- Title: Intelligence – Athens
- tv.com: link
When Cyber Command is attacked by a computer virus and EMP Gabriel’s (Josh Holloway) chip is effected leaving him with temporary amnesia and the governmental installation cut-off from the outside world. The chaos caused by the attack leaves the facility open to the recently-escaped Jin Cong (Will Yun Lee) to waltz right into Cyber Com, turn Gabriel from an enemy into a friend with a little misinformation courtesy of the virus, and steal all of Clockwork’s secrets. However, before he can leave there’s one more thing he wants: The Athens List (a list of children with the same genetic anomalies of Gabriel making them eligible to one day have chips of their own).
With the villains in control of everything they came for, thanks in large part to Gabriel’s thoroughness, it falls on Riley (Meghan Ory) to talks some sense back into her partner leading to a final act showdown between Gabriel and Jin Cong. After doing his own part with a stun bomb to temporarily take down the terrorists, Dr. Shenendoah Cassidy (John Billingsley) fixes the errors in the chip (and set defenses against a similar EMP attack in the future) but also is forced into agreeing to protect a list he thought had long ago been destroyed.
The unique situation of Gabriel being under the influence of a hostile third party works to keep everyone on their toes. Playing the heart is stronger than the head card, Gabriel’s emotions (which often get in the way) help Riley to lead him back to the right path before things spiral any further out of control. However, Jin Cong’s plan seems a tad more complicated than he could have come up with by himself in a Chinese prison, and his armed group (of many, many nameless soldiers) are able to walk into a government facility under lockdown with the ease of shooting the valet and strolling into an unguarded hotel lobby. You’d think they’d have more security.
I can’t say just how disappointing I was with this episode. The series has an excellent premise but I don’t think they are doing a very good job of bringing it to the small screen.
I would point out that the best computer chips we have use about 100 watts of electricity. The human brain uses about 25 watts. If you stuck a decent computer chip in a human brain, it would cook your brain in about an hour if not less. But ok. Lets ignore that issue and say a chip was developed. There is still a bandwidth problem, only so much information can be downloaded at once, as almost every wifi user in the world knows. And even if you had a special connection the human mind can only take so much data at once. It wouldn’t make you super intelligent or able to digest this information, unless they stuck the chip in him when he was a baby so he could learn to accept it all.
But lets forget about that too. Just like the show forgets everything that happened in the last episode, or the one before that. This show basically resets every episode and ignores everything that came before. Where is the Asian Chip In Her Head Girl? Are they looking for her?
By the way, just how many radar domes does any one building need?
But all that aside, Josh Holloway just doesn’t fit the part. He seems to be constantly snide and sarcastic. He only has one acting face. Perhaps they should toss his wife down a well so they can get an emotion from him that isn’t pure sarcasm or snide.
The fight choreographing in this episode between the Chinese guy and Josh was simply amateurish. Really disappointing. Some really great fight choreographing can be seen in the last three James Bonds movies. The fighting seen in this episode of Intelligence reminds me of 1960’s tv fighting. Delta force fighters don’t fight like slap happy teenage girls.
Why does chip boy’s chaperone have a bullet proof vest and not chip boy himself? And why a midriff vest for her? They might as well have given her a midriff shirt too, to show of her belly button.
One of the worst parts of the Athens episode was when the lead scientist says something along the lines of “It just goes to show the real decisions aren’t made with the mind, it’s made with the heart.”
I so wanted to throw something at my TV for one of the most moronic lines in TV history. A scientist saying the heart makes decisions. Either the writers are complete morons or the writers think the audience are all complete morons.
The problem with this show is Holloway probably cost a lot of money, so the Network ensured they had a finger in the pie. Probably an entire arm, right up to the shoulder, and they keep interfering. The Network executives always think they can make shows better. Well, that’s one problem. The other problems are the writers, the choreographers and Josh himself.
Then we saw the clip for the upcoming episode. The fifty five year old woman in charge of the operation appears to have a 10 year old daughter. Riiiight. What is wrong with those writers?