Thank you to Mark and the entire Mark Watches community for introducing me to this wonderful show. I absolutely loved it from start to finish. If it weren't for Mark Watches, I probably never would have watched this show at all, and my life would have been all the poorer for it.

I mentioned in a recent comment that just a couple of weeks before Mark began watching this show I actually looked up Person of Interest on Wikipedia. (I had no clue at the time that it was even on Mark's watch list. It was pure coincidence that I looked it up when I did.) Anyway, I knew nothing about the show at the time, and I only casually glanced over its Wikipedia entry in order to get a rough idea of what the show was about and to confirm that Amy Acker was in it. From what I read, the show sounded interesting, and I thought I might like to watch it someday. Little did I know that we would begin watching it here just a couple of weeks later.

Anyway, when I glanced at the Wikipedia page, I must have misread something, because I somehow got it into my head that both John and Harold were written out of the show sometime before the final season—that they were the two main characters for the first three or four seasons, but they were replaced by Root and Shaw in the last season or two. So, from about the middle of the third season on, I was expecting both Harold and John to be killed or else to walk away and never return. So, when Simmons shot at John and Carter, I thought for sure that John would be the one to die. When John ran away after Carter's death, I didn't expect him to return. And when he nearly froze to death and was having hallucinations about talking with Carter, I thought for sure he was a gonner. Harold's life was in immediate danger far less often than John's, but there were a few times when he got so frustrated with the mission that it looked as if he might be tempted to walk away and never look back, and I always suspected that he just might do it. I think that my misreading of the Wikipedia page may have actually enhanced my viewing experience, since at least in my mind, the stakes were always high. In most shows, no matter how much danger one of the main characters appears to be in, you can be pretty sure they're not going to die (at least not permanently—sci-fi does allow for the occasional resurrection, after all). But watching Person of Interest, I could never be sure that anyone was safe—especially after what happened to Carter. So I think that might have actually made my viewing experience even better.

Anyway, thanks again to Mark and the Mark Watches community for giving me an opportunity to watch this amazing show. I don't know whether I'm going to stick around for Alias or not. I was never really a huge fan of that show when it was originally on the air. I may watch the first few episodes before making up my mind. But whatever I decide, I'll definitely try to be back for Babylon 5.

Just in case anyone was wondering:

synecdoche | səˈnɛkdəki |

noun

a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa, as in Cleveland won by six runs (meaning “Cleveland's baseball team”).

(from the New Oxford American Dictionary)

I never did turn up the volume and watch the rest of the episode—I was too busy with what I was doing on the computer—but later that night I did look up Person of Interest on Wikipedia, just to get a better sense of what the show was all about (and to confirm that Amy Acker was, indeed, one of the regulars on the show—at least in the later seasons). From what I read about the show on Wikipedia, it was clear that this was not a CSI-style cop show, as I had imagined, and the premise of the show sounded intriguing enough that I felt that I might give it a try some day. I had no clue at the time that Mark was going to start watching Person of Interest just a couple of weeks later.

If it hadn't been for the coincidence of seeing parts of this episode (sans audio) just a couple of weeks before Mark started watching the series, I might have decided to skip it rather than watching it along with Mark and the rest of y'all. So, I'm really glad this episode showed up on my TV screen that night.

- - -

Changing the subject:

If you're curious about the title of this episode, apparently QSO is a code used by radio operators to indicate that they have made contact with someone and are able to communicate with them.

Once upon a time, back in the early days of radio, when all radio communication was done by Morse Code rather than voice, radio operators needed a shorthand way of communicating commonly-sent messages so they wouldn't have to spell them out in full every time they sent them. So they developed what came to be called "Q codes"—a series of 3-letter codes, each beginning with the letter Q, that represented various commonly-used messages. Even after radio operators began to communicate by voice rather than Morse Code, the Q codes were still used for a long time, and amateur (Ham) radio operators apparently still use them today.

QSO is the Q code for "contact". One radio operator is in "contact" with another if they are able to communicate with each other. So, the code QSO can be used as a question, to ask, "Are you in contact with (i.e. can you communicate with / are you able to relay a message to) [so-and-so]?" or as a statement/reply, to say, "I am in contact with (i.e. I can communicate with / relay a message to) [so-and-so]," or possibly, "I have made contact with (i.e. I have communicated with) [so-and-so]."

This is the episode.

Back when Mark first started watching Person of Interest, I commented that I was completely new to the show and had not seen any of it before, with the exception of parts of a single episode which I had watched with the sound off just a couple of weeks before Mark began the series. This is that episode.

I was working on my computer and, as usual, I had the TV on with the sound off. At one point, I looked up and was pleasantly surprised to see a familiar face on the TV screen. It was Amy Acker. She appeared to be playing a cop—or at least she was wearing a police uniform—and was visiting someone in the hospital. I didn’t recognize the show, but I knew that Amy has had guest roles on a number of TV shows in recent years, so I figured she was guest starring in some cop show—one of the CSI or Law & Order franchise shows, perhaps. Since I am head-over-heels in love with Amy Acker, I was tempted to turn the sound up and watch the show, but I was busy with my work and wasn't really interested in watching a cop show that I knew nothing about, so I turned my attention back to the computer.

