If there’s anything positive to say about the first episode of Fox’s new series Minority Report, it’s that it’s over in less than an hour and takes only a few minutes to realize you’re watching something utterly dreadful.

In a kind of pre-act denouement, you immediately find out that the pre-cogs (pre-cognitives – can see into the future), are partly made-up of twins that were at one point the children of “drug addicts” and were, “brain dead from the day they were born.” Fortunately, the damaged offspring of drug fiends are fixed (no explanation as to how) with, “experimental therapy that gave them back their minds.” And that’s it — we are led to believe that drug addicts bear brain dead babies, but unexplained therapy can endow these unfortunate people with the facet of a working mind.

With a lead like that, how could anyone seriously take the story seriously? It belongs less to the sci-fi or drama genre than it does to a highly suspicious Fox news opinion story. If the target audience is young teens with a penchant for violence, however, then this review might be quite harsh. Given that the target audience is likely adults, then it’s probably not that harsh.

The sultry-sounding narrator, who sounds like someone more suited to a Calvin Klein underwear commercial, then tells us that these three ill-starred kids at first “saw things, little things.” At this point, just a few minutes in, the question you have to ask yourself is either why am I being patronized, or WTF have these writers done to Philip K. Dick’s story, and secondly, Steven Spielberg’s stylish and noir retelling of the story for Hollywood?

My initial thoughts, in those first few difficult minutes, was how ironic it is that this show is about people who see into the future. Because if anyone who agreed to turning that script into a series could have seen the future, it wouldn’t have been made.

The once brain dead children grow up, and amid some action we see zero character development. Even the special effects aren’t much better than those in Back to the Future II. The leading female actress is dressed in leather – of course that’s futuristic – accentuating her voluptuous breasts, while her male counterpart flexes his finely tuned muscles when given a chance.

Disgracing Philip K. Dick’s original story

There are lame jokes about seeing into the future, such as bird poop falling on someone, and some equally lame subplot emerges about some of the characters  sleeping with each other. If Philip K. Dick – now spinning in his grave – had anything to say about this rendition of his story, it would likely be that it had been made for an anesthetized, easy-to-please audience. His story, and other stories, which often dealt with the moral ramifications of heightened technology or the paranoia which such technology might bring, is whitewashed. It seems even the makers of the series know it’s weak, and throughout attempt to create tension against the backdrop of idiocy with overkill emotive  music.

When one of the bad guys says, “You don’t know what’s coming,” it’s hard to care about what’s actually coming. And when’s he’s obliterated without blood (he’ll likely reappear) by a falling iron girder, the cops make a joke and it’s on to the next hackneyed trope. There are too many to recount. How’s about a haunted cop who’s dad was killed on the force? Or a mad genius locked up in a home for killers? The word killer is mentioned in many scenes, as if we have to keep being reminded who is good and who is bad.

There is a twist, however, on the original story, possibly the result of a questionnaire given out to grade 6 students. The pre-cog twins see different things. One sees the crime, the other gets the name. Even the homemade “neural interface” gadget looks like it was conceived and made in drama class.

By the time you find out that not just one but a whole crowd of unbelievable folks will be “wiped out,” you’re wishing that was true, including the main cast. And if you thought that it was impossible for the program to invoke any more self-destructive clichés — the man who is expected to save the day, the other once brain dead guy, the now rich and handsome twin – actually says, “I knew this day would come.” At this point you might be hoping a pre-cog might prevent you from putting a gun to your own head.

I have a minority report, and that’s this series will die pretty soon. If you think that’s jumping the gun, you’re wrong. I know these things.

Photo credit: Hecubus452 via Flickr; Fox; Max Braun via Flickr