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Posted by krthr 4 hours ago

Person of Interest(krthr.co)
214 points | 138 commentspage 4
yewenjie 4 hours ago|
I don't what HN's opinion of Mr. Robot is, but some of you will definitely like it.

It's not really about hacking, but it depicted technology and hacking in an extraordinarily level of correctness.

matsemann 4 hours ago||
I absolutely can't stand shows where the protagonist has to deal with their own self inflicted issues due to drugs. Maybe because I'm sheltered, or maybe it's a bigger issue in the US than where I live, but I just can't relate at all, and just get annoyed that it's used to add conflicts to a story where I just feels it sidetracks. Like, just get on with it.

As an aside, same with cheating in movies/series. While it's probably more common than I know it to be where I live, it possibly cannot be as ubiquitous as American medias (and social medias) make it out to be. Again, just an annoyance detracting from the story, and again can't relate. I had to quit "Making a Murderer" over it. At some point in season two or something, absolutely everyone in the main cast were involved in cheating. All the students, the teacher, a policeman, some lawyers. Like, what the hell.

Sorry about the rant. But I really really wanted to like Mr Robot. But having tried to get into it twice I'm a bit miffed.

stalfie 3 hours ago|||
It is arguably a very uninspired literary device to set up conflicts, but it is unfortunately not exactly unrealistic. Estimates are that more than a third of western society, probably closer to half, meet the DSM-5 criteria for substance use disorder at some point in their lives. Roughly a little less than a third will cheat on their partner during their lifetime, closer to half will have their partner cheat on them. These numbers are after a rough fact check courtesy of whatever Gemini model is in Google search, my own rough sense and knowledge of the literature is just that it's very common.

Uninspired as they might be as literary devices, drug abuse and cheating are common themes in actual human existence.

detourdog 2 hours ago||
Not trying to normalize usage in anyway. I just wonder if a behavior is well represented in a society is it still a disorder?

The behavior while under the influence should get labeled but the usage might be normal. People being angry or not taking responsibility deserves a label from the DSM. If a large population is ingesting things this might be normal.

cluckindan 2 hours ago||
It might be that some sort of intoxication is the normal and abstaining from intoxication is the thing that’s normalized.
yewenjie 1 hour ago||||
Spoiler: it's not drugs, you have to watch it till the end, and I mean it, really until the final season. I can't say much more than this without spoiling the very heart of the show.
jdeisenberg 1 hour ago||
In the final season, Mr. Robot does some fairly ambitious episodes. One of them is a continuous tracking shot (or made to appear as one) that goes through the entire episode. Another one has no spoken dialogue for the majority of the episode. A very well-written show. And yes, you really do need to see it all the way through.
lucasoshiro 2 hours ago|||
> As an aside, same with cheating in movies/series

As an aside from an aside, I find very interesting how every couple of main characters in movies has couple problems (cheating, lost of interest, one of them don't want to engage the other, etc). Taking a look at my list of recently watched movies (including very diverse ones, like Godfather, KPop Demon Hunters, Whiplash, Sunset Boulevard, Up, etc) and I cant't find a single one that we don't question whether the couple will stay together...

Actually, the only two exceptions that I remember are Marty/Jennifer from Back to the Future and Ferris/Sloane from Ferris Bueller's Day Off...

amiga386 4 hours ago|||
https://starecat.com/content/wp-content/uploads/whats-your-a...
pmlnr 4 hours ago|||
The first episode is genius.

Then it becomes a completely different show.

So I love the first episode, and I was left really empty in the later seasons. It's definitely not for me, but I hold on to it believing it'll be different. It wasn't.

See also the very last episode of Ragnarok (Netflix), which absolutely trashes the whole show.

nbaksalyar 1 hour ago|||
> It's definitely not for me

Fair enough! :) However,

> it becomes a completely different show

in terms of setting expectations, maybe. But overall, the surprising thing about Mr Robot is that it stays very consistent throughout all 4 seasons. It becomes especially apparent if you rewatch season 1 after finishing the show: there is a lot of foreshadowing that's really easy to miss.

gcanyon 2 hours ago|||
> Ragnarok

Has any show, EVER, betrayed its fans, its premise, its characters, and just all the evidence and events portrayed previously than that show?

(Spoilers) How many times did we the audience see other characters, alone, experience supernatural things? e.g. Loki with the midguard serpent?

The only way for that ending to make sense is if the company had accidentally released a chemical that gave the entire town psychosis.

As written it was bad, and the writers/directors should be ashamed.

Consider this your warning, anyone who happens to see it on Netflix: DO NOT WATCH.

jrm4 4 hours ago||
Hehe, it kind of reminds me of an extreme (classic) Law and Order in that regard, but for hacking/tech.

Wildly unrealistic facts and how people are, like the janitor who finds eight bodies in a cellar talking to the cops like it happens everyday, but also gets nearly every tiny bit of New York law technically correct.

insidiousa 4 hours ago||
https://www.netflix.com/watch/70296223
totetsu 3 hours ago||
looking at my apple social graph on my hdd as seen here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50403097

Im feeing the premis of this show is not so far off..

s_u_d_o 4 hours ago||
Would I enjoy watching it for the first-time today? Or I should’ve watched it before, and re-watch it now to have this feeling/realization?
freakynit 3 hours ago||
You'll feel more at home watching it now, than a few years back, before all the AI developments that have happened in past few years.

It'll be eerily more relatable now. This show was way ahead of it's time, and damn accurate.

The_Blade 1 hour ago|||
i just burned through it for the first time and had the same impression. i had brushed it off as a procedural (and it sort of starts that way) but it seems oddly LLM (or Palantir) prescient, with the quality of a Nolan / Abrams joint (use of Philip Glass in the last ep kinda kills me). and as a guilty pleasure i enjoyed the cameos, among others i can watch any scene with Lester Freamon or Marlo Stanfield
radu_floricica 3 hours ago|||
This. It sounds unlikely, but it's exactly like this. All the stuff that was supposed to be somewhat science fiction back then, now you just nod and say "makes perfect sense".
tisdadd 1 hour ago||
I have a friend I watched it with who likes to call and say, "POI Stuff seems like it is happening."
BrentOzar 4 hours ago|||
You'd definitely enjoy watching it for the first time today, but note the filming & release dates when you're watching. It's eerie how prescient a lot of it is.
Dreami 3 hours ago|||
I watched it for the first time starting this year. And at some point you realize: wait this part was Sci-fi when the show came out and now we have it, but many use it to just alter a recipe or something
e12e 4 hours ago|||
I'm currently rewatching Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Person of Interest - I think both stand up surprisingly well.
noir_lord 4 hours ago||
Worth watching, first season is good after that it’s great.

Second only to Justified on my list of “consistently brilliant across entire run”.

There are parts of PoI that stick with you long after the show.

Not saying which because spoilers, it’s one of those shows that is better for knowing little about it before watching.

s_u_d_o 1 hour ago||
Okay it looks very interesting. I’ll definitely start it soon
Semaphor 4 hours ago||
Loved that show when it came out. Rewatched it with my wife a few years ago, still great.
Brajeshwar 4 hours ago||
Rewatched a few times. Unfortunately, around the end seasons, it became predictable and “extended”. There are quite a few screens on their computer that were borrowed from unsuspecting sources — such as the screens from the App, DaisyDisk.

https://x.com/brajeshwar/status/1733390176112800037

dave7 4 hours ago||
Incredibly prescient show, I loved it at the time and it's definitely worthy of a rewatch soon.

> I also find it pretty crazy and, frankly, a little sad to think that something like the Machine, which seemed like pure science fiction at the time, isn't all that far from our reality today.

Yeah. "You are being watched. The govt. has a secret system - a machine - that spies on you every hour of every day". The opening words from the show's title sequence - Jumped straight to mind after the revelations of Microsoft building "a machine" for the IDF on Azure not so long ago.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/06/microsoft-isra...

eclectric 2 hours ago|
I love how well done the several versions of this opening statement are depending on the story line.
tosh 4 hours ago||
great show, if you haven't watched it yet
2Gkashmiri 3 hours ago||
It's one of those gems in the wild.

If there is a show that I can rewatch, it's this.

I am more interested in how the philosophy of the show, how the ethics tie into real world implications.

We talk about open source licenses in a grand manner which some might say " why does it matter" but this show shows how the philosophical decisions tie into overall ideas and what it can do.

nikosklms 3 hours ago|
Reese and Finch carried that entire show. The way their dynamic shifted over the first two seasons was easily the best part of the run lmao
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