Century City is the new CBS law series set in 2030. The usual array of grim, earnest, idealistic, and comic lawyers are present but the cases they take are extrapolations of situations currently in the news, like cloning.
Enough summary. The first episode was altogether too preachy and moralistic, although I guess it served its purpose of introducing the characters and their one-note character tags. I did find it a bit odd that they used holograms and computer graphics out of Minority Report but dressed everybody in 2004 fashions. Gotta keep the budget tight somewhere.
Last night’s (3/23) episode worked better for me. The cases - a child actor who wanted to take a drug to prevent puberty so that he could continue his career and a man who secretly dosed another man with transmitting nanobots so that he could feel what it was like to make love to his wife - were both more imaginative. Better yet, the two sides were presented equally well. It wasn’t as obvious who would win the suits.
And it didn’t really matter, since the resolutions are meaningless. But nevertheless I had to leave about fifteen minutes before the end so I never learned how they came out.
The woman won the rape case. The jury “experienced” the incident and awarded her some very large amount of money. IIRC, the kid revealed he wanted to stay young because he never had a childhood and it came to a resolution; I was sitting there, but was too bored to pay attention.
I did find the woman’s case somewhat interesting, until I realized we already are putting laws on the books making it illegal to record people without their knowledge (i.e., putting a webcam in a ladies room). I’d think that Bob could have been prosecuted (and sued) under that, especially once the recording came to light.
The show raises some interesting issues, but the characters (except for Hector Elizondo) are bland in the extreme.
I watched the first episode but probably will not make it a priority to watch more. The thing which irritated me (which may not have anything to do with why I may not watch more of it) is the fact that it is set a mere 26 years in the future datewise, and yet seem to have progressed so far technologically. OK, trying to predict the future is difficult at best, and any look at the past and what they expected of their future shows that they tended to expect the future to develop along somewhat different lines than it did, but I would find the concept less annoying if they either advanced more than 26 years or else didn’t specify when it occurs. (Just call it Century City, sometime in the “not too distant future”)
I didn’t think the fashions looked like they were from 2004. I thought they looked pretty modern, without being silly. Like the men’s suits were a little sleeker, with brightly colored shirts and ties, more tailored and sharper looking. Same for the women’s suits.
I wasn’t too wild about the show, but I was definetly watch it again for Ioan Gruffudd (pronounced “Yo-wan Griffith”), who plays “Lukas Gold” on the show. What a hottie!! (Check out http://www.ioan.palacecreations.com/) I first fell in love with him in the Horatio Hornblower series. It’s amazing though, because I could hardly believe it was him in Century City because he is Welsh with a very thick accent, and in the show, he has a perfect American accent. So he’s pretty talented. And yummy to look at!
But I think they made the point that they had him cold on all sorts of privacy violations. What they were going for was the novelty of an actual rape verdict. That’s what made it a bit more interesting for me.
How did the jury experience the rape? Wouldn’t you have to have some awfully specialized equipment on the receiving end? Or did they just plug it into their brains, Neuromancer-style?
They desperately need to download some personality into the lawyers and do more than morality plays to make me continue watching. In the meantime I’m not going to squawk too loudly about a show that improves from week to week … at least until it stops doing so.
They just plugged it into their brains. It was a pretty simple headset device. They only let them experience the very beginning of the encounter.
I agree that this episode was better than the first one, but that they’re going to have to really step up the quality of the writing to make it work. I do love near-future speculative fiction, but this show just doesn’t have the appeal of good sci-fi. It’s like Ally McBeal: The Next Generation.
p.s. I don’t think you need spoiler boxes to discuss a show that’s already aired.
Yes, a seedy, grey-haired Don Most (Ralph Malph) played one of the witnesses—a washed-up child star.
I thought it was interesting enough, but eh. Everyone is so earnest. I tire of that. I may watch it if I remember to, but it’s not high on my list unless they spruce it up a little bit.
Well, I finally watched the tape of Teusday’s episode last night. I agree the show has problems, but I usually give a new show a while to work out the kinks. So far I enjoy the speculative aspect enough that by the time that gets old they’ll have had plenty of opportunity to fix the rest. There’s plenty of potential here and I hope they live up to it.
Seriously? I’m 26. Knowing that not long before I was born there were no microwaves, VCRs, PCs, test-tube babies (first one wasn’t born until 78), a whole slew of medical advances and genes idenified, cds, dvds, cell phones etc I’m more than willing to suspend disbelief and believe a whole lot will be possible when I’m 52.
That said, though, I’ve watched two episodes, and drifted by the time the resolutions came both episodes. This will do until One Tree Hill returns with new episodes, but I won’t cry over missing it.
