Basic plot; in the future the world is run by corporations. A group of terrorists (or freedom fighters, as you will) commit a 9/11 style crime and are captured/sentenced to death. However, just as they are to be executed they manage to smuggle in a time machine and slip away into the past with a cop unwittingly coming along for the ride. Now in their past, our present, they have weekly bad guy trying to destroy the world, good guy trying to stop them hi-jinks.
The production values are decent but not amazing. The acting is unspectacular but not awful. There are numerous plot holes here, but none worth getting too upset about. The real thing worth talking about with this show is the extreme conservative viewpoint. Not only is the corporate control of the future not challenged, it is actively championed by the writers. Lack of privacy, restraints implanted into suspects that deliver electric shocks until they report to the courthouse for hearings, a total lack of anything resembling a bill of rights; not only are these "realities" presented as matter-of-fact for the future, but no one in the future is shown as having any problem with them whatsoever except lowlifes and blood thirsty murderers.
To sell this view the show has cast a pretty, sympathetic police officer as the main protagonist. Her sense of justice is unswerving, her bag of technological goodies apparently bottomless. She is the only one who understands how crazy these terrorists are. Well, her and a teenage boy (and future corporate titan) designing technology 60 years ahead of it's time in his barn. Together they push past the red tape of the bleeding heart laws and legal system to stop the villains.
I have never seen SciFi this skewed before. I forced myself to watch the first three shows with gritted teeth, waiting for the show to present the opposing view, but it never happened. The only people on the show shown to be opposed to this vision of the future are literally murderous sociopaths. At some point it hit me. The worship of the industrialists, the complete lack of sympathy for the downtrodden, these are the exact views of Ayn Rand. This is SciFi for neo-cons.
Now, personally I find this show so offensive I can't even begin to describe how much I hate it. At best I think it's thinly veiled propaganda with a pretty leading lady and plenty of guns and explosions thrown in to draw in the brain dead. But my conservative friends are always very earnestly upset about what they see as the liberal bias in the media. I don't agree, but I suppose that it's fair that neo-cons get their own show. Bottom line, while I REALLY don't like the philosophy espoused here, I suppose it's decent middle of the road SciFi fare. Watch it to get your weekly fill of jokes about how bad government is and what unpatriotic jerks people who talk about personal liberties are.
The production values are decent but not amazing. The acting is unspectacular but not awful. There are numerous plot holes here, but none worth getting too upset about. The real thing worth talking about with this show is the extreme conservative viewpoint. Not only is the corporate control of the future not challenged, it is actively championed by the writers. Lack of privacy, restraints implanted into suspects that deliver electric shocks until they report to the courthouse for hearings, a total lack of anything resembling a bill of rights; not only are these "realities" presented as matter-of-fact for the future, but no one in the future is shown as having any problem with them whatsoever except lowlifes and blood thirsty murderers.
To sell this view the show has cast a pretty, sympathetic police officer as the main protagonist. Her sense of justice is unswerving, her bag of technological goodies apparently bottomless. She is the only one who understands how crazy these terrorists are. Well, her and a teenage boy (and future corporate titan) designing technology 60 years ahead of it's time in his barn. Together they push past the red tape of the bleeding heart laws and legal system to stop the villains.
I have never seen SciFi this skewed before. I forced myself to watch the first three shows with gritted teeth, waiting for the show to present the opposing view, but it never happened. The only people on the show shown to be opposed to this vision of the future are literally murderous sociopaths. At some point it hit me. The worship of the industrialists, the complete lack of sympathy for the downtrodden, these are the exact views of Ayn Rand. This is SciFi for neo-cons.
Now, personally I find this show so offensive I can't even begin to describe how much I hate it. At best I think it's thinly veiled propaganda with a pretty leading lady and plenty of guns and explosions thrown in to draw in the brain dead. But my conservative friends are always very earnestly upset about what they see as the liberal bias in the media. I don't agree, but I suppose that it's fair that neo-cons get their own show. Bottom line, while I REALLY don't like the philosophy espoused here, I suppose it's decent middle of the road SciFi fare. Watch it to get your weekly fill of jokes about how bad government is and what unpatriotic jerks people who talk about personal liberties are.