User Reviews

Great show but how long will it last? Really there has been a lot of hate. And a lot of mixed reviews. But the premiere had up to 14M people watching. But the jury is still out.

Lots of potential but needs some fine retuning. Elyse Gabel a Brit, puts on the American accent as the main protagonist. As a child he got arrested for hacking into the NASA thing that got him into trouble.

He also owns a tech thing with geniuses that have IQ between him and the three others, 700 but has lack of people skills. But they are behind in debt and forgot to pay the electric bill. They do not know how to handle money huh?

But when Homeland Security agent Cabe Gallo played by Robert Patrick, gives them a new lease on life despite his and Walter O'Brien, the main character's name history in the past.

They must land up to sixty planes with help of technology or 20,000 people in CA will die. They commandeer the diner where Katherine McPhee's character works with a young son, who is a genius but her POV is that he is autistic. Go figure at a diner and not LAX!

Still it is only the beginning of the relationship and McPhee really is good in this show. Showing her acting skills. Gabel is a great actor with lots of potential as well as the rest of the supporting cast.

But how long will it last despite fine acting but needs retuning and needs better scripts.

Since there are many negative review out there, let me do justice to this series and especially the pilot episode

What to Expect..

please don't expect this to be a documentary or even realistic take on any situation that Walter o'Brien could possibly face. This is a genius case solving crime show after all with some twists.

secondly, this show is really good at handling emotion related dialogue but terrible at handling logic case solving, and it suffers as the show is ultimately based on the crime solving and tension building part. Therefore, the show isn't intelligent or genius in anyway itself, but it's a good character study for some of the issues.

How does it start?

The first scene of the show is the break up scene between the troubled genius, Walter and his soon to be ex girlfriend, notice that although it's portrayed that his ex is a normal human being, she is wearing a lab coat suggesting a higher education degree and high level of intelligence. This is crucial as this scene suggests the difference between genius and normal smart human being, as geniuses don't just have higher than normal skill levels, but poccess mental abilities that totally surpass human capacity. This plays an important role as the other main lead, Paige, the waitress can't comprehend her genius son, and called him "mentally challenged".

This parallel is a good setup in its own way coupled with the situation of the TV fixing scene and the pseudo chess play between Walter and Paige's son, Ralph using sugar bottles. Again not a bad scene to indicate the loneliness of being a genius. And it deserves to be noticed.

What's the problem of this show?

the problem, in its core, is that it's pretty generic followed by this point, the team is nothing new: an OCD type nerd, a womanizer dressed but really romantic trouble maker, a chick who can do dude stuff better than dude and a team lead who is a CIA or FBI.

Yep, pretty generic when you look this way. Although you have to realize that the loneliness and misunderstanding part of being a genius is handled pretty well in some of the later scenes too, it's really not that worth the time, as some of the other reviews point out, the plane-will-crush scenario will unlikely to happen, and even if it is, it has nothing to do with software failure, but hardware failures. I will not get into that.

All in all, I wouldn't say it's bad, but you have to like the character in order to love this show, especially the pilot, if you don't want to turn off your brain and you are looking for something intelligent to see, I wouldn't suggest this show.

OK...... the ATC lost communication with everything single planes because there is a "automatic software update"?? Then.... they have a backup that they can restore but none of the IT guy in LAX airport realize that they can restore the system? Then they need a guy with iQ 197 to remind them they can restore from backup? Then.... the backup only keep 24hrs so they have a few hour left to get it???? Then the backup is lock in a office that is closed on weekend you need to physically break into the office and pull out the harddisk before the automatic backup will not overwrite the old backup??? WTF?? You can remotely upload backup to that office but you cannot restore from that office remotely???? The worse part of the script is..... they managed to get the harddisk but it is magnetized and damaged by the speakers in the car???? The script is a joke.....

I LOVED this pilot. So exciting and makes you want to watch more. The bit when Toby comes running into view and the music is great. The instant chemistry between Paige and Walter is obvious and love the interaction with Ralph.

There may be spoilers here, so consider yourself warned.

I like the concept, but the problem the writers came up with for the genius squad to solve is ridiculous.

Due to a software problem, air traffic control system at LAX is inoperative. Somehow this means that dozens of airliners awaiting clearance to land simply can't do so. One pilot is even afraid to descend for fear of hitting another plane. But 30 minutes later a pilot (maybe the same one) has no problem buzzing the airport twice! Also, Air Force fighters are in the area and primed to shoot down dozens of airliners because they can't land.

In what universe does that make sense?

If that airliner can buzz an airfield, why can't it also land there? Why can't all the airliners divert to San Diego, San Francisco, Las Vegas, etc.?

The producers seem to have figured that no one will care about the glaring plot hole if characters are interesting and suspense is maintained. They were probably right, as the series is successful. But it doesn't say much about critical thinking ability of average Americans.