Round Two: Minority Report

Minority Report: Season 1, Episode 2 “Mr. Nice Guy” (B-)

I realized very quickly after watching the “previously on” segment of this episode that there were some significant changes made to the pilot since the version I watched. Some quick research indicates that Stark Sands was initially supposed to play both Dash and Arthur, which would support the storyline hinted at in the final scene of the original pilot where Arthur was missing and Dash got a mysterious message from him. Now, Nick Zano is playing Arthur, who is a pompous playboy who has the information Dash and Lara could use but insists upon charging them for it with favors or other forms of payment. That contrasted with Agatha simply trying to look out for her brother and try to keep him out of trouble from afar is somewhat interesting, but I think I liked the original setup a bit better. This second installment was fine, but there’s some work to be done on how these inarguably intriguing cases get handled by this budding duo. Dash has to stop meddling all the time and thinking that’s going to change things, and Lara has to be a little less aggressive with her control of the situation. It’s also not helpful that Will is tracking Lara and not leaving her alone. What I did like a lot was Dash walking past all the chess games and immediately putting each player into check, in addition to telling one woman who hadn’t even moved yet that he had her in checkmate. Her asking him to play at the end of the episode suggests that he’s going to work on his social skills in some way, and I’m glad to see him getting out and interacting with other people.