Cue the next implausible surveillance state dystopia. While this kind of system may be somewhat plausible in Asia and other parts of the world with generally lax checks and balances on government power, it is implausible Brazilians would support a blatantly ludicrously abusable and invasive system... To suggest otherwise is a stern insult to their intelligence, no matter how ignorant segments of the commons are to the dangers of totalitarianism.
In Omniscient, the state has achieved totality in information gathering, or at least near totality. The issue is their surveillance "dragonflies" suffer from tunnel vision, unable to capture a full degree of spatial awareness beyond their focused target. Basically these small tiny flying machines are assigned to surveil each person within city boundaries...
Of course if you sneak in and don't manage to bump into anyone under surveillance... You beat the system. Worse yet, these dragonflies have replaced all means of accountability and law enforcement, save for some humans still being used to make arrests.
These dragonflies are connected to a system of artificial intelligence, basically a machine learning platform, coded by humans by a private company... These things alone determine whether or not someone is guilty of a crime... Summarily... With no courts or human review.
So, the protagonist's father is killed, who is an employee of said private company... This is merely a conspiracy to get the protagonist to break into said company (which she also works for, following in daddy's footsteps)... And break the system even more... Giving her access to the surveillance footage, of which humans are never intended to see... Being the good and well-intended person she is, she only uses it to discover the culprit of her father's murder...
The culprit initially points to a hired gun, who... Snuck into the city via the sewers, completely getting around the supposed "omniscient" automated Big Brother...
Who turns out to be hired by the same person who assisted the protagonist to break into the company in the first place to get access to the surveillance footage... This person intends to use such access to give them unprecedented power by having seemingly limitless information on everyone within metropolitan boundaries.
There's multiple blatant problems with this whole story... For one, I find it extremely implausible that metropolitan Brazilians would support a system that puts the justice system entirely in the hands of an artificial intelligence designed by a private company... Never mind permitting themselves to be under surveillance at all times of the day, no matter what situation they're in. The problem isn't so much the reliance on said technology... It is the total lack of accountability of said technology. Too many things could easily go wrong, and while such a system may be plausible under strict checks and balances... It is an insult to the intelligence of Brazilians to suggest they would support a system with absolutely no checks and balances, save for some drastically apocalyptic event that permanently alters society as they know it.
This series may have been better to be done in a very alternate reality, or in a different country altogether. While Brazil is far from being a perfect democracy today, it is also considerably far from the kind of totalitarianism depicted in the series.
The other issue with this series, like many, is that it does have some sexual gratuity... With absolutely no necessity to the overarching plot and theme of the series. Basically, at one point, the viewer is treated to the camera focusing on the erect nipples of one of the actresses. This only happens for one episode and is completely unnecessary. All other love scenes do not show such, so it leads me to believe that the director simply did this because they could with this specific actress. While I don't have a problem necessarily with "love" scenes, this one just seemed to be there just for the sake of titillating the audience, a cheap tactic of keeping viewer interest without going to the effort of adding substance or depth.
All romantic subplots in this series are devoid of any actual emotional intimacy, although this may be intentional to show the naivety of the youth in this alternate society.
Now, the show does have some good moments, especially when the protagonist is going through the struggle of beating the system herself to investigate the murder of her father, but overall it is forgettable and doesn't bring anything really of depth or originality to the genre. The performances are well done however.
Very good show about chess - actual Grandmasters worked together with the production team so the games themselves are of pretty good quality. But this show is about much more than the game of chess, it just provides a great background for the story of Beth Harmon. Beth was dealt a pretty rough hand in life, being orphaned in her childhood because her psychotic mother could not take care of her. She eventually gets adopted but even then it's not all smiles and sunshine as life still manages to throw a wrench in the gears every time it's looking up for her.
One thing to critique about the show is Moses Ingram's character, Beth's childhood friend Jolene whom she met at the orphanage. She turns up later in the series again to become the Black Woman Ex Machina and despite the show lampshading it, it still comes off as very tropey. Other than that though, it was a thoroughly enjoyable ride and for sure has sparked my passion for chess recently.
Everything just feels different in this show, to me at least. I like how Donnie is, I like how Raph is the leader and how he's very encouraging, but I absolutely despise Leo and Mikey. Spilnter was done dirty and April is awful. I wish Warren Stone and Baron Draxum had shown up more, but I still loved them but that does not mean I liked the show. I hated the split episodes, the continuity errors, and dumbass Leo and Mikey. April was such a bully, so why make her black if you were going to ruin her. You could have written her to be a great friend and ally, but instead you made her into a bully, and the writers are racist because she's black and a bully! I hate Nickelodeon but they own the turtles so I am in pain!
