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Minority Report
Pilot
Original Air Date: Sep 21, 2015
Vincent Chia – Sr. Reviewer
vincent@thetwocentscorp.com
Minority Report is a tv show that continues the storyline from the 2002 Tom Cruise movie of the same name. In case you haven’t seen the movie, the first few minutes of the tv show gives us a very quick summary of the background premise. In the year 2040, three young children are injected with an experimental drug which unexpectedly gave them the ability to see future crimes within 100 miles. The three, called pre-cogs, were at the center of the police’s “Pre-Crime Division” and helped prevent many murders until the unit was disbanded.
For those that saw the movie, you’d remember that the visions that the pre-cogs saw weren’t always consistent. Sometimes, one of the three would have an alternate vision, termed the “minority report,” which gave the movie its name. Personally, I wanted to see how the tv show would work around that major flaw in the pre-crime system.
After the brief intro, we fastforward to the year 2065, which is eleven years after the Tom Cruise movie. We start the episode with Dash, one of the pre-cog twins, getting a brief vision of a murder that will happen at 8:42. Since it is 8:02, he has only 40 minutes to prevent the crime. His vision gave him a location, Bartlett Plaza, so Dash dashes into the DC Metro to get there. While on the subway, he reviews his sketchbook of his visions. There’s also a quirky animated ad for a marijuana product (brownies? or something). Dash runs out of the subway station at 8:38. He runs to room 1313, except he has run into the wrong building. He is too late and a woman is pushed out of a window falling to her death.
Enter Detective Vega, assigned to the murder scene. She has advanced contact lenses that patch her into a computer program and she can walk through the crime scene through virtual reality. She controls the computer program using various gestures, somewhat similar to how Tom Cruise interfaced with his computer back in the movie. During the walkthrough, Vega realizes that the victim had a chance to run, but chose not to. The victim was protecting someone. Vega soon finds a young girl hiding in a cabinet.
Dash has been watching the crime scene and spots Vega. He follows her with the intention of giving her his sketch of the murderer. Vega realizes that she’s being followed and sets a trap, ambushing him in a stairway. Dash stabs her with a temporary anesthetic to her thigh and she crumples to the ground. He tells her to find the murderer and runs away, but he accidentally dropped his backpack with his sketchbook and Vega flips through it.
Detective Vega shows the murderer’s sketch to her boss Lieutenant Blake. They scan the sketch into a database and match it with a former prisoner who had been freed after pre-crime was abolished. His predicted pre-crime was throwing someone out of a window. When the police catch up to the suspect, he commits suicide.
A holographic Agatha (the eldest of the pre-cogs) tries to talk Dash out of meddling in criminal affairs. Dash’s abilities are incomplete without his brother. Agatha thinks that the scientists will only use him and begs Dash to come home. Dash shuts off the hologram.
Vega finds Dash at a restaurant since there are surveillance cameras all over the city. Dash goes into a trance and sees a murder. Although Vega had previously suspected Dash of being an accomplice to the murders, she realizes that Dash is one of the pre-cog twins. Dash and his twin Arthur were like one mind split in two. Only Arthur sees the names of the murderer and victims.
Vega convinces Dash to help her. He sketches the picture of the victim in his vision, and Vega recognizes her as the wife of the former deputy chief of pre-crime, Peter Van Eich.
Vega and Dash visit and insane asylum. The patients are people who used to be prisoners of the pre-crime detention complex. Unfortunately, some of the prisoners became insane after their time imprisoned. The murder victim was a nurse who worked at the facility. Vega surmises that the nurse somehow discovered the plan of two of the patients to exact revenge and murder the former deputy chief. Vega questions a patient named Mason Rutledge. She also asked Dash to tell her whatever visions he saw. However, he blurts out things that he sees in a somewhat tactless way, such as the suspect’s daughter being a possible alcoholic. On the building’s rooftop, Vega questions the suspect, who is a brilliant scientist and is tending to bioengineering passenger pigeons. Dash soon blurts out that she should arrest him immediately because he will jump. This causes the suspect to panic, and he actually jumps. At first, I thought Dash meant that the suspect would commit suicide, but it turns out he jumps onto a fire escape and then runs. Vega jumps after him, but somehow misses and almost falls off. Dash saves her.
A little bit of character background development comes next. Dash stays with Vega, who lives with her mother and younger brother. Vega’s father was a cop who died in the line of duty.
Dash suggests they go to Walter, the former caretaker at the Pre-Crime unit, for help. They find Walter and they discuss the minority reports, how the future isn’t always set in stone. I had some hopes as to how they’d explain dealing with that, with the possibility that the visions of the future are wrong. However, it seems that the show will just presume the visions are right. Maybe it’ll be addressed more in depth later on. Walter connects Dash to a recording device so that he and Vega can see the visions that Dahs sees.
Dash’s vision shows a biological attack on a political rally using bioengineered birds. Dash says they need Arthur’s help, even though Arthur is very selfish and might not help. Art is the older twin by 7 minutes. He is a finance guy of some kind (a hedge fund manager?). He knew they were coming and has a clue to help them. A location called “Providence Crossing” which appears to be an abandoned mall.
Peter van Eyck is running for mayor. The birds are going to attack him as he gives a speech to a large crowd. Vega and Dash reach Providence Crossing and Vega sends out flying drones (similar to the “spyders” from the movie). The drones soon find the suspect. Vega apprehends Rutledge, but it’s too late, he has already sent the pigeons. In the last minute, Vega is able to gain control of the pigeons through a computer interface that had linked Rutledge’s mind to the birds. Vega prevents the attack.
As Vega is handcuffing Rutledge, Dash gets a brief vision of Rutledge stabbing her, so he pushes Rutledge off a balcony. We see a knife laying next to Rutledge’s body, confirming Dash’s vision. I think it would’ve been interesting if we didn’t see the knife, and were left wondering whether Dash’s vision was correct. Though, maybe that’s not appropriate for a first episode. Trust has to be built first.
In the last scene, Art visits Agatha in her island home. Art asks her if she is still seeing her vision that the precogs will get re-captured. She seems to say yes, but maybe isn’t completely sure. She tells Art to keep an eye on Detective Vega and hopefully Agatha’s future visions will see whether Dash accidentally endangers the pre-cogs. That was an interesting added twist, but not sure why she wouldn’t share that vision with Dash himself.
So, that was the first episode of Minority Report. What did you guys think? Did it meet your expectations? A lot of the critics seem unimpressed and I myself was hoping for more. But let’s give this a chance for a couple more eps and see where it goes.