Minority Report Episode 1 Review: Exposition Overkill

Fox’s new sci-fi crime drama Minority Report is set in 2065 in the same universe, kind of, as the 2002 movie Minority Report starring Tom Cruise, which was itself a loose adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s 1991 short story of the same name. The conflicts between the two pre-existing Minority Report universes is probably why the show starts with a bright blinking neon sign: EXPOSITION. You’re right. There was no possible way that information could have been woven into the show itself. Lara Vega, played by Meagan Good, gives us a voiceover of what we need to know: The PreCogs — Agatha, Arthur, and our very own Dash — were the subjects of experiments that left them with the precognitive gift. They’re psychic in the worst way possible: they see all of the murders that are about to happen around them. As with all special gifts that the government finds out about, it was exploited and they were forced to work seeing the future and preventing murders in the PreCrime PD Unit which was shut down 10 years before the start of this show. Because they were no longer useful, the PreCogs were sent to live in an undisclosed location away from people and visions of homicide (if you saw the movie, this is pretty much where it ended). Cut to present day 2065, we meet Dash, one of the PreCogs, who has left his idyllic rural hideaway and is in the big city. He still has his gift and sees murders. But now instead of being strapped to a chair next to his brother and sister getting full pictures, he s…