{"id":493167,"date":"2026-06-24T11:44:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T11:44:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/493167\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T11:44:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T11:44:19","slug":"person-of-interest-jonathan-nolan-and-greg-plageman-reflect-on-the-series-ten-years-post-series-finale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/493167\/","title":{"rendered":"PERSON OF INTEREST: Jonathan Nolan and Greg Plageman Reflect on the Series Ten Years Post-Series Finale"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\"Person<\/p>\n

Credit: Giovanni Rufino\/Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. \u00c3\u0082\u00c2\u00a92016 WBEI. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n

[Warning: This post contains spoilers for the series finale of PERSON OF INTEREST.]<\/p>\n

On paper, the CBS drama PERSON OF INTEREST had a relatively simple premise: Harold Finch (Michael Emerson<\/a>) created an artificial superintelligence (known as the Machine) as a tool for the government to help prevent large-scale acts of terror. But thanks to the countless amounts of data the Machine processed (video feeds, social media, e-mails; essentially any kind of digital footprint), it also received information about \u201cirrelevant\u201d individuals, people who were on the verge of being involved in smaller threatening situations\u2014either they were about to be the victim or a perpetrator of a crime.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But rather than delete that information, Finch went rogue and recruited John Reese (Jim Caviezel<\/a>), a former soldier, to be his partner to save as many people as they could. Armed with only a social security number, each episode of the five-season series found the duo, along with Team Machine\u2014composed of, at various times, Detective Joss Carter (Taraji P. Henson<\/a>), Detective Lionel Fusco (Kevin Chapman<\/a>), hacker Root (Amy Acker<\/a>), and former marine Sameen Shaw (Sarah Shahi<\/a>)\u2014trying to figure out whether the person they were led to might be in danger or could be a risk they needed to contain.<\/p>\n

In execution, the Jonathan Nolan<\/a>-created series was a layered, thought-provoking drama, with a procedural spine. The show was timely, and also hyperaware of where our technology could be going in the near future, grappling with the moral obligations (the potential good that could come from it, as well as the dangers) of those who utilized these tools. Though artificial intelligence and surveillance were already being utilized in the real world, the show shone a spotlight on how easily any average person could be tracked\u2014and how much access to our lives we were handing over by ourselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n

By the time the drama ended in June 2016, the on-screen team had faced a number of blows, losing Carter and Root, along with numerous allies. (Though the Machine opted to take on Root\u2019s voice and personality after her death.) Team Machine also had to face off against another artificial superintelligence, Samaritan, and Finch opted to destroy both ASIs to save the world\u2014and Reese sacrificed himself<\/a> to help the Machine put the final pieces in place.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the work wasn\u2019t entirely done: The final moments of the series revealed that a duplicate of the Machine lived on, and connected with Shaw to seemingly continue the work.<\/p>\n

Now, a decade after the CBS drama concluded, Nolan and co-showrunner Greg Plageman<\/a> sat down with Give Me My Remote<\/a> to reflect on the series, ending on their own terms, the evolution of technology, and more.<\/p>\n

Starting with a light question: How many times a week do you go, \u201cWe tried to warn you?\u201d
Jonathan Nolan: It\u2019s gotten so weird now that the framing of it doesn\u2019t quite land that way for me anymore. I mean, those are the thoughts [I had] a few years ago. Now, we\u2019re just into a whole other level of weird s\u2014. Coming out of PERSON OF INTEREST into WESTWORLD<\/a>, between the two of them\u2026I\u2019m just as bewildered as anyone else with the directions all these things have taken. It\u2019s just the f\u2014ing weirdest. It is the dumbest version of what we thought could have happened, you know?\u00a0<\/p>\n

I think there was a bit of optimism that a Harold Finch-like character would exist; I think there are one or two folks out there who sort of have the moral character necessary. But the idea that there would be a responsible [gatekeeper]\u2014someone like that, I think that was the fantasy, right? The technology wasn\u2019t fantasy. The fantasy was the moral conscience of the people involved. [Laughs.]<\/p>\n

\"Person<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a92011 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved<\/p>\n

You guys were open during the run of the series that the show was spiritually \u201changing out five years in the future.\u201d<\/a> Now that it\u2019s actually ten years after the show ended, outside of the lack of Finch-like figure, what has changed the most from