Person of Interest - The Complete First Season

What if you had foreknowledge of a crime before it happened? Person of Interest, much like Philip K. Dick's short story Minority Report takes a look into the not-too-distant future where technology can be used to stop crimes before they happen. Far more grounded in reality that Dick's story (and don't get me started on Steven Spielberg's awful film), Person of Interest gives us a mysterious machine with the ability to see patterns and threats hours or even days before they occur.

I'll admit some of the First Season episodes are better than others (the baby episode is almost too cute for its own good), and the show certainly takes liberties where it needs to in order to broaden the suspense and appeal of the show at times. However, every episode is solid and show, at least so far, has stayed within the bounds of the rules it set forth in the show's Pilot episode. The Machine may not exist in our world, but the concept is far less sci-fi than it would have seemed even a decade ago.

The Pilot episode introduces us to the Machine's creator Harold Finch (Michael Emerson) and the man he recruits to help him - John Reese (Jim Caviezel), a lost CIA agent living on the streets without purpose. Armed with only social security numbers of potential victims or perpetrators, over the course of the series a few clues to each man's past will be revealed as they use the Machine to try and save an undercover cop (Michael Aronov), stop the rise to power of a would-be kingpin of crime (Enrico Colantoni), search for a mysterious and murderous computer hacker, save a man whose identity has been stolen by a drug dealer (Sarah Wynter), protect an innocent baby, and save the life of the son of a judge (David Costabile) who has been kidnapped to control his ruling in an important case.

The show gives us not one but two friends of the force for Reese in the noble Detective Carter (Taraji P. Henson) and the dirty Detective Fusco (Kevin Chapman) as well as introduce recurring characters that will pop up from time to time such Reese old CIA friends (Michael Kelly, Annie Parisse), and the would-be kingpin and an expert fixer (Paige Turco) who both owe their lives to Reese.

The six-disc collection includes all 23 episodes including an extended version of the Pilot with audio commentary by producers Jonathan Nolan and Greg Plageman, and a 15-minute behind-the-scenes featurette on the show's first season and how much of the basic premise is grounded in current technology.