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Sep 21, 2015 By Cody Ray Shafer Web Exclusive

Remember Minority Report? The 2002 Steven Spielberg-directed sci-fi film starring Tom Cruise, loosely based on Philip K. Dick’s novel? FOX certainly hasn’t, so they’ve put together a TV series intended as a sequel to the film. I know, it’s a story we’ve all been waiting for.

But the studio’s good intentions aside, Minority Report, the TV series, owes too much to its predecessor’s aesthetic to be original, and is not imaginative enough to be interesting. If anything is apparent by mimicking that style, it’s that Spielberg’s film has aged rather well. Unfortunately, that only compounds the awareness that this series will not. Sure, the hovering selfie drone is clever, but somewhere between the hack reference to Iggy Azalea as “oldies” and reminiscing of old days when folks met up via Tinder, this future is less akin to Philip K. Dick’s prophetic vision than a Futurama joke.

So if the world established by this series is lackluster, it only means Minority Report’s story has a lot of work to do. And judging from the pilot, it’s not quite up to the task. The plot focuses on Dash (Stark Sands, Inside Llewyn Davis), one of the three Precogs from the original film, who, after years in isolation, returns to society to use his powers of future sight to try and prevent murders. He’s found out by homicide detective Lara Vega (Meagan Good, Californication), and they proceed to solve crimes as a team.

The worst thing Minority Report could do is devolve into a weekly procedural drama, a direction it is clearly poised to take. Will it revisit themes introduced by the novel and film? Maybe. But even if it does, there’s not much ground to cover on a motif after two of the most celebrated creative minds have already made their imprint.

Maybe this series will prove me wrong and actually end up becoming a step above most network television. But I don’t think we’ll need precognition to find out that scenario is pretty unlikely. (www.fox.com/minority-report)

Author rating: 4.5/10