Minority Report - General Discussion

[Latverian Diplomat]

 

Stark Sands said in a teaser interview for the episode that he couldn't disclose the title of the song we'd hear Dash sing, because it would be a spoiler for important plot points. Is there some meaning/association with Sexual Healing non-Americans/people who didn't conscioulsy experience the early 80s don't get, or is it more likely that they've switched the song on him at the last minute/after he gave that interview? Am i the only one who thinks that particular song was a pretty odd choice for a character like Dash to begin with?

 

 

 

I'm guessing "Sexual Healing" is a reference to germ-line genetic therapy, the villains weapon and/or issue.

 

I did a quick readthrough of the lyrics, didn't spot anything else in there.

 

http://www.metrolyrics.com/sexual-healing-lyrics-marvin-gaye.html

[waving feather]

Wally was my favorite part of the episode. Loved how well he was able to defend for himself with a bunch of goons ransacking his house. And he didn't miss a beat answering the questions without giving anything away.

Dash is still a dumbass. I can understand his feelings and motivations but he always goes about doing things in a reckless or dumb way and then has the nerve to be sanctimonious about it to his siblings. He already dragged all of them down with his involvement. He thinks he's being a selfless hero, but he's not mature enough to comprehend the danger he puts his own siblings in.

Edited November 29, 2015 by waving feather

[kili]

Dash is still a dumbass. I can understand his feelings and motivations but he always goes about doing things in a reckless or dumb way and then has the nerve to be sanctimonious about it to his siblings. He already dragged all of them down with his involvement.

So far, it is Agatha that has put them most at danger. She is the one that blackmailed "Ethan" (his Lost name, can't remember his MR name) to break in and steal the Milk Bath plan. Even though she ruthlessly got him killed (telling him to go out the exit that she knew would get him shot), the DIA agent was able to track him to her (she really should have gotten "Ethan" killed somewhere other than on a scarcely populated island). 

 

Arthur's blackmailing of the Senator drove the DIA agent into the arms of an even more ruthless private businessman. Arthur knew to blackmail the senator because he and Agatha were monitoring the facility based on the intel she got from Ethan. Had the Senator still been involved, there might have been some oversight. Now, they are going to end up in a milk bath with a guy who wants to make money off of them or use them as a weapon. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

 

Instead of avoiding the situation, Agatha and Arthur have assured it. Meanwhile, Dash has just solved a few crimes and probably gotten them some allies.  No doubt he put them at risk, but they put them at bigger risk.

[Netfoot]

But Dash running headlong into danger over every vision he has had, has actually lead to Arthur & Agatha breaking their safe pattern of anonymity that has worked for them for many years.  Thanks to Dash, there are now three members of the police force who know for certain who Dash is, as well to a degree about Arthur and Agatha. One of which cops is all about his own career, and strikes me would gladly sell the precogs by the pound, in exchange for a nice promotion.

 

Also, by skewing the results of the Hawk-Eye programme, he has drawn the attention of Blomfeld, who dearly wants to enslave them for his personal use, without any oversight or any due process.  Blomfeld's aims are obviously selfish, and has indicated his willingness to step well beyond any legal, ethical or moral boundaries to further his own career in law enforcement and politics, as well as his personal wealth, influence and power.

 

If Dash hadn't involved himself with the police back in episode one (and occasionally dragged Arthur and Agatha into it as well) none of this was likely to have happened.

[kili]

But Dash running headlong into danger over every vision he has had, has actually lead to Arthur & Agatha breaking their safe pattern of anonymity that has worked for them for many years.

 

But that was only working to a certain point. That milk bath has clearly been under construction for a while (those kind of things don't get budget and constructed in a matter of weeks). Clearly, some in the government had a plan to re-imprison the pre-cogs for quite some time. I could easily buy that Dash leaving the island is not what started Agatha's visions - they could have been started by increase activity by Memento Mori which has clearly been kicking around for a while (their increased activity increasing the motivation for the government to recapture the pre-cogs).

 

I think that this episode showed us that pre-cogs work best against an individual or small group of murderers. Those individuals can be intercepted. When dealing with a large group like Memento Mori, you just re-configure the murder. They are well-planned with good resources.  The senator died despite them changing the actual murder.

 

The government is the same way. You may speed up or slow down their process, but a group like the DIA is going to make things happen one way or another. Dash may have sped up the process by wigging out Agatha who went and got DIA attention drawn to herself, but DIA guy was going to sniff out one of them sooner or later. At least Dash has cultivated at least three allies (Vega, Wally and Akeela) who will try to help them. Arthur has his bodyguard who might help. Agatha with her isolation has nobody who can help them.

