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kingandy(2.n because I can't remember which episode we're on.)
Patchy episode this week. They basically wanted to do a "ghost in the machine" episode (with a twist), but I think they messed the pacing up a little. The first half-hour was spent setting up what a really great bloke the new boy was, and giving Jake a really good reason to knock him off. Then after a 30-second cutscene to represent a major field-mission to Serbia, Jake spends the rest of the episode bathing in magic blue jelly.
I was reasonably sure it wasn't Jake murdering people (with his magic computer controlling powers), but that was mainly metaplotting - you know a family TV show like Jake isn't going to have the central character as a murderer, even if it is only his unbridled subconscious. (Farscape would have had the balls, easily. Hell, John was practically offing people for kicks, by the end there.) Even so, the twist managed to surprise me. I was expecting Alex - the operative they rescued from the Serbian prison camp - to be an imposter, or filled with nanites like Jake, or something. Instead he was just insane, obsessed with revenge for being left behind, which was quite believable, and refreshingly mundane.
Where the episode really fell down was the tech. No, I do not believe a retinal scanner (should such exist) could easily be converted into a death-ray by entering a software command. And anyway, the technician said it wasn't possible, which was one of the reasons the finger was pointed at comatose Jake. To then find out that you can sit down at a terminal and send a seven-digit code to switch off the "Non-Fatal" option feels a lot like the writers were cheating. (And how did Alex find the override code, anyway? Has security not changed in the five years he's been in prison? And Lou didn't lock her computer. Bad show, Lou.)
The other big tech flaw was the elevator. There's a tradition in every "building controlled by computers deciding to kill people" story that you have to use an elevator to kill somebody. This always annoys me. Lifts are built with mechanical safeguards to stop them falling too rapidly - like the mechanism that stops a seatbelt or a towel dispenser when you pull it too hard - and these cannot be electronically overridden precisely because the building might decide to kill you. Admittedly Jake's entire Computer Interface power is highly implausible, but he'd have to be generating electromagnetic fields right down the lift shaft to prevent the brakes from engaging. If he can do that, he should be flying like Keanu.
(As an aside, I have theorised that the manipulation of electromagnetic fields is how he manages to control computers in the first place. It's very fine work, though, and he certainly shouldn't be able to manage anything on this scale.)
I'm undecided as to whether they made the new guy - Ben, potential Jake replacement, an actual agent they were preparing for the nanite injection process - too perfect or not. Charming, intelligent, witty, he even won Jake over with flattery and smooth deflection of credit ("Good idea, Jake!" when he came up with something only tangentially related to something facetious Jake said). Part of me says that as a new character with no obvious flaws, better than Jake in every way, it was clear that he wasn't going to survive the episode. They were blatantly setting us up to feel bad when he died. (I didn't, I was too busy wondering why they would build death-rays into retinal scanners.) On the other hand, there was a period when I suspected Ben was going to turn out to be a traitor or an infiltrator or something - for precisely the same reason, he was too good to be true. It was only after the fact, when he was the first death, that it became obvious he was created only to die.
One more thing. Who let Alex's wife into the episode? She had no place in the NSA building and served only to exposit and angst. I'm reasonably sure intelligence agencies don't tell spouses, "Your husband whom we thought was dead is actually alive! Though there's no guarantee we'll be able to get him safely out. Come into the office and shout at me pls."
Anyway ... as "Building Wants To Kill You" episodes go, it was quite entertaining. There was a good old-fashioned "2001" reference, too, with the team conspiring in the canteen while a security camera watches them. The camera even panned from face to face, focusing on the lips. So ... overall, I'm going to give this episode a tentative "thumbs up", though I would have liked to see less soap opera and a bit more coverage of the actual rescue mission.
In summary: Perhaps not the best show on TV, but the most enthusiastic.
Patchy episode this week. They basically wanted to do a "ghost in the machine" episode (with a twist), but I think they messed the pacing up a little. The first half-hour was spent setting up what a really great bloke the new boy was, and giving Jake a really good reason to knock him off. Then after a 30-second cutscene to represent a major field-mission to Serbia, Jake spends the rest of the episode bathing in magic blue jelly.
I was reasonably sure it wasn't Jake murdering people (with his magic computer controlling powers), but that was mainly metaplotting - you know a family TV show like Jake isn't going to have the central character as a murderer, even if it is only his unbridled subconscious. (Farscape would have had the balls, easily. Hell, John was practically offing people for kicks, by the end there.) Even so, the twist managed to surprise me. I was expecting Alex - the operative they rescued from the Serbian prison camp - to be an imposter, or filled with nanites like Jake, or something. Instead he was just insane, obsessed with revenge for being left behind, which was quite believable, and refreshingly mundane.
Where the episode really fell down was the tech. No, I do not believe a retinal scanner (should such exist) could easily be converted into a death-ray by entering a software command. And anyway, the technician said it wasn't possible, which was one of the reasons the finger was pointed at comatose Jake. To then find out that you can sit down at a terminal and send a seven-digit code to switch off the "Non-Fatal" option feels a lot like the writers were cheating. (And how did Alex find the override code, anyway? Has security not changed in the five years he's been in prison? And Lou didn't lock her computer. Bad show, Lou.)
The other big tech flaw was the elevator. There's a tradition in every "building controlled by computers deciding to kill people" story that you have to use an elevator to kill somebody. This always annoys me. Lifts are built with mechanical safeguards to stop them falling too rapidly - like the mechanism that stops a seatbelt or a towel dispenser when you pull it too hard - and these cannot be electronically overridden precisely because the building might decide to kill you. Admittedly Jake's entire Computer Interface power is highly implausible, but he'd have to be generating electromagnetic fields right down the lift shaft to prevent the brakes from engaging. If he can do that, he should be flying like Keanu.
(As an aside, I have theorised that the manipulation of electromagnetic fields is how he manages to control computers in the first place. It's very fine work, though, and he certainly shouldn't be able to manage anything on this scale.)
I'm undecided as to whether they made the new guy - Ben, potential Jake replacement, an actual agent they were preparing for the nanite injection process - too perfect or not. Charming, intelligent, witty, he even won Jake over with flattery and smooth deflection of credit ("Good idea, Jake!" when he came up with something only tangentially related to something facetious Jake said). Part of me says that as a new character with no obvious flaws, better than Jake in every way, it was clear that he wasn't going to survive the episode. They were blatantly setting us up to feel bad when he died. (I didn't, I was too busy wondering why they would build death-rays into retinal scanners.) On the other hand, there was a period when I suspected Ben was going to turn out to be a traitor or an infiltrator or something - for precisely the same reason, he was too good to be true. It was only after the fact, when he was the first death, that it became obvious he was created only to die.
One more thing. Who let Alex's wife into the episode? She had no place in the NSA building and served only to exposit and angst. I'm reasonably sure intelligence agencies don't tell spouses, "Your husband whom we thought was dead is actually alive! Though there's no guarantee we'll be able to get him safely out. Come into the office and shout at me pls."
Anyway ... as "Building Wants To Kill You" episodes go, it was quite entertaining. There was a good old-fashioned "2001" reference, too, with the team conspiring in the canteen while a security camera watches them. The camera even panned from face to face, focusing on the lips. So ... overall, I'm going to give this episode a tentative "thumbs up", though I would have liked to see less soap opera and a bit more coverage of the actual rescue mission.
In summary: Perhaps not the best show on TV, but the most enthusiastic.
