Person of Interest

[SquidInk]

One of CBS’s most anticipated fall dramas, “Person of Interest,” will take civilian surveillance as its theme, and to market it, the network is tapping into the trend of interactive billboards (see a video of one in use below). In addition, the promotion involves social media — on Facebook, fans who “like” the “Person of Interest” page can create an individual dossier with an alias, hometown, list of known associates and other data, pulling from the person’s real posts and photos on the social-networking website.

While the marketing campaign for “Person of Interest” involves digital and social-media elements, the main driver of interest is still television, according to George Schweitzer, president of the CBS Marketing Group. Between now and the show’s premiere on Sept. 22, the network plans extensive promotion during NFL and college football games on CBS. - source

Oooo! That sounds fun! I'll be tuning in... wait!... why don't they just create a t.v. with the billboard's interactive technology. Then I don't have to go all the way downtown to 'participate'! I'd buy that.

Related:

http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/09/google ... on-rioter/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGCs7TuH ... r_embedded

[Riddick]

I happened to catch a full episode of this a few weeks ago 'cause I was too lazy to change the channel after "Rules of Engagement" - which in turn I was only watching because I was too lazy to change the channel after "The Big Bang Theory" (which IS one of the few shows I'll go out of my way to tune in)...

IMHO as TV shows go 'Person of Interest' looks to be a 'notch above most', and more than halfway decent enough entertainment that watching it again isn't something I'd dread.

Unfortunately, in their infinite wisdom CBS has decided to make its new direct lead-in a new sitcom, "Rob," which is just about as funny as Rob Schneider never was - In my book, he's about as big a person of DIS-interest as you can get!!

[Fan]

Love big brother! Big brother loves you! Resistance is futile!

[Riddick]

Love big brother! Big brother loves you! Resistance is futile!

Big Brother IS watching in 'Person of Interest,' but the plot is based around the crime-stopping activities of an ex-CIA agent who works for a billionaire software genius who, having access to the goverment's survelliance apparatus and data, work in-tandem to protect projected victims of violent wrong-doing OUTSIDE of terriorst plots.

That said, the show doesn't question the fact that we live in a surveillance state. In further fact, in that the "good guys" take matters a step beyond the government's (ostensible) goal of circumventing terrorist events, it suggests far from anything being enherently 'evil' in the associated technology, it's all a matter of how the data derived from it is being used (and by extension, who's using it.)

It could easily be argued as propaganda the show promotes the idea to viewers that, generally-accepted expectations of privacy and notions of nefarious intent by Big Brother aside, and beyond benefits for the "greater good" as may be had from state-sanctioned peeping-tommery, everyday individuals might receive timely "good-guy" intervention on a very personal life-saving basis ("hey, that coulda been ME!").

Of course, converesly it could be argued that if the data suggests that YOU are a "bad guy," you can rightly expect SOMEONE is going to come down on you like a ton of bricks eventually if not sooner...

So much as it's said "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear," then the moral of the story is "don't do anything that you wouldn't do if you knew that everything you do IS being monitored, recorded, collated and analyzed - yet what you DON'T know at any given time is so far as judging whether you're a good or bad person, exactly who will be doing the deciding."

[Fan]

As "24" made torture seem OK this sort of show is intended to make the surveillance society OK.

I refuse to watch any of this junk, not even to critique it, it is too insidious.

[Riddick]

As "24" made torture seem OK this sort of show is intended to make the surveillance society OK.

I refuse to watch any of this junk, not even to critique it, it is too insidious.

Insidious propaganda it may be, yet by comparison 'Person of Interest' isn't nearly as bad in that regard IMHO as another recent series exploring the topic of a surveillance society, that being AMC's 're-imaging' of Patrick McGoohan's "The Prisoner".

The original series was one of the most thought-provoking entertainment programs ever produced... The remake? Not so much, apart from that at least in my case subsequent to watching it and pondering over it for some time, I came to the conclusion McGoohan ABSOLUTELY had to be spinning in his grave.

Just in case anyone who reads this hasn't seen the mini-series revival yet and still intends to, I'll just say that the writers, in an attempt to 'modernize' McGoohan's theme of an individual struggling against an oppressive societal apparatus hell bent on control, utterly and completely removed the heart of his message in the end...

If there's anyone who hasn't seen the ORIGINAL series yet, I highly recommend you seek it out for viewing at the earliest available opportunity and avoid AMC's atrocity completely - that is, unless you ever find yourself IN the market for an insidiously shameless and abominably dreadful monsterization of a true television classic.

[Riddick]

[Riddick]

Turns out some VERY interesting developments have come up heading into "Firewall", the 'Person of Interest' season finale this Thursday - and oddly enough, they DON'T appear to be painting a pretty picture of the 'shadow government' surveillance society -

Last week's show ("No Good Deed") had as its POI an NSA analyst, Peck, who had unknowingly stumbled onto the existence of 'The Machine' (the highly effective yet also highly ILLEGAL monolithic data-crunching system that predicts acts of terror or violence). Soon after, Peck is framed for drugs and loses his job.

By asking questions in an effort to exonerate himself, Peck finds himself a target of an 'Intelligence Support Activity' team ("an obscure army unit that does black ops so dark, technically they don't exist")

After helping Peck avoid assassination, in the season finale Finch and Resse (the show's principle protagonists) have been found out and officially become subjects of a federal manhunt, sanctioned for termination by the handful of people who know about 'The Machine' -

With a system ostensibly built to save lives now being used in an effort to end them, rather than being pro-surveillance propaganda, doesn't that kind of suggest something sinister about the purpose of secretive goings-on in government???

[Raggedyann]

I'm really gonna miss Desperate Housewives!

[Riddick]

I'm really gonna miss Desperate Housewives!

Cheer up Raggedyann... Maybe in a few years we'll see a spin-off of both shows called "Desperate Housewives of Interest"!

[voguy]

Or "I'm interested in housewives that are desperate".

Not that I'm into that cougar thing....

[Raggedyann]

Cheer up Raggedyann... Maybe in a few years we'll see a spin-off of both shows called "Desperate Housewives of Interest"!

Hey they were already housewives of interest. The whole lot of them carried out crimes and misdemeanors over their 9 year run. Stabbings, shootings, theft, burying dead people in the bushes. What more could one possibly want?