One of which cops is all about his own career, and strikes me would gladly sell the precogs by the pound, in exchange for a nice promotion.

I thought we established in this episode that Blake was a straight arrow as a cop. He refused to blackmail, so I don't think he would be selling precogs by the pound for a promotion.

[Noirprncess]

I'm wondering if Dash singing Sexual Healing was his sort of awkward nod towards acknowledging his needs as a man. He was caught awkwardly staring at Vega in a bikini in an earlier episode.

I will be sad to see this show go. I agree that WV is miscast as a upwardly mobile climber. I think I would have enjoyed Reed Diamond in his part and someone else as the DIA leader.

Have we figured out if Arthur's bodyguard is a male, female or in between?. Every week, we play, figure it out.... And lose.

[Greta]

That was a solid, fairly well-paced ending. It's a shame the show didn't start off with episodes like this, setting the stakes higher and putting all the precogs in play. It might have given the show a chance. I actually enjoyed the irony that it was Vega's trip to the island to assure Agatha she meant them no harm that provided the trackable DNA from Vega that led Blomfeld to them. 

 

Andromeda had literally two words of dialogue in the entire series, but she had presence and made me curious about her- kudos to the actress. Her death was really effective: I believed it hit Arthur hard. 

[Free]

That was a solid, fairly well-paced ending. It's a shame the show didn't start off with episodes like this, setting the stakes higher and putting all the precogs in play. It might have given the show a chance. I actually enjoyed the irony that it was Vega's trip to the island to assure Agatha she meant them no harm that provided the trackable DNA from Vega that led Blomfeld to them.

 

Agreed, the start of the series lacked tension and the series should've started with the precogs working together.

[Netfoot]

This show has improved since they abandoned the streetwise cop/gifted assistant theme, and grasped that any show named Minority Report has to be about the precogs!  At the conclusion, I was actually sorry to think they weren't coming back.  

 

Stupid Memento Mori.  Anarchists always want to kill off the government, eliminate bank records, and burn down the city.  But they never seem to explain how that will make things better for the guy who ends up living in the country, under a bush, contemplating bartering one of his children for a half rotten potato.

 

Blomfeld seizing control and reneging on his promise came as absolutely no surprise.  I'm just sorry Andromeda had to die.  Neat how our guys turned the tables on him, although I'm not sure how exactly...  Were they not drugged after all, then?

 

Pity Arthur (or was it Wally, when all is said and done?) chose to kill the three stooges.  I can think of a couple better alternatives. They could drop a dime on them and the authorities lock them away for their illegal activities. Or they leave them in the milk-bath and the 'buyers' deal with them when they can't deliver the precogs.

[netlyon2]

(1) This show has improved since they abandoned the streetwise cop/gifted assistant theme, and grasped that any show named Minority Report has to be about the precogs!

(2) Blomfeld seizing control and reneging on his promise came as absolutely no surprise. I'm just sorry Andromeda had to die. Neat how our guys turned the tables on him, although I'm not sure how exactly... Were they not drugged after all, then?

(3) Pity Arthur (or was it Wally, when all is said and done?) chose to kill the three stooges. I can think of a couple better alternatives. They could drop a dime on them and the authorities lock them away for their illegal activities. Or they leave them in the milk-bath and the 'buyers' deal with them when they can't deliver the precogs.

(1) Aww, I get what they were doing, I think, if Vega is supposed to be our perspective character for the series. Maybe they took an episode or two too long to shift the narrative from a case-of-the-week format, but I really hope that FOX gives the show another chance (I know, but I can't help the optimism). I also really want to know what would have happened in those last three episodes. Maybe FOX thought that this was a better finale for a show on the edge?

(2) Huh, that makes sense. It didn't occur to me during the show, but after Wally and Arthur made a big deal about sedating the precogs, they were still twitching like they do without the drugs. So, yeah, I guess they did have that plan all along. Too bad they didn't anticipate the snipers and the murder-vision hit them too quickly to save Andromeda.

(3) It's interesting that I wouldn't have wanted Dash or Agatha to kill them, I was okay with Arthur killing them, and I kind of cheered when Wally did it. I guess I didn't have a problem with the killing, but rather the impact it would have on the person who pulled the trigger (or upped the water level). Everyone seemed relieved, though, that Wally handled it. Those three were the only ones who we're certain saw the precogs faces, so they would have been a real threat if the foreign buyers let them live. Plus, Andromeda.

