Minority Report Episode 2 Sneak Preview: Mr. Nice Guy

By the same token, the series kicks off with an interminable recap of the Spielberg movie, a Wikipedia summary gumming up an otherwise thrilling cold open. And despite that movie being awful – it still doubled its budget at the box office.

In the thirteen years since Steven Spielberg’s film introduced viewers to a universe ruled by mental surveillance, Minority Report appears, on paper, to be a timely dystopia, resurrected in the shadow of Edward Snowden, the NSA, hidden video of police brutality, and mass incarceration. However, the flashes of murders yet to happen still enter their heads.

OK, not very deep.

The world of Fox’s Minority Report is one that has apparently learned this lesson all too well. And that’s disappointing, because this ultimately is going to reflect badly on Philip K. Dick, the author of the story “Minority Report” is based on. That success has proven to be both a benefit and a challenge to those adapting the film into a fall series for Fox.

Meagan praised FOX for the way the network has been promoting the show, and she said having Spielberg involved with the series “added value”. Now, I use the word “based” loosely because the film features one character working against a corrupt system to clear his name. “Would we be angry that most of our lives we were considered this tool?” The emotional way into the show from the Precog’s perspective is what makes the show original and makes it work on a fundamental human level.

At it best, science fiction helps us untangle our present and parse our anxieties about the future. Borenstein talks to Co.Create about emotionally customized advertising, camera-embedded contact lenses, traffic-smashing mega-cars and other Minority Report phenomena draw directly on today’s cutting edge technologies. It was like the show was intended to be filmed in the past, but then suddenly pushed into the future, and no one wanted to spend extra money to re-shoot scenes. After the two meet face-to-face in a dinner, she learns that Dash is originally one of the three Precogs of the pre-crime program. The show follows Dash and his police accomplice Detective Lara Vega, as they attempt to skirt the law in order to use Dash’s fractured visions to arrest baddies, not the people imprisoned for crimes they may never have actually committed.

“You lose by a landslide”, Dash tells one politician.

And really, what kind of cop is Vega? Vega pushes him for more and more info, which can only be obtained by him crossing certain personal lines. As far as he knows, Dash just has some psychic abilities (see Mentalist, Psych), because Dash has to keep his unique gifts hidden from those who might exploit his future-predicting abilities for immoral gain. While he can see the places, numbers and visions on what’s about to happen, his other twin Arthur, played by Nick Zano, is the one who is capable of retrieving pertinent information of the crimes. When Cruise himself is accused, a conspiracy is discovered that brings pre-crime crashing down. Dash is portrayed by Stark Sands. But I felt neither actor was given strong material to work with. But seemingly more central is Vega’s cop rival, Will Blake (Wilmer Valderrama, That 70s Show), so that seems to indicate to me that the focus is on the repetitive stuff, not what makes MINORITY REPORT special.

The pilot ended with me not feeling for any of the characters, and hoping that the series is an anthology, where we get totally new characters next week where we might want to try again. It has lavish production values, a likable cast, cool futuristic elements, and, most intriguing of all, an entire mental asylum full of would-be-murderers locked up during the pre-crime era, some of whom may rotate back in as potential murderers again. That refresher was probably not necessary given the amount of exposition throughout the series’ premiere airing on September 21, 2015 at 9pm ET/PT. It was helpful to have the film fresh in mind before tuning in to check out the TV show, but not having done so won’t leave you feeling completely lost.