OrangeCarrot writes, I don’t know if you guys covered John Doe before, but I consider it scifi/fantasy and the premiere episode was really well done. I’d come here to post chatty comments about it if you posted reviews and such.
Thanks,
OrangeCarrot We don’t currently have plans to review that show, but I enjoyed the first episode. It runs on Fox after Firefly. We might as well use this for a starting point in discussion. What did you all think of last week’s episode? Why don’t you come back later and tell us what you think of tonight’s episode?
skinny geek: “the entire binary code to MSDOS!!!”
Other than that, it has ‘potential’
I liked it
Nice start for the series. I plan on watching it after Firefly each week. I was afraid it would be a Prentender clone, but I found myself liking the main character a lot more (The Pretender seemed a bit too full of himself for my taste).
Now that Sci-Fi’s crippling their Friday night lineup, this could be a very cool pairing for some time to come.
Good start for a series
I have to admit that I was somewhat skeptical but I had nothing better to do so I watched it. As a series opener goes, it’s pretty good; you get a good introduction into the situation.
I got the “Pretender” feel fairly quickly but I had a better vibe over all. Probably a result of the amnesia thing; it makes everything a lot more mysterious.
I got a Shelock Holmes vibe off the thing as well. They way he did his investigation seemed like the way Holmes would go about it with all the modern gewgaws available today. Of course, that could just be the result of me having been reading Sherlock Holmes stories lately.
I would say the next two or three episodes will make or break the series. If they keep up the pace, I think it’ll be worth watching even if it doesn’t turn out to be the next big blockbuster.
Re: Good start for a series
It’s been several years since I’ve read any Holmes books, but you are right. It’s nearly dead-on for the character. Good observation!
good, but
It’s good, but it needs to improve in some areas. Just what does he not know? He can’t be omniscient, or he would have known where the little girl was.
It was the last scene that I found most troubling, however. If I have amnesia, I don’t know who I am, and then someone is calling out to me from a boat leaving harbor, I don’t just stare at the boat. I hop in the water and fricking swim to catch up. I get on that boat no matter what. The protagonist, John Doe, just stands there dumbfounded.
Other than that, it looks really good. I enjoyed the helpful household tips the most, like using yogurt on drain clogs. Gotta try that next time.
Re: good, but
Apparently he does that after the episode ends, the woman in question is a part of tonight’s episode.
Re: good, but
My bad, apparently she doesn’t. Still, cutting through a 1/2in thick sheet of plexi with a nail file for a finger print sounds just as extreme.
Short rope?
I liked the way he had to learn how to drive, rather than just knowing, even if he has a highly accelerated learning curve. And when the girl asked when she was going to die, he was clueless.
He’s not omnipotent, he can’t forsee the future, but he’s clearly not normal. I wonder when he’ll turn his home lab to looking at his DNA chains…
Although the show has promise, I have to wonder how long it’ll last on the “Who am I” premise alone. But then X-Files did fine looking for “The Truth”, so it’s anyone’s guess.
Could be my favorite new show.
I love the noir feel of the show. I’m sure all of the supporting
characters will rally around him, but the amnesia will still give it
that great one man against the world vibe. I think the pilot was a
flawless intro to the show (Unlike Firefly but that was Fox’s fault not
Joss Wheadon). Besides I think William Forsythe is one of the best
character actors out there.
Similarities
The show is shaping up. It seems to have at least 3 seasons worth of mystery. I have to draw a few parallels to other attempts at this plot, there’s at least one that hasn’t been mentioned. We can all see The Pretender and The X-Files in it. I’m surprised no one has mentioned The Sentinal yet, especially with the Seattle connection. The Sentinal was the cop with advanced senses who worked with a African American cop and had a young hip sidekick. Wow, sound familiar? The main character of that show also had limited knowledge of the origin of his ability. Now we’ve got a similar set of characters shaping up.
Now, the bar in this show is becoming one of the backdrops of the show. This combined with a main character with special abilities draws closely to Early Edition. That show was about this Chicago bar owner who, for some reason, got tomorrow mornings paper today.
Why do I bring these shows up? I think whoever came up with the concept for this show took the best parts of the other shows and let them go to Horseshoe Island and procreate. Out of that came John Doe.
Tonights episode felt like The Sentinal more than any of the others. It’s a pretty good follow up to the premiere. Something that came out of Doe tonight was a slight sense of futility in his search for himself. Judging by the shows ending it would seem that, indeed, his identity will find him, not vise-versa.
So, that’s my post for the B42 folks. Thanks for bringing Doe to my Internet.
Oh yeah…and another thing….
Why do there seem to be only 5 freakin’ people on that ship??!!
On TOS or TNG you’d see cast extras walking around the corridors, yoemen asking the Captain to sign stuff or just bring him coffee, maybe a new helmsman once in a while.
But this seems to be a friggin’ ghost ship with only the central characters usually show. Cheap ass producers :(
John Doe
so john doe is on every friday . i missed the second episode i was looking for it but no luck.id like to know what happened so if any one could fill me in id be thankful.
Re: John Doe
There were four plot threads that are likely to last. He went to extremes to get the woman’s fingerprint off the glass she was banging on, but there was no match in the polic database. The second thread was when the young girl was fired (she was working under a fake I.D.) and eventually convinced him to let her join him as an assistant. The third thread was a side effect of the second; the hot dog guy told him that the only sure thing about looking for that woman was that he wouldn’t find her until he stopped looking, so he threw his ring into the water and decided to let the girl join him. The fourth was at the end. A newspaper article included his picture in an article headlined “Savant Doe aids police.” Some remarkably well funded organization in what appears to be the Middle East has staff members who recognize him. That was the final shot of the episode.
The “mystery of the week” was pretty good, but I doubt it’ll have lasting implications, so I’ll leave it unspoiled. I recommend tracking it down in a rerun as soon as possible.
Re: John Doe
just a note for those trying to catch up, the ring he threw into the water was one he bought in the ep, not one that he already had on from the start. he went to a jewelry store to try on a ring to see if it stirred up any memories. he couldn’t get it off, and instead of waiting for the lady behind the counter to dig up some lotion to help get it off, he just dropped a wad of cash and left with it. part of the episode involved him pondering over the ring in various scenes.
Re: John Doe
Ah. I lost the broadcast for ten minutes following the first commercial break. Was that when this happened?
Re: John Doe
If you keep up with the show on the website, there are monthly
“cases” to solve. If you solve them you get bonus clips not in the
episode. The first one is Cairo, which I am guessing is the city
shown at the end of the episode.
Weekly column
It seems that none of our regular writers will have time to review this, but it’s obvious that there’s a lot to talk about. So, unless someone would like to volunteer to write those reviews for us, we’ll just set up a weekly review-free discussion forum such as this one.
m biggest fear
my biggest fear about this show, which i’m enjoying a lot, is that they will totally trip up when they get around to explaining his ability. psychic powers? computer implants? aliens (ugh)? it will be very interesting to see how they go about that.