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marbleglove
So I’ve been watching Person of Interest regularly as it is currently the love of my TV-watching life. The two main characters are:
Harold Finch, the secretive rich guy who was seriously injured not long ago and now has metal pins in his neck so he can’t turn his head, a limp, and chronic pain. He has a machine that identifies people who are central in some way to a violent criminal conspiracy.
John Reese, the former black-ops agent who did vicious things for his country, had a crisis of faith and desperately needs the purpose that Finch and his machine provide him.
The show is awesome!
More specifically, it uses about a dozen of my favorite tropes, which means that it, admittedly, uses a lot of standardized tropes, but they are great ones and well done, so it’s all awesome!
You can watch episodes streaming from the CBS website.
Anyway, no show can have completely invaded my psyche until I have an idea for a Highlander crossover.
There is, of course, the easy (and humorous) route of having the machine pick up an immortal who is either hunting or being hunted, but pretty much regardless does not want to be saved by our mysterious duo.
However I have a different idea:
I want Finch to be pre-immortal who knows what he is or possibly recently-immortal, i.e. post accident. There’s no way he can survive The Game or any challenge. His best hope would be to join a monastery and he’s just not willing to do that. Maybe the tragedy of his past included the fact that he knew he could wake up immortal if he just died but there was somebody he needed to live for so he chose to live, even knowing that he was giving up the potential for eternity. And then that other person didn’t survive.
Reese, on the other hand, is mortal and will always be mortal, but he knows about immortals from his shady past.
So I imagine that Reese discovers that Finch is immortal and goes through this whole process of reactions where first, he’s just surprised: Finch must be an amazing actor to keep pretending to be that disabled. Next, he’s irritated because Finch could have helped out with the active stuff more. Then he’s trying to deny his own suspicions that it’s not acting, and he wonders if Finch had the metal pins put in his neck to prevent a beheading blow, and how that wasn’t a very good idea on his part. And finally he admits that Finch is just out of luck.
Finch, on the other hand, has come to accept his own status, and essentially acknowledge that he’s not going to get forever, but at least he’ll live longer than he would if he weren’t immortal, since in that case he’d be dead.
And the whole thing is sort of bittersweet where they both know that they’re each going to die by violence but neither on the other hand, neither one will have to survive the other by very long, so there’s a silver lining of a sort. And in the mean time, the only thing they can do is to try to accomplish some good in the meantime.
At this point, I don't really have a plot in mind, just the character development aspect, but the character development aspect does keep on nibbling at my mind wanting to be written and I'm not at all sure how to go about it. Thus, someone else should. *grin*
But the general feel of the concept is all very reminiscent of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem Mutability (The flower that smiles to-day…):
I.
The flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow dies;
All that we wish to stay
Tempts and then flies.
What is this world's delight?
Lightning that mocks the night,
Brief even as bright.
II.
Virtue, how frail it is!
Friendship how rare!
Love, how it sells poor bliss
For proud despair!
But we, though soon they fall,
Survive their joy, and all
Which ours we call.
III.
Whilst skies are blue and bright,
Whilst flowers are gay,
Whilst eyes that change ere night
Make glad the day;
Whilst yet the calm hours creep,
Dream thou -- and from thy sleep
Then wake to weep.
Harold Finch, the secretive rich guy who was seriously injured not long ago and now has metal pins in his neck so he can’t turn his head, a limp, and chronic pain. He has a machine that identifies people who are central in some way to a violent criminal conspiracy.
John Reese, the former black-ops agent who did vicious things for his country, had a crisis of faith and desperately needs the purpose that Finch and his machine provide him.
The show is awesome!
More specifically, it uses about a dozen of my favorite tropes, which means that it, admittedly, uses a lot of standardized tropes, but they are great ones and well done, so it’s all awesome!
You can watch episodes streaming from the CBS website.
Anyway, no show can have completely invaded my psyche until I have an idea for a Highlander crossover.
There is, of course, the easy (and humorous) route of having the machine pick up an immortal who is either hunting or being hunted, but pretty much regardless does not want to be saved by our mysterious duo.
However I have a different idea:
I want Finch to be pre-immortal who knows what he is or possibly recently-immortal, i.e. post accident. There’s no way he can survive The Game or any challenge. His best hope would be to join a monastery and he’s just not willing to do that. Maybe the tragedy of his past included the fact that he knew he could wake up immortal if he just died but there was somebody he needed to live for so he chose to live, even knowing that he was giving up the potential for eternity. And then that other person didn’t survive.
Reese, on the other hand, is mortal and will always be mortal, but he knows about immortals from his shady past.
So I imagine that Reese discovers that Finch is immortal and goes through this whole process of reactions where first, he’s just surprised: Finch must be an amazing actor to keep pretending to be that disabled. Next, he’s irritated because Finch could have helped out with the active stuff more. Then he’s trying to deny his own suspicions that it’s not acting, and he wonders if Finch had the metal pins put in his neck to prevent a beheading blow, and how that wasn’t a very good idea on his part. And finally he admits that Finch is just out of luck.
Finch, on the other hand, has come to accept his own status, and essentially acknowledge that he’s not going to get forever, but at least he’ll live longer than he would if he weren’t immortal, since in that case he’d be dead.
And the whole thing is sort of bittersweet where they both know that they’re each going to die by violence but neither on the other hand, neither one will have to survive the other by very long, so there’s a silver lining of a sort. And in the mean time, the only thing they can do is to try to accomplish some good in the meantime.
At this point, I don't really have a plot in mind, just the character development aspect, but the character development aspect does keep on nibbling at my mind wanting to be written and I'm not at all sure how to go about it. Thus, someone else should. *grin*
But the general feel of the concept is all very reminiscent of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem Mutability (The flower that smiles to-day…):
I.
The flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow dies;
All that we wish to stay
Tempts and then flies.
What is this world's delight?
Lightning that mocks the night,
Brief even as bright.
II.
Virtue, how frail it is!
Friendship how rare!
Love, how it sells poor bliss
For proud despair!
But we, though soon they fall,
Survive their joy, and all
Which ours we call.
III.
Whilst skies are blue and bright,
Whilst flowers are gay,
Whilst eyes that change ere night
Make glad the day;
Whilst yet the calm hours creep,
Dream thou -- and from thy sleep
Then wake to weep.
