MINORITY REPORT Takes Flight
S1E1 “Pilot”
Minority Report picks up 10 years after the Minority Report film ended. The first episode is when Dash, one of the three PreCogs, and Detective Lara Vega meet and decide to work together.
The episode begins with a summary of Minority Report, actually including scenes from the movie. Dash (Stark Sands) sees a murder happen and he sketches the face of the murderer. There is not much detail so he tries to solve it, but is too late.
Investigators move into the crime scene, and that is when we meet Detective Vega (Meagan Good). She uses similar technology that was in the film, such as the gloves that Tom Cruise’s John Anderton wears to look at the murders in detail. Vega expresses her desire for the PreCrime unit to be reinstated because she is tired of “cleaning up the messes.” While Detective Vega searches the crime scene, she finds a child hiding in one of the cabinets in the kitchen. The victim is her mother.
Dash follows Vega so that he can give her the drawing, but first he alters his face to look like an older man. In the movie, Chief Anderton did the same thing when he had to sneak back into the PreCog lab. Vega knows she’s being followed, and gets the drawing from Dash. He stings her and she is unable to chase him, but he dropped his bag so she has his entire sketchbook.
Vega goes through the book and notices that the sketches are from previous murders. Lieutenant Will Blake (Wilmer Walderrama) walks in while she is investigating the murder, in which he says he has a lead. They are looking for a bio weapons dealer, and when they do find him he kills himself. Later they find out he is an Open Vistas patient, a rehabilitation center for those who were haloed in PreCrime.
Dash goes to talk to Agatha, the strongest of the PreCogs, and she wants him to come home. Dash is weak without his twin brother, Arthur, and can only see the the murders happen. Arthur can provide names. Dash is set on helping the people in his visions.
Vega can’t find a record of Dash, so she looks for him and finds him at a restaurant. While they talk he has a vision of another murder, and she figures out that he is one of the PreCogs.
He sketches the face of the murdered man, and it is Peter Van Eyck’s wife, Olivia. He was in charge of PreCrime before it was disbanded, and is now running for mayor. Detective Vega and Dash talk to Van Eyck, without much luck. Vega finds out that a search for Van Eyck’s rally was done on the bio-terrorist’s phone, three hours after he killed himself. They then decide that they need to go to Open Vistas to search the bio-terrorist’s bed. When they arrive, Dash remembers all of them.
They search the bio terrorists bed, and a woman arrives. Her father knew him, and he had access to his phone. They want to speak with him, so his daughter takes them to the roof. Rutledge is very intelligent, and is able to control pigeons that he has put microchips into to fly wherever he wants them to. After questioning him for a bit, the man jumps off the roof and onto a fire escape and Vega chases after him, but loses him.
Vega and Dash go to her house and he meets her family.
Dash and Vega resolve to go talk to Arthur to see if he will help. He doesn’t want to, and Dash is upset with his brother for being selfish.
They visit Wally (Daniel London), the man who took care of the PreCogs while they were still at PreCrime. He sets up Dash at a similar machine that they used to use in PreCrime, and Dash is able to make out more details about the murder. At Peter Van Eych’s rally, there will be a mass attack using the pigeons that the man at Open Vistas had. He is going to spread a virus to the crowd using the weapons that the bio weapons dealer gave him.
Vega and Dash talk to Arthur again, and he tells them where the man is going to release the pigeons.
They go to the mall to find the man has already released the pigeons. His daughter is also there to help her father, but Dash and Vega are able to incapacitate them both and stop the pigeons from spreading the virus to the crowd.
Lieutenant Blake congratulates Vega on her work, and Dash and Vega decide to continue working together.
This first episode was fast paced and made several references to the film; it will definitely make fans of the movie excited for the series. Dash (Stark Sands) has grown up to be the polar opposite of his twin brother, Arthur (Nick Zano). He’s an anxious and socially awkward individual, and Arthur is confident and successful. Also unlike his siblings, Dash wants to use the visions he has to help people. Agatha (Laura Regan), the strongest of the three, takes on the role of a wise older grandmother.
Detective Vega (Meagan Good) is tough and smart and wants PreCrime reinstated. She and Dash seem to be forming the typical oddball relationship that crime series have. (see Bones, Rizzoli and Isles, Castle)
The show made several fun references to the present day, and I’m hoping that French fries do become healthy in the future. There were also several references to the film, such as the technology used: the eye identify software, small drones that are able to locate people in a building, and the same gloves used to work the computers. When Dash was at the restaurant seeing a murder, he grabbed Vega and said, “Can you see?” That is the same thing that Agatha says to John Anderton when she sees him.
The writers took an interesting path when writing the futures of the PreCogs. Arthur and Dash are sure to bump heads, and Agatha will be shaking her head at them from a distance.
When Dash went to talk to Agatha, she warned him that she could see his future, and hinted that there might be some trouble there. I’m curious to know if that is just for dramatic effect, or if she is alluding to something that will happen later in the show.
The acting was a little stiff, but this often happens in the pilot of a TV series. The episodes and the acting are sure to get better, but overall the pilot did an excellent job of showing Minority Report (2002) ten years later and setting up the work relationship of Detective Vega and Dash.