Edited December 1, 2015 by netlyon2

[Free]

Pity Arthur (or was it Wally, when all is said and done?) chose to kill the three stooges.  I can think of a couple better alternatives. They could drop a dime on them and the authorities lock them away for their illegal activities. Or they leave them in the milk-bath and the 'buyers' deal with them when they can't deliver the precogs.

 

I think it was more out of desperation, they didn't have much time to think of a plan since they were going to be hiding out and they got rid of the problem.

[TobinAlbers]

Loved this finale, and found myself hoping as the four all went on the run that this isn't the end we see of them. They REALLY stepped up their game in the final episodes, even Blake was firing on all cylinders with his badass stare down with Andromeda a few episodes back to his 'Guuuurrrl' at Vega to his giving Akeela the heads up to protect the precogs.

 

That's two women that Arthur has cared about that he's lost in the short run of the series. Granted his first flirtation was just a brief encounter, but Andromeda was a friend he connected with even after he swore off being so open so I get why her death hit hard. And honestly, it's a consequence of Dash's need to help in that the very real danger that Agatha and Arthur were afraid of came home to roost. I get Dash's angle of needing to help and do the right thing, but honestly, that's what the original developers of the program were using as their excuse to put three kids in a milkbath for what they hoped for 60 years. For the greater good. Not that Dash had that same level of callousness towards Agatha and Arthur but he pretty much told them, 'I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do and you can't stop me and you suck for not helping me' and pulled them into his crusade whether THEY liked it on not. And not that her death is totally on him, but he does need to have it pointed out to him that his need to help can actually be selfish if it's hurting others and he's like 'Well, whatever!'

 

Zano nailed Arthur's absolute fear when in the milk bath. Suddenly he was a kid again and the terror was written all over his face when Wally was about to put the needle in his head. He was willing to endure intense pain to stay awake because he didn't trust anything going on around him.

 

Wally killing the witnesses was an awesome dark moment to end the series on. I got Arthur's need for revenge, but I'm glad he wasn't the one to do it because in the end it wouldn't have made him feel any better or get over what happened to Andromeda. Wally's opening flashback clearly set up his motives- he was an accomplice to the precogs imprisonment before, interacting with them as kids before he became their caretaker and betrayed their trust. He was trying to do right by them in the end by making taking the people who could hurt them out. And plus he's totally in love with Agatha and wanted to protect her too.

 

Loved as they were making their final run, Agatha books out of there but Arthur waits at the door until he sees Dash coming and only then leaves with Dash hovering at the door until he makes sure that Vega is coming. Arthur won't leave without Dash, Dash won't leave without Vega.

 

BTW as much as I love Zano I would've been interested in seeing Sands' portrayal of Arthur as they had initially intended. He could've totally pulled it off but between the production schedule and not wanting to kill the actor having to do double shooting every episode, going with Zano was a nice move.

[CoyoteBlue]

This show has improved since they abandoned the streetwise cop/gifted assistant theme, and grasped that any show named Minority Report has to be about the precogs!  At the conclusion, I was actually sorry to think they weren't coming back. 

 

Yeah, the three siblings and the sidekicks have a lot better chemistry without Detective Smella Fart so prominent.

 

 

Pity Arthur (or was it Wally, when all is said and done?) chose to kill the three stooges.  I can think of a couple better alternatives. They could drop a dime on them and the authorities lock them away for their illegal activities.

 

They may have been committing crimes by selling off human beings on the side, but don't think for a moment that someone else official wouldn't want to get their hands on the precogs any less. The precogs can't take that chance. Love that Wally took care of them for 'his kids' at the end. (And yeah, I think Wally has a crush on Agatha.)

 

Loved as they were making their final run, Agatha books out of there but Arthur waits at the door until he sees Dash coming and only then leaves with Dash hovering at the door until he makes sure that Vega is coming. Arthur won't leave without Dash, Dash won't leave without Vega.

 

BTW as much as I love Zano I would've been interested in seeing Sands' portrayal of Arthur as they had initially intended. He could've totally pulled it off but between the production schedule and not wanting to kill the actor having to do double shooting every episode, going with Zano was a nice move.

 

Zano is so Arthur to me, I can't imagine how Sands would have done it. He's too 'adorable goober'-looking for me to buy it. 

 

Arthur is such a big brother to Dash - Agatha comes off as more distant to the boys. This is why I wish the series had been more about them and their dynamic. Agatha decided to hide herself away from everything, while Arthur immediately threw himself into it, and Dash couldn't keep away eventually. Very different reactions to their enslavement and life "on the run".

