Intelligence: Home Base + Primer

[skieswideopen]

This is the homebase post for discussions of Intelligence! (The 2014 US version; not the older Canadian show by the same name.)

Discussion Threads

1.01 Pilot
1.02 Red X
1.03 Mei Chen Returns
1.04 Secrets of the Secret Service
1.05 The Rescue
1.06 Patient Zero
1.07 Size Matters
1.08 Delta Force
1.09 Athens
1.10 Cain and Gabriel
1.11 The Grey Hat
1.12 The Event Horizon
1.13 Being Human

If anyone's looking for caps for icon purposes, you can find some here.


Also, a primer for anyone who missed the show when it aired.

Introduction to Intelligence

What happens when you take a man and stuff a computer chip in his head? Besides a lot of cool special effects?

The Premise

Intelligence is about Gabriel Vaughn (Josh Holloway), a former Delta Force operator with a particular genetic quirk that allows scientists to implant a computer chip in his head that gives him mental access to the information grid. They then assign Secret Service agent Riley Neal (Meghan Ory) to protect him and keep him in line. The former she's happy to do; the latter...not so much.

The Characters

Gabriel Vaughn. Highly-decorated soldier turned human computer. Courageous. Skilled. Occasionally reckless. And desperately searching for his CIA agent wife, who vanished seven years earlier while undercover in Mumbai.



Riley Neal. Secret Service agent. The youngest women ever assigned to Presidential detail, and the only one who made it through the vetting process to be considered as Gabriel's protector.



Lillian Strand (Marg Helgenberger). The director of US Cyber Command, with deep roots in the intelligence community.



Dr. Shenendoah Cassidy (John Billingsley), the neuroscientist who created the chip, and his son, Nelson Cassidy (P.J. Byrne), who also works as a scientist on the project.



Amos Pembroke (Eldon Henson). Yet another technician working on Clockwork.



Chris Jameson (Michael Rady). Cyber Command all-purpose extra body, good with a gun or a computer.

Comments

Re: 1.07 Size Matters

[lostdragonfound]

My one real problem with this episode is that I guessed who it was behind everything right away. As soon as he called his assistant really.

That and why did everyone open a package with no return address? I thought most people didn't do that anymore these days. Last time I went to the post office they wouldn't let anyone even mail anything without a return address.

Did we stop being careful about packages and I not notice?

Re: 1.07 Size Matters

[skieswideopen]

Yeah, I guessed it too.

Honestly, I don't ever remember being that careful about packages. Maybe because I'm in Canada?

Re: 1.07 Size Matters

[lostdragonfound]

I know we started being careful about them in the US around the time of that white powder thing...Oh Anthrax attacks in 2001 (I had to look it up). It was just after 911, and they started being extra careful about mail after that. They started asking about the contents of what you were mailing and I know my local post office wouldn't let you mail anything without putting a return address of some kind on it.

Of course these packages were light so they could have been dropped in a mailbox but still our postal system tends towards the paranoid last I checked and even if it got past all that I'm surprised that at least one scientist wasn't paranoid enough to not open an unknown package with no return address.

After 911 we started getting more vigilant about that sort of thing in general here. Though not all the scientists were in the US if I remember correctly.

So, yeah, It's probably because you're in Canada that you don't remember. It's a paranoid post 911 US thing I think :)

Re: 1.07 Size Matters

[lostdragonfound]

Oh here...

http://www.rochester.edu/emergency/mail.html

that's a good example of the mail paranoia that's been fed to us around here in the US.

Re: 1.07 Size Matters

[skieswideopen]

I remember the anthrax attacks!

I think they probably take precautions for politicians here, but there were no notices aimed at the general public that I can recall.

Re: 1.07 Size Matters

[lostdragonfound]

I remember they tried to make everyone paranoid about it here. I think scientist in the US would at least be more cautions about a suspicious package, not just because of the anthrax thing but because of bomb scares too.

I was just kind of waiting for Riley to comment on people not being careful/not following protocol about opening suspicious packages or something.

It's just a little quibble.

Re: 1.07 Size Matters

[skieswideopen]

Were a lot of scientists targeted by bombs?

Honestly, it would never occur to me as a civilian to be worried about a package, so I didn't even notice that part.

On another note, I'm thinking now about the problems that might arise from one of the bad guys knowing about Gabriel. Though I suppose we already had that Chinese agent (plus Mei Chen, of course), so maybe it doesn't add anything new to the story.

Re: 1.07 Size Matters

[lostdragonfound]

I don't know if any scientist have actually been targeted but here the culture of fear is strong amongst civilians, so I'd expect someone deemed more important would be more cautious? But maybe it depends where in the US too. I've heard that NYC are is still super alert and I'm about an hour north of the Boston area and since the Marathon bombings last year the whole fear thing/extra caution has increased. Maybe we're just crazy paranoid over here on the east coast of the US ;)