Stay Tuned #5: Jesus and the Batman

It's a weird title, don't you think? Since I came up with it myself, I'd tend to agree with you in the positive on that score. So what does it have to do with television, besides the obvious similarity to the title of that old cop show, Jake and the Fatman? You're about to find out.

The Jesus part comes from the star of today's show up for review, Person of Interest (a title based on the recently ubiquitous semantic loophole that allows law enforcement officials to pursue and detain people for questioning without officially naming them as suspects). Remember the good old days when you could get shell shock at the airport terminal without being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder in the international transit lounge? Enough P.C. and B.S., T.H.'s! Just call a spade a shovel and let's get back to the review.

Person of Interest is one of many in the J.J. Abrams serial explosion that followed Lost, and has found at least a freshman level of success on America's #1 network (airing Thursdays at 9 on CBS), thanks in no small part to the Passionate Christ himself, Jim Caviezel (hopefully, I was not the only one who had to look up the spelling), who plays an ex-CIA operative in self-imposed exile (read: residentially challenged drunken stupor) who is given a second chance at life after meeting the mysterious Harold Finch (ex-Lostie Michael Emerson).
This is where the Batman part comes in (or will be once I get there). Abrams co-created the show with  Jonathan Nolan, whom you may know as the brother of Batman Trilogy director Christopher Nolan, and--to me at least--the character archetypes in Person of Interest scream "Nah Nah Nah Nah BATMAN!" loud and clear.
Caviezel's strong, silent John Reese, known to his pursuers and surviving foes as "the guy in the suit" is so obviously a Batman-type character. Finch provides Reese with relevant tech to their assignments--not to mention the social security numbers he gets from the omnipresent "machine" he designed--and companionable, witty banter between cases, filling a combined Oracle/Alfred the Butler role on the show. As for Robin and Batgirl? Enter two cops of drastically differing moral standing: reforming dirty cop Lionel Fusco (Unstoppable's Kevin Chapman), who has ties to a corrupt police organization known only as "HR," and diligent "suit" pursuer Joss Carter (Hustle & Flow's Taraji P. Henson, who has some impressive guns on her, even in a gown at the Emmys).
Hell, Person of Interest even has a Catwoman and a Riddler (the former is a "fixer" with ill-concealed romantic feelings for Reese, the latter, as we found out at the end of Season One, is a super-intelligent computer hacker, played by Angel's Amy Acker, who kidnapped Finch in an effort to "free the machine." Isn't that how Terminator got started?), and in the first episode of the new season, Reese even adopted his own Ace the Bat-Hound. WTF?
Acker the Hacker, that's funny....
Re-send note to self: stop ROTFLMFAOLIGAG-ing and get back to the review (commentary-peppered synopsis, or whatever)!
As you may have come to expect of a J.J. Abrams production, there are twists at every turn, a touch of strange (albeit more grounded in reality this time), and a plot so intricate that it defies noobiness on a cellular level but compels you to watch it anyway.
Any show that can keep 9/11 relevant, make Human Resources cool, do a comic book-sized mythology justice on the small screen, and turn a sociopathic supervillain like Benjamin Linus into a hero is well worth upping CBS's bottom line. No B.S. to be seen here, folks!
A

And speaking of Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins and villains becoming heroes, today's first Critical Quickie features the under-represented Scarecrow himself, Cillian Murphy, who in his career has also tormented Rachel McAdams aboard an airplane. So without further ado, we once more transition smoothly from Red Eye to Red Lights--Cillian Murphy, Sigourney Weaver, Robert DeNiro, and (I'm tired of writing this down) Elizabeth Olsen. Murphy becomes obsessed with debunking DeNiro's blind mentalist when a series of pseudo-psychic phenomena begin plaguing his friends and colleagues. What starts as just another "cynical team gets supernatural just desserts" flick dips into the land of confusing pointlessness on occasion, only to be saved by a viewer's desire to see what will happen next and a twist so sudden and final that you'd have to be a psychic to see it coming.
A-

And while we're on the subject of the land of confusing pointlessness, it seems only fitting that we discuss Beyond the Black Rainbow. This movie doesn't just dip into that proverbial void. It jumps in and tries feebly to swim, but drowns while beating you about the head until you drown with it. A telekinetic attempts to escape from her mad scient(olog)ist captor in a world saturated with selective color, long, austere interior shots, zombies, giants with baby heads, and people in faceless black unitards, all backed by the sound of cicadas tripping on ecstasy. You get some story out of this psychedelic throwback, and the mad scientist is a positively nightmarish character. But unless you're raving with the aforementioned cicadas, don't waste your money, okay Dave?
F

This issue was an unexpected side trip, considering I left my readers without the usual "stay tuned" message last time to tell what I was planning next. And if you're expecting another trip back in time to my SW@ Ticket days, I must say "I'm sorry, I can't do that, Dave." Instead, I was inspired to bring back the SW@ Soundtrack for a look at the last two albums of R.E.M.'s career, which I revisited recently with a more mature ear. So drop the clicker (or chop off your hand if you have that new smart TV Samsung is advertising), get your fingers on the dial (if your radio still has one of those things--assuming you have a radio), and prepare to stay tuned!