The next time I glanced up at the TV screen, Amy was a ballerina. Huh? I didn't quite know what to make of that, but I supposed that she must have been playing a cop who went undercover as a ballerina. I focused on my work once again. The next time I looked at the TV screen, Amy was wearing colonial-era attire, and she appeared to be working as a historical reenactor at some sort of museum. Now I had no clue what was going on. And why was Amy getting so much screen time if she was just a guest star on this show? That's when I checked the TV listings to see what show this was.

I had heard of a show called Person of Interest before, but I knew next to nothing about it. In fact, for some reason, I was under the mistaken impression that it was a cop show similar to CSI, but with the twist that instead of using forensic science to solve cases, they used a network of CCTV cameras to identify and track down suspects. I certainly didn't know that Amy Acker was a regular on the show.

(continued)

In case anyone is wondering, the title of this episode, "B.S.O.D.", is an abbreviation of the infamous expression "blue screen of death"—the dreaded blue screen that appears on a computer running the Windows operating system when it has encountered a fatal error.

In case anyone is wondering about the title of this episode, YHWH is the most commonly used Romanization of the Hebrew name יהוה (though you may also see it transliterated as YHVH, JHWH, or JHVH), which is the sacred personal name of the God worshiped by Jews (and later by Christians and Muslims) as the One, True God.

Many devout Jews scrupulously avoid speaking this name aloud or writing it out in full for fear of violating the commandment, "Thou shalt not take the name of YHWH thy God in vain." For them, the name is regarded as unpronounceable, which is why it is generally written without vowels. In order to avoid writing or saying this name, many Jews will substitute in its place the word אֲדֹנָי‏ (Adonai—literally "my Lord") in Hebrew, or the LORD (usually written in all caps or small caps) in English (which is how it appears in most English Bibles).

This unpronounceable four-letter name of God will also sometimes be referred to as HaShem (Hebrew for "the name") or the Tetragrammaton (Greek for "of four letters"). A variety of other names are also commonly used by those who wish to avoid speaking or writing the sacred name, but these are the most common.

Most Christians and many Jews are not quite so averse to speaking or writing the proper name of God, and so they will write and pronounce this name as Yahweh. (Once upon a time, it was commonly written and pronounced Jehovah, but that is now considered by most scholars to be a misspelling and mispronunciation of the name.)

I'll leave it to others to speculate about what the writers of this episode might have intended by using the unpronounceable name of the One, True God as its title.

Two comments:

1. BEST. EPISODE. EVER.

2. Sameeeeeeeen! :'(

I want to thank Mark for his decision to watch and review half-a-century of Star Trek. It gave me a wonderful opportunity to revisit many classic episodes that I have seen countless times before, to reacquaint myself with a number of episodes I haven't seen since they first aired, and to finally see several episodes (mostly from Voyager and Enterprise) that I missed the first time around. As a lifelong Trekkie who grew up on reruns of the original series and who came of age while watching The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, this was truly a delight. I only wish that Mark had decided to watch the animated series and maybe also watch some of the better fan films. But after reviewing over 700 episodes and 13 movies, I guess Mark deserves a break from the final frontier for a while. Thanks again to Mark, and thanks to everyone in the Mark Watches community who took the time and effort to post your insightful reviews and comments over the past three and a half years. Live long and prosper.

As for me, I'll still be lurking here, albeit ineptly. I'll definitely be reading Mark's reviews of Person of Interest (and I am so grateful to Mark and the Mark Watches community for introducing me to that wonderful show—I ended up marathoning the whole thing in about five weeks, it was so good). I still haven't decided if I'll be watching Alias along with Mark. I kinda half-way watched the first season or two of that show when it first aired, though I was never really a big fan. I'm sure I missed lots of episodes, and I don't even recall exactly when I stopped watching. I may decide to give it another shot, but no promises. I'll definitely try my best to be here for Babylon 5, though.

The only problem I had with the decision to make Sulu gay was that George Takei himself objected to it (for reasons that actually made sense). But since I don't really consider this movie to be canon (as I noted in my review, I think of it as nothing more than a well-made fan film), I am able to ignore Takei's objections and appreciate the scene for what the filmmakers intended it to be. But if Takei hadn't objected to the idea that Sulu was gay, I wouldn't have had a problem with it, because I can't recall anything from the original series or movies (or the Voyager episode that Sulu was in) which definitively indicated that Sulu was straight. There were a (very) few scenes that suggested that he might be attracted to women, but those were open to interpretation, and they never precluded the possibility that he was also attracted to men.

Okay, I must admit that I actually liked this one. It was far from perfect, but it was good, and it was much more in keeping with the spirit of Star Trek than its predecessors were. It's amazing how much better NuTrek became once Abrams decided to turn the reins over to people who actually understand and care about Star Trek. But, sadly, it was too little, too late. No matter how good the third film was, it still carried the baggage of the first two, which is why I am unable to accept it as a genuine part of Star Trek canon. I look at it as a well-made fan film, nothing more. But I did thoroughly enjoy it. More importantly, I didn't hate it, because unlike the first two installments of NuTrek, it didn't feel like it was giving the middle finger to devoted fans of the original series and movies.