[Netfoot]

BTW as much as I love Zano I would've been interested in seeing Sands' portrayal of Arthur as they had initially intended. He could've totally pulled it off but between the production schedule and not wanting to kill the actor having to do double shooting every episode, going with Zano was a nice move.

 

Actually, I'd have liked to see Zano play both parts of the identical twins, Dash & Arthur.  I think he has the acting talent to be the cheeky Arthur we've seen, and to be a dweeby Dash as well.

 

<¡sigh!>  This show turned out to be pretty good, towards the end.  Pity the show-runners didn't settle on the right formula in time to save it!

[Latverian Diplomat]

 

Wally killing the witnesses was an awesome dark moment to end the series on. I got Arthur's need for revenge, but I'm glad he wasn't the one to do it because in the end it wouldn't have made him feel any better or get over what happened to Andromeda. 

I agree. I also wonder how a precog would be affected by being a murderer  Could they ever see past their own crime? Although I guess Dash did kill someone in the pilot, but that wasn't deliberate.

 

I wonder if the last minute or so was an alternate ending they shot in case of non-renewal? I could see the original plan being the Precogs leaving with Blomfeld left alive as an adversary for the  rest of the season.

 

I liked that Blomfeld insisted he was a "patriot" until the very end. Nice villain work by Reed Diamond with that.

 

Actually, I'd have liked to see Zano play both parts of the identical twins, Dash & Arthur.  I think he has the acting talent to be the cheeky Arthur we've seen, and to be a dweeby Dash as well.

 

<¡sigh!>  This show turned out to be pretty good, towards the end.  Pity the show-runners didn't settle on the right formula in time to save it!

I wouldn't be too hard on the show runners. Fox greenlights interesting shows and kills them off at the first sign of "not a hit" all the time. (Admittedly, the ratings were pretty dire). And unfortunately, with the goal of 22 episode seasons, building padding into the structure of a show is more or less mandatory. That's why a lot of cable or web shows are better from the beginning. Shorter seasons are really helpful. I also think that sci fi shows are tough because there's so much world building to do and explain.

[Pointer]

 

Zano is so Arthur to me, I can't imagine how Sands would have done it. He's too 'adorable goober'-looking for me to buy it. 

 

Allow me to use this as an in to shamelessly promote Generation Kill - a 2008 HBO miniseries about the Invasion of Iraq (OIF I) based on the book by the same name, brought to TV by the producers of The Wire. Treat yourself to seven episodes of great television and watch Stark Sands give one of the two stand-out performances of an alltogether incredibly talented cast (Alexanders Skarsgard is the other standout with arguably the best work he's ever done anywhere) as the leader of a platoon of Marines who is forever stuck between the rock of War and the hard place of Command and gets ground down by the hard moral choices he constantly has to make for both his men, their mission and the civilians they meet, while neither ever breaking nor losing his moral compass along the way. The man he portrays (as every other person in the series - it's a pretty much verbatim portrayal of the experience of an embeded reporter who was with that unit) is one hell of a person and as "bada$$" as any of these type of Ivy League types ever get. And Sands absolutely nails him.

 

I've read the books (both Generation Kill and the book Sands' character wrote about his time in the USMC), have watched several security policy talks/lectures by- and been a great admirer of the man - Nate Fick - long before I watched the TV series and was utterly convinced that they wouldn't find an actor who could do him justice.

 

And while Sands looks next to nothing like Fick (who has several inches on him in both directions), he absolutely became the man - from the bearing over the inflection right down to the bloody way he tilts his head and smiles at people. Absolutely uncanny. But apart even from that, the arc he takes the character on, especially in the later episodes, is one of the most interesting aspects of the entire show.

 

And nothing close to the way he portrays Dash.

 

Okay, save for the ten second scene where he punches Arthur after seeing Vega get murdered in episode five (I think it was): the look on his face and corresponding line 'I'm not in the mood for glib today' was so Nate Fick I could barely kep myself from shouting 'oorah!' at my TV screen.

[Pointer]

I agree. I also wonder how a precog would be affected by being a murderer  Could they ever see past their own crime? Although I guess Dash did kill someone in the pilot, but that wasn't deliberate.

 

Well, we got Dash's word on his first murder from the pilot an episode later - he litterally said he felt nothing, just numb. Then we have him orchstrate/provoke the murder of one of the people who hold him captive by the other one in order to promt a vision for Arthur that includes his name and location two episodes ago. And don't forget him going walkies with a gun pointed at his head so another captor gets a face full of drone, which leads to antoher shootout where several other people end up dead.

 

To me, Dash seems to be eerily (unreflectedly) fine with, at the very least, 'bad people' finding their demise through his direct involvement. Is that because he's generally numb after watching so many people die throughout his entire life so far (has he become a "murderer sociopath", so to speak - a man who lacks empathy for murderers through conditioning), or because he's got psychopathic tendencies on the whole (is there something intrinsicly wrong with his brain) but only lets them shine under those very limited conditions?

 

Sadly, we won't see that explored.

 

 

I wonder if the last minute or so was an alternate ending they shot in case of non-renewal? I could see the original plan being the Precogs leaving with Blomfeld left alive as an adversary for the  rest of the season.

I liked that Blomfeld insisted he was a "patriot" until the very end. Nice villain work by Reed Diamond with that.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if it was. I'm also pretty sure that the initial press kit for this episode listed Zane Hall, the kid who plays Vega's little brother, on the casting sheet. Tied to the line from last week's press kit about the assasination attempt tying into Vega's personal life, I suspect that there was a different arc planned (most likely involving Vega's father's death, possibly tied to Blomfeld and his designs on the precogs) that had to be cut out due to time constraints.

 

Reed Diamond was great, as were so many other guest stars on the show.

[Pointer]

Well, I'll be damned. I really liked this finale, rushed as it was, and am now at a point where I'm sad to see this show go.

 

Great performances by everyone this episode, Good and especially Valderrama explicitly included.

 

If you compare epsides one to three and eight to ten, the difference in overall quality in pretty much every aspect (story, dialogue, acting, soundtrack, cinematography, subtlety of nods to the movie) is like night and day. What a shame the series started so mind-bogglingly weak, campy and unintentionally juvenile.

 

 

 

I can't help but geuninely ruminate on whether or not Wally will be okay, for how long and where to the pre-cogs will run and if Vega will abandon her job (or what's left of that at this point) and more importantly her family to run with them - or probably Dash, more specifically.

 

As I'm a secret sucker for happy endings, I'll go with: "The congresspeople are so grateful and Arthur's underworld contacts so extensive that Wally will receive the lightest sentence possible and gets to live out his life in peace, Arthur will return to his job as an "estate planner" in DC within the year, Agatha finds a nice horse farm (and corrsponding single horse farmer) on some other secluded hippy island, Vega will take a pay cut and demotion but be able to get back to her job and Dashiell Parker, who had gotten cold feet after seeing so much blood on the job and handed in his resignation mere days before the "Memento Mori Scandal" was leaked to the press; decided after a couple of months "back in the private sector" that preventing future scandals of that caliber by helping the police perfect Hawk-Eye outweighs occasionally being spattered with chopped/shot kidnappers after all."

Edited December 1, 2015 by Pointer

[Noirprncess]

I enjoyed this "finale". I really wish another channel would be willing to continue the story although that seems rather impossible.

[miracole]

Good episode. I even liked Blake.

[Ailianna]

Others have expressed most of my thoughts, but I realized I really love this show, which started out as just some fluff after Gotham (which I also love but which is in a very different direction).  I think there was an almost comic book quality to it at first, not in the over-the-top zany but in a sense that these people weren't quite real, and the world they lived in was more about cool tech than how people live.  But it grew beyond that, and now I can't help but hope that it somehow magically comes back.  FOX can't cancel ALL it's shows...can it?

[jhlipton]

This show has improved since they abandoned the streetwise cop/gifted assistant theme, and grasped that any show named Minority Report has to be about the precogs!  At the conclusion, I was actually sorry to think they weren't coming back.  

 

In hindsight, I think the correct sequence would have been:

First episode, Dash meets Vega and solves a crime

Second (and maybe third) episode: Crime solving

Next episode: Fiddler's Neck

From then on, Arthur and Dash work together willingly, with Agatha helping as needed

By episode 7 ot so, all the precogs are working together and the plot has moved to a Big Bad like the DIA and/or Momento Mori.

Too bad they didn't anticipate the snipers and the murder-vision hit them too quickly to save Andromeda.

 

 

That didn't fit with any of the other premonitions they've had -- which always allowed them to take some action. Not "Look [bLAM!] out!"  But I guess they needed Andromeda out of the way.

 

To me, Dash seems to be eerily (unreflectedly) fine with, at the very least, 'bad people' finding their demise through his direct involvement.

 

Agatha also seemed rather unperturbed by the embezzler's death-by-cop.  Maybe after viewing so many murders of (relatively) innocent people, handing off bad people to their death doesn't make much of an impact.

[marieYOTZ]

Tip of the hat, Minority Report. You were the victim of a world that doesn't give shows much time to find their footing. I enjoyed the 10 episodes we got.