[January Meme] January 7

[grimorie]

“How do you think S5 of PoI would have been different if they'd got a full twenty-two episode order?”

for netgirl_y2k

I think the seasonal arc would have more time to breathe. We really needed an episode or two before the events of The Day the World Went Away with Shaw and the team, because while Shaw had one of the more fascinating arcs in the season post-Samaritan escape it felt like there was no consequence for Samaritan when Shaw left.

I don’t think Greer even mentioned Shaw, and it’s just… really, Shaw’s going around killing your agents and being a general nuisance to your on the ground operations and not even one mention?

The show also didn’t have time to explore the Team’s complicated reactions to having Shaw back— we know what Shaw and Samaritan thinks the Team’s reactions was but we saw the difference in how Real!Root responded to Shaw putting a gun to her head was. Also, it seemed like Shaw had a cathartic journey with Sim!Harold from resentment to having Sim!Harold apologize to her but I want to know how their real dynamic would’ve been. Harold and Shaw barely had a scene together after 5x10. Fusco at least showed he felt iffy with Shaw around, but we never got anything about how real!John felt about Shaw’s return because he quickly went to caretaker mode after Root in 5x10.

Speaking of, I feel like there would be more time to explore our Team’s reactions to finding out the magnitude of Samaritan’s plans, which I think Shaw had special insight over— Samaritan and its Agents had pretty loose lips around Shaw about their plans.

I’d like to think learning about all that Samaritan set-up would have also contributed to Harold pulling the gloves off so it would have felt a lot less like Root had to die just so he would do that.

Also, I think if they had a full 22 episode order, we could have had a whole episode AU rather than the ‘I will tell you about your AU lives’, imagine if it played out like RAM and The Wish from BtVS. I love AU episodes, and yet somehow POI managed to make their POI episode so. damned. boring!

I’m also bothered that 5x09 is more action packed than 5x12. If they had a full 22 episode season they’d also have a 22 season budget, so they don’t have to blow all their budget in the 5x10 car chase, which was awesome but you can see in the three episodes after that they barely had any money left for anything else. Post-5x10, I could tell that they were trying to make do with what little money they had a storyline about saving the President should’ve been more exciting but it was getting evident that they had little money to spare at that point.

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Comments

[netgirl_y2k]

I would have loved a full AU episode! I really wanted to see what Root would have been like as Ms. Groves, though, lbr, she would have been Samaritan's primary asset, not Greer.

But, yeah, I was rewatching S5 recently and I really felt like up until 5x8 or 5x9 they were anticipating getting a back nine order, then didn't get it and were left with less time and money than they'd been expecting to try and wrap everything up.

[grimorie]

Same! I really think if they had more than the 13 episodes we would have had a full AU episode, its simply they ran out of time and decided to mix two storylines together.

I 100% believe that Ms. Groves was biding her time to take Greer's place as primary asset.

really felt like up until 5x8 or 5x9 they were anticipating getting a back nine order, then didn't get it and were left with less time and money than they'd been expecting to try and wrap everything up.

Same, I really think they thought they'd get a back nine order, after 5x10, it felt like the writing team panicked in the last two episodes. Though, watching the back half straight through, actually makes the whole thing feel like chapters of a novel and 5x13 the coda/epilogue to the series then again binge watching sort of kind papers over a bit of the flaws.

[aurumcalendula]

It really does seem that way with the episodes post 5x10 (and I think the fact that 5x10 must have originally been intended to be the mid-season finale, really didn't help with that)

[grimorie]

Yes! If I remember correctly, Nolan was still holding out hope but Greg Plageman (a veteran to the TV network shenanigans over Nolan's movie experience) was trying to get Nolan to see that they might not get a back nine.

Plageman was actually the one who convinced Nolan to release the news that season 5 was the last season of POI after they received word about CBS's schedule for POI.

[aurumcalendula]

This would've been really awesome! (also now I really wish we'd gotten a full AU episode)

In retrospect it is really annoying Samaritan kinda forgot about Shaw, considering all the trouble they went to earlier (at the time I hadn't noticed because of how upset I still was about 5x10)

[grimorie]

Yes, I really wish we got a chance to see a full AU episode because I feel like it would've been RAM levels of awesome!

I didn't notice either until a friend pointed out to me, and from then on I was keeping an eye out for any reference to Shaw by Samaritan, but we got nothing, which is weird considering how much Samaritan wanted to turn Shaw!