When "Person Of Interest" (POI) first debuted in the fall of 2011, i was immediately hooked. It had a wonderful combination of an irresistible and compelling mass surveillance premise and a great and talented cast, led by Jim Caviezel and Michael Emerson, as Messrs. John Reese and Harold Finch, respectively. These were role reversals for the leads. Typecast as the suffering Jesus in Mel Gibson's "The Passion Of The Christ" in 2004, Caviezel, as a presumed-dead CIA spy/assassin, gets to kick serious butt this time around with his fighting and firearms skills. Similarly, Emerson, fresh from his eerie, creepy anti-hero/villain role of Ben Linus in the TV series "Lost," now gets to play the suffering and tragedy-laden reclusive billionaire software genius who hires Reese to help him prevent premeditated crimes, particularly murders, from taking place. Their only clue was the Social Security Number provided by Finch's all-seeing, all-hearing "Machine." The problem was that The Machine's closed system precluded the heroes from knowing whether the SSN was that of the victim or the perpetrator. With that basic premise, the show immediately became a top-rated series. Unfortunately, at the end of its fourth season, the CBS network decided to pull the plug and, so as not to anger the fans, end the series via a compressed/condensed final fifth season of only 13 episodes. This forced the producers and writers to drastically speed up the plots, sub-plots and all of the proceedings to come up with an series ending and finale that generated strong mixed feelings from its audience. Nevertheless, this four-and-a-half season show remains among the best in modern TV history, with its very high production values, superb writing and terrific acting. My purchase of the Final Fifth Season now completes my POI collection. Glad to see that Best Buy continues its friendly pricing for DVD sets.
