Person of interest is a show that aired on CBS from 2011-2016, produced by Jonathan Nolan - brother of Christopher Nolan - and JJ Abrams. The first two seasons consist of a pseudo sci-fi procedural, following Harold Finch, a reclusive billionaire and the mind behind the show’s centrepiece, The Machine, and John Reese, a presumed dead ex-CIA agent. They work collaboratively to prevent violent crimes with the help of the all-seeing eyes of The Machine.
This show challenged me in numerous ways; intellectually, emotionally and ideologically. Each episode has its own intellectual challenge as the duo try to figure out if ‘The Number’ – a person The Machine designates as being involved in a future violent crime - is a victim or perpetrator. Furthermore, the show promotes critical thought as no single character is explicitly good nor explicitly bad. For instance, John Reese, the ‘hero’ of the show, displays an unnecessarily violent streak, and Finch, while he doesn’t seem it at first, is very stubborn often placing the protagonists in a less than desirable situation due to his inability to abandon his principles.
The emotional challenge of the show was unlike anything I’d seen before, as it challenged emotions as a concept – what they are and the importance of them. It did the majority of this through two characters – Sameen Shaw and The Machine. Shaw, like Reese, is ex-government but has a very different methodology to him, where he is precise and calculating she relies more on a direct, blunt approach. She joins the team in season 2 and one of the first things we learn about her is that she has an ‘axis-2 personality disorder’ which is a term that was used to cover personality disorders. It is never stated exactly what Shaw has, it shares many traits with sociopathy, such as little regard for right and wrong and differences in the feeling and processing of emotions. Shaw described her emotions as ‘still there, but a lot quieter for her than they are for everyone else’. Despite this, Shaw is never presented than being ‘less human’ than other characters and is shown processing emotions in her own ways throughout the show. The Machine, on the other hand, is physically incapable of feeling emotions the way humans do – due to it being a sentient AI. However, it is not presented as completely emotionless, either. It is shown to develop its own understanding of human emotions through observation, and simulate empathy, care and loyalty. This questions what it means to ‘feel’ and if emotions are a purely biological thing, or if they are necessary to be ‘human’.
Person of Interest forever changed the way that I consume media, specifically TV shows and films because of how well thought out it was. It was the first show to make me properly appreciate internal and external soundtracks. The original soundtrack for the show was produced by Ramin Djawadi and makes excellent use of character and overall motifs. The soundtrack is also interesting as most returning characters will get a theme – even one that only had three appearances – but Harold Finch, one of the main characters of the show, doesn’t have a motif assigned to him to emphasise the point that he is “a very private person” who is hiding behind layers and layers of fake identities. The external soundtrack was also amazing, and opened my eyes to how it could affect a show. The example that sticks with me the most is the use of Radiohead’s “Exit Music (For A Film)” in the season 3 finale, Deus Ex Machina. The slow build up of the song is used to create a sense of dread, and when the song reaches its peak and the main threat is shown you can’t help but feel a sense of doom. It was this moment that made me realise that the protagonists had truly lost. Thanks to this, I am now able to appreciate soundtracks as more than just something in the background and recognise them as a crucial tool for invoking emotion and understanding in the audience.
Person of Interest also gave me a deeper appreciation of characters in media, as all the main cast are very well written, they feel and act so human. I can’t think of any examples where I was annoyed with something a character did, as even when they where doing things that were actively harmful, I didn’t mind as it always made sense for that character to be acting that way in that situation. Each character also didn’t exist in isolation, playing into larger overarching themes and motifs that could be found in multiple areas of the show, for example, the theme of religion, civilisation, humanity, morality, surveillance and identity to name a few. I think that Person of Interest is a show with a lot to say and was very ahead of its time in its understanding and application of AI. The show is very rich thematically and, in my opinion, very well executed. It is a show that, if it were not for the first two seasons being fairly long and somewhat repetitive (though still thoroughly enjoyable to me, they might not be for everyone), I would recommend to everyone. It’s had such a large impact on my life, it is the reason I chose the A levels I did.
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