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Thoughts on the tech on the TV show Scorpion?
Innuendo:
I want to reply to this thread, but not sure how to do it. I am very similar in type to the main character in this series. I have his strengths (high IQ) and all of his weaknesses (off-beat social interaction skills). I found the way the character was portrayed was highly offensive. However, I realize it must be hard for a writer to create and write a character that is vastly more intelligent than they are. It's akin to trying to write in a language you don't know and are incapable of learning. The series is a caricature...a writer's interpretation of what 'scary smart' people must be like. There are so many directions they could have gone with this, but they'd probably need some 'scary smart' writers and there most likely aren't too many of those around.
The Mentalist is a different kind of show. It's not a show about a genius. It's a show about someone who has studied human nature intently. It can lead to some fun entertainment, but the writers have to be clever...and they usually aren't. Just pay attention to the first 10 minutes of the show & you'll guess what's going to happen 99% of the time. I think the writers have realized that because the last season or so they've given up on trying to be super-secretive with the big reveals and have included the audience in with the plotting to catch the bad guy who thinks he's smarter than everyone else but really isn't.
To tie the two shows together, I'll end with this. When Patrick Jane converses with his weekly worthy opponent, one of the lines he likes to trot out the most is, "You are the type who always thinks you are the smartest one in the room." I get the point he's trying to make. There's that one person who is looking down on everyone else with smug looks thinking that they can manipulate everyone in the room to fit their whims. However, anyone who has ever really been the smartest person in the room knows it's nothing like this. It's not a wonderful feeling at all. It's more like a numbing feeling of boredom and dread sweeping over you as you move from one person to the next trying to learn something, trying to ignite a spark of interest in something, anything, before your mind shuts down from no intellectual stimulation.
When someone is the smartest person in the room they aren't mapping out Machiavellian plots to create an army of minions. They're too busy trying to discern if they jump from that two-story window to escape into the night what the chances of twisting their ankle will be.
TaoPhoenix:
I want to reply to this thread, but not sure how to do it. I am very similar in type to the main character in this series. I have his strengths (high IQ) and all of his weaknesses (off-beat social interaction skills). I found the way the character was portrayed was highly offensive. However, I realize it must be hard for a writer to create and write a character that is vastly more intelligent than they are. It's akin to trying to write in a language you don't know and are incapable of learning. The series is a caricature...a writer's interpretation of what 'scary smart' people must be like. There are so many directions they could have gone with this, but they'd probably need some 'scary smart' writers and there most likely aren't too many of those around.
The Mentalist is a different kind of show. It's not a show about a genius. It's a show about someone who has studied human nature intently. It can lead to some fun entertainment, but the writers have to be clever...and they usually aren't. Just pay attention to the first 10 minutes of the show & you'll guess what's going to happen 99% of the time. I think the writers have realized that because the last season or so they've given up on trying to be super-secretive with the big reveals and have included the audience in with the plotting to catch the bad guy who thinks he's smarter than everyone else but really isn't.
To tie the two shows together, I'll end with this. When Patrick Jane converses with his weekly worthy opponent, one of the lines he likes to trot out the most is, "You are the type who always thinks you are the smartest one in the room." I get the point he's trying to make. There's that one person who is looking down on everyone else with smug looks thinking that they can manipulate everyone in the room to fit their whims. However, anyone who has ever really been the smartest person in the room knows it's nothing like this. It's not a wonderful feeling at all. It's more like a numbing feeling of boredom and dread sweeping over you as you move from one person to the next trying to learn something, trying to ignite a spark of interest in something, anything, before your mind shuts down from no intellectual stimulation.
When someone is the smartest person in the room they aren't mapping out Machiavellian plots to create an army of minions. They're too busy trying to discern if they jump from that two-story window to escape into the night what the chances of twisting their ankle will be.
-Innuendo (November 02, 2014, 11:58 AM)
--- End quote ---
Heh there are some smart writers ... on the "wrong" shows! I saw a note elsewhere that several former college mathematicians are now writing for Futurama and the Simpsons! But yes, I recognized that having to churn out episodes because it's a TV show, let's say they only have one "scary" writer on the staff team - so he's burned out writing episodes 2 and 7. So maybe those come out well. So everyone else whacks at the other episodes ... with the results we're discussing.
Meanwhile for the Mentalist, notice the mood change. It was an interesting choice for it to "only" be the Cali Board of Investigation, because they had a fairly low-tech approach. Look up a couple of things from DMV, check a few surveillance cameras, then off to work the people angle.
Then when some of the actors wanted to leave and people began to tire of the exhausting Red John theme, they traveled sideways over to the FBI.
And a medium peeve is now shows are practically commercials / warnings about what all the sexy billion-dollar homeland security tech can do.
Sideways, Harlan Ellison once pointed out long ago, that networks mess with the writer's scripts all the time, so even if the writer had it right, the end show could come out demolished because some exec wanted Their Thing in there!
J-Mac:
This is another one of those "based on a true story" shows. There actually IS a Walt O'Brien who supposedly did do tech work/hacking (their word, not mine) for the government (not sure whose government) when he was a teen. Here's a link:
http://www.cnet.com/news/the-origin-of-scorpion-the-real-world-story-behind-cbss-new-drama/
Of course his "story" is having some authentication problems. 8)
Jim
Josh:
40hz:
I tried watching the pilot. I think I made it through ~20 minutes before the techno-nonsense overloaded my brain. I switched off and went and played some guitar with my GF. (And here I thought NCIS was bad!) :-\
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