What bugged me about the show is all the stuff they throw in to be sure that we realize that this is THE FUTURE!!!
Like, what’s up with those semi-transparent display panels? Hello? We have the technology today to display information on a 2-dimensional screen in such a way that you don’t see through to distracting things on the other side!
Or are they just trying to protray holograms and doing a poor job of it?
But I did like that the show was focused mostly on human issues, rather than on dissecting the technology, which would be likely to flop because it’s so hard to predict how tech will develop. In most cases you could amost forget the MacGuffin and just focus on the characters, and that’s good. They also don’t take the techonology-is-always-bad approach that made The Outer Limits really annoying after a while.
I loved the virtual jury program they used to practice! That rocked. If you didn’t see it, apparently they can enter demographic information on each juror, and a program predicts how the jurors will react to various arguments. For example, one of the lawyers was practicing his closing statement to a screen with some computer-generated juror images, and one of them stood up and interrupted, “I’m sorry, but, a juror of my characteristics would react negatively to that analogy.” It’s exactly the sort of AI technology I could see lawyers (and others) using in the future. Why have a human focus group when you can use a virtual focus group program?
I think they have some quality control issues. I wonder if dialog and acting would be good enough to make it into production without it being THE FUTURE with FUTURISTIC SPECIAL EFFECTS. I hope that they tighten it up a little bit and don’t just have some attitude that it’s science fiction, so people will watch it anyway.
I really enjoyed the speculative aspects of this show, and will watch it for as long as it lasts. I think they need to think not only of tech but of how social goups will evolve in the future as well. Frex, one of the keys to the success of the number one show on TV, CSI, is that they are very sharply attuned to social subgroups and often feature members of offbeat groups as victims or suspects.
Frex, there’s been a furry murder victim, a minor story arc involving Grissom’s relationship with the dominatrix running an SM bordello, a parasailer murder, and quite a few others. The potential for coming up iwth new subcultures that vary on our current ones, or are parodies of them, are enormous. Frex, what about a story about a jealous girlfriend who “murders” her boyfriends futuristic Real Doll, which now has the ability to walk and talk? What about a virtual sex scene involving holograms that becomes the basis for a divorce? What about … a hell of a lot of stuff.
And put me down as another admirer of the virtual jury. Great idea.
This show could absolutely ROCK if it pays attenion to what’s out there.
I’ve been watching it too, and think the second episode clearly improved on the first. Loved how they were speculating on what the clients had come in for, and Lukas stops their joking when he sees the woman. I kind of like the near-future aspect as well–I can’t say I’d be interested in a series set in, say, the 23rd century or something. And the fact that the cases do slightly relate to issues being discussed today is a good choice.
elfkin477
I’m three years older than you. The bit that really bugged me from the first episode was the young female lawyer who was part of the test group for genetically modified babies, or words to that general effect. Assuming she’s as old as I think a brand new lawyer should be, she probably would have been concieved right about now. Considering what has been in the news about such things anyway . . . I don’t know. I’m not sure how much of it is that I am really uncomfortable with the notion of treatments for fertilitity which go beyond in-vitro . . . I just know that in general I have a problem with near-future predictions and in this particular case they could have eased my suspension of disbelief a lot by making the year 2050 or something. They wouldn’t have to change the show or their image of the future they want to predict, just the date they assigned to it. If you think this sounds silly and petty, I don’t blame you.
Oh, I’ve got an even better specific-date kinda problem. It occurred in a grade-B science fiction flick starring Kari Wuhrer called “Fatal Conflict.” At one point you get a picture of a futuristic set of domes on an alien landscape with text over it saying: “2030: Alpha Centuari Women’s Prison Colony.”
OK, so they’re saying we’ll have FTL ships by 2030.
That we will have colonies in other star systems by 2030.
And that one of the first things we’ll build in outer space is women’s prisons.
Yeah, that makes sense – LOTS of sense – to my GONADS! My brain, meanwhile, is totally boggled.
I just saw the first episode last night thanks to a Doper sending me a tap and I have to agree with this. The most jarring time that I saw was the minute of dialogue about pitless cherries reminding us that they’re soooo advanced and stuff.
Having watched the latest episode, I’m starting to wonder if these lawyers are EVER going to lose a case. I hope we’re not veering into Perry Mason / Matlock territory, where it’s not a matter of IF they win but how artfully they do so.
So, on tonight’s Century City, we learn that Oprah Winfrey is the president of the United States in 2030. I estimate she would be in her 70s. Also, Microsoft has established a colony on Mars.
