If this were a different show, I wouldn't be so hard on the ending. But for the way the show is set up I wouldn't really put this solution into the category of genius

Edited September 28, 2014 by DrSpaceman

[Abstract]

I can't get past the kid being named Ralph.

[Kromm]

I can't get past the kid being named Ralph.

The kid had a name?

I didn't even notice.  Heck, I only barely remember the waitresses name, and that's only because it got repeated about a dozen times.

[Mystery]

And she was wearing a nametag. 

 

I couldn't get over the software disappearing every 24 hours. No system restore points?

 

For me the genius woman sounded funny because she was only opening her mouth halfway or something like that. 

 

McPhee was not as bad as I was expecting. I liked it, even while rolling my eyes at some stuff, and will watch again. 

[shapeshifter]

And she was wearing a nametag. 

I can't recall any of the names at this point.

[iMonrey]

I don't have anything against Katherine McPhee, and I could even get past the implausibility of the whole airplane thing. But what really annoyed me was the character of the waitress, and her Rain Man son. So trite, and an obvious built-in love interest for Walter. If they had dropped those two characters, I might have found the show more interesting.

[Calamity Jane]

If you're going to insist on making the lead character Irish, he needs to look at least a smidge Irish.  If you want the non-Irish-looking actor, don't make him be Irish.  I realize it's based on a real guy named Walter O'Brien, but he looks Irish even though he's dark-haired.  It just jarred my eyes every time the main guy was on screen.  

 

Other than that, it definitely brought Numb3rs to mind, but it seemed more like a fluffy summer show to me.  Still might watch, though.  

[backformore]

I agree with all the totally unrealistic stuff people here have posted about. The airplane stuff was crazy.

I was irked by the trope that a genius kid intuitively knows how to play chess. Chess is a game that was invented by someone. Genius kids can learn chess, and be good at chess, just like they can learn and be good at a thousand other games. but they don't just KNOW how to play every game ever invented.

[backformore]

Walter, telling the waitress that he had a higher IQ than Einstein, reminded me of a graduation card I gave my son.

On the front it said "congratulations, you are now smarter than Albert Einstein"

Inside the card. " because he's dead!"

Edited September 29, 2014 by backformore

[Guest]

The genius girl sounded a bit like Paula Poundstone to me.

 

I tuned in for McPhee.  I like her.  I might not be staying, though.  Usually, the pilot is the best episode.  This was pretty so-so to me.

 

The cliche I hated the most was the constant "% chance of succeeding" updates from the math genius.  TV writers have very little idea how to make a character talk like a math genius without that trope, I guess.  But a person with even basic stats education would never claim to be able to estimate probabilities of events like that, so the effect is to make him look stupid, or cartoonish.  Velma would speak more intelligently, though.  

[bros402]

However 4 geniuses with an IQ of 700 or whatever they said

 

A class of children with disabilities could have an IQ of 700, when you add in the teacher and maybe the aides :P

 

 

I couldn't get over the software disappearing every 24 hours. No system restore points?

 

I was more... confused at the fact that the entirety of LAX was kept on one server at a datacenter.

 

And that the datacenter looked more like a storage locker than a datacenter for a federal facility.

 

LAX would have their servers on-site, they might have some off-site backup, but it would be much further back than 24 hours.