Even if the temperatures outside haven’t been reflecting it, the summer is winding down. And for The Divine One, that means that it’s almost that most exciting time of the year: Fall TV!
Almost.
A couple pilots have been “leaked” on the interwebs, which you may or may not already know, so, naturally, that gives me a chance to get some early Fall watching on. Crazily enough, I was curious about the televised continuation of Minority Report at Comic-Con back in July, but, with the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on the horizon, the room was already too packed with congoers patiently waiting for their Marvel TV fix. (Hey, had to be somewhere else prior! I’m on a tight GHG schedule!) But after getting the chance to relax, sit down, and analyze the Report, I realized I hadn’t missed anything…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fLl-DMzxrk
Did you see the Tom Cruise movie version of Minority Report from 2002? Although I haven’t watched the Spielberg sci-fier since it beamed at the box office, the pilot episode here does give a small history lesson at the beginning that should refresh old memories.
The story takes place in 2065, now 10-years after Precrime — the program that caught potential killers before they committed their murders — has been disbanded in Washington D.C. Despite the help of three “Precogs”, which were three individuals able to see into the future and identify citizens to be arrested, the program was then shipped away from society to live elsewhere.
But one of them named Dash (NYC 22’s Stark Sands) has decided he wants to come back and help try to stop murderers again–especially since there is now nothing to stop potential killers, with a homicide rate that has only continued to rise. After all, it is D.C…. Through a series of funky events, all-too-sheltered-from-society Dash winds up teaming with with Detective Lara Vega (Think Like a Man’s Meagan Good) and they go about trying to solve their first case together.
Yes, you can just feel the enthusiasm melting off my fingertips as I type this! A police detective and her clairvoyant partner? Cue a pair of eyes rolling into the back of head. Surely the chemistry between Sands and Good is quite.. good when all buddy-buddy, but as a crime fighting duo, it just doesn’t hold up. Without having to convey every instance from the pilot, just the the way Dash and Lara go about solving their case had me laughing — not for comedic sake — or in awe of such poor writing choices. Had anyone in production actually read this script out loud they may have realized they’re making a huge mistake.
I mean.. killer birds. Someone was a Hitchcock fan.
On the plus side, the futuristic graphics and vibe of Report is done well. Everything from the look of the cars and trains to the billboards on the side of skyscrapers adds flavor to a different time, without making it look like a planet we don’t recognize. A lot of the tech that the police force uses is reminiscent to the original movie with some upgrades for the time that has gone by. If nothing else, Minority Report is very similar to Almost Human–which just makes me miss it again. We’ll see if FOX can have better luck with this one.
Minority Report premieres Monday, September 21st on FOX