Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Fox's "Minority Report": did it predict that I would bail after the pilot?


Minority Report (2015) Poster

I like science fiction, and I've read almost all of Philip K. Dick's novels and short stories, including "The Minority Report," which was made into the 2002 Tom Cruise movie. I thought the movie was okay, but not as good as "Total Recall," which remains the best adaptation of a PKD story in my view. (Of course, I mean the Arnold Schwarzeneggar original.)

Fox's new TV series "Minority Report," which picks up years after the movie, sounded like it had some promise. I thought lead actress Meagan Good was pretty good in the 2013 series "Deception" (where she played an undercover police detective investigating her childhood friend's murder).

So I set my TiVo to record the pilot episode. I got around to watching it tonight.

While folding laundry, among other things. The laundry was more interesting.

I can't put my finger exactly on why the show was so uncompelling. The production values were pretty good, it's setting up some myth arcs in addition to the crime of the week, and the acting isn't bad. The sum is somehow less than the parts. Others have suggested that the premise might be different but the genre and context is pretty similar to last year's "Almost Human" except that "Almost Human" was better. It certainly had better interaction between the characters.

 I have a tendency to stick with shows to the bitter end, even when they enter clear declines (hello, "Under the Dome"!!), so I'm trying to be more ruthless with my initial screening. "Minority Report" therefore did not earn a season pass....

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Just a typical late summer day at a Pacific Northwest beach town



It's not Hawaii, of course, but here's a typical late summer day at a Pacific Northwest beach town. Our summers are to die for. It's just the other 8-9 months of gray, drizzly weather that you have to put up with. Of course, some of us like that kind of weather too. I did an easy 10K (for fun, not a race) on this trip, with most of it on a paved path along the beach.