Minority Report, Blindspot, and Limitless: Similar Scenarios

I've been watching, enjoying, and reviewing three new network series this Fall:

Minority Report on Fox, Blindspot on NBC, and Limitless on CBS (I also love Nashville on ABC - just so that network shouldn't feel excluded - but it's not pertinent to this post).   Anyway, I realized last night that the three series have very similar setups.

Minority Report and Limitless are the closest: Both feature a guy with science fictional powers (Dash on Minority Report can see the future, Brian on Limitless becomes the smartest person in the world when he takes the fictional drug NZT).  Both team with hot female cops (Dash with Lara, Brian with FBI-agent Rebecca), and have to contend with superiors and co-workers who don't appreciate or fully comprehend what the pairs are doing.

Blindspot reverses the genders - Jane is the point-of-view character (she's also hot), teamed with Kurt at the FBI - and she doesn't have science-fictional powers.   But she has super training as a SEAL, and, like Dash and Brian, is a victim as well as hero.   And she and Kurt have to contend with colleagues and superiors who oppose, distrust and otherwise don't believe in them.

What are the source of these similarities?   Minority Report and Limitless both derive from movies, which in turn were adaptations of a short story ("The Minority Report" by Philip K. Dick) and a novel (The Dark Fields by Alan Glynn). The FBI played no role in the previous Limitless versions, but does in its TV series and in Blindspot, which had no previous incarnation.

Well, the FBI is good to bring into any television series, even though it doesn't guarantee massive success, as witness what happened to The Following.   Maybe the similarity is the result of some kind of corporate espionage, which raises the interesting question of which series came up with these similar scenarios first?

Calling Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. to get on the case and figure this out.  (Or maybe Cie McCullough, a reader on Facebook who caught a possible error in an earlier version of this post.)

See Minority Report 1.1: Boding Well ... Blindspot 1.1: Good to See, Or, Coronet Blue meets The Illustrated Man ... Limitless 1.2: Genghis Khan Gene

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Limitless TV 1.2: Genghis Khan Gene

Limitless was a fine movie, released in 2011, starring Bradley Cooper as a guy whose intelligence is augmented to genius+ level by a drug NZT.   The movie was fast, funny, serious, and mainly featured Cooper's character Eddie Morra using his enhanced intellect to best a mobster, get back the love of his life, and turn the tables on a brilliant corporate exec played by Robert De Niro.

Limitless the television series, which debuted on CBS last week, shows signs in its first two episodes of being even better.  First and foremost, the series tells the story of Brian Finch, who also takes NZT, and his work with FBI, in particular with Agent Rebecca Harris, played by Dexter's Jennifer Carpenter.   The pace of the series is also fast and funny - Brian puts together a video compilation to help solve a crime, and puts in a little background music, because it's "cooler" - and takes on some cutting-edge issues, just the other side of the real into the realm science fiction (which makes sense, given that NZT is itself science fiction).   The story in episode 1.2, for example, features a virus designed to target descendants of Genghis Kahn, a prolific breeder.

But what makes this television series really notable is the way it integrates the movie.  The story of Eddie Morra - still played by Bradley Cooper, itself a real coup for television - indeed picks up on TV right where it concluded in the movie, with Morra a US Senator from the state of New York.   He supplies Brian with an injection that makes Brian immune to the destructive physical consequences of longterm NZT use, and proceeds to use that to run Brian.  But Morra's ultimate agenda is not yet clear in the TV series - which adds a layer of suspense and tension above the difficulties Brian has with his family and the FBI.

I can't recall a spinoff or sequel or remake ever set up or rolled out like this, and that alone would make me want to see how all of this develops.  But Limitless the TV series on its own is first-class viewing, and I'll be back with reviews throughout the season.  (Thanks to my Facebook friend Cie McCullough for calling my attention to the series.)

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