Art.. and Artists… Must Be Daring

“William of Baskerville must always be right…” *

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Early 1990s, HB Studios, NYC

This guy was teaching a class.

“My dog. He’s a great big St. Bernard. Four feet tall at the shoulders. I walk him every morning and we sit on the stoop afterwards.

“So, Spielberg’s aunt also lives in the building.

“One morning he comes by and says, ‘Hey, you wanna move your dog?’ Real pushy like.

“I say, ‘You wanna kiss my ass?’

“So that’s why you don’t see me in a spacesuit.”

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Don’t know what year Buzzfeed said this about Person of Interest…

But pretty clear they were beaten out by Mr. Robot, which came along well into season 4 of the former. I’d also probably list one or two more that are more subversive, but they do—I mean did—have a point.

First, it’s the only show I know of where mass government surveillance is treated as the abusable thing that it really is. Secrecy has always lead to corruption. We just tend not to notice it because, well, it happens in secret and there are always many pundits to explain away what actually is a conspiracy to get your money one way or another.

Canadian scifi author Peter Watts had a writing job to write the first tie-in novel, which I think was partly to pad the ending since season 5, which is the last season, was cut in half by the network. The show had gotten really interesting. Pitting ‘ronin’ operatives against government and private corporation operatives and then throwing in a patriot/terrorist group on top of that. Well, where else do you get that?

Of course those who like these latter seasons dislike the sort of simplicity of the earlier ones. Then again I had a family member say they thought it ‘got weird’ once they stopped doing the formula. Guess you can’t always please thinkers and do-it-to-me-one-more-timers at the same time.

Anyway, the project has been canceled. They list his posting about the Japanese pre-buys as the reason. Rather, I think it has more to do with why the network canceled the show and only purchased half a season. The affluent did not get to be affluent by pissing off the affluent. The end of season 4 makes things clear enough to guess where season 5 is going. Mass surveillance is for social control, down to the small town. They use implants to enact individual control, but the Samaritan machine is the one controlling it.

Whether you’re talking NSA’s Total Information Awareness, DoD’s MINERVA, or CIA’s Romas/COIN, this is where it is going. Security guard by computer {mostly} and then just to assure that you and your family have no designs on upsetting the 0.1%’s apple cart.

In essence, it’s slavery.

And that is a scary thing to talk about for the guy who just rebooted both Star Trek and Star Wars. Might upset someone’s nephew.

Pew! Pew! Pew!…

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* I resemble that remark. Probably not alone in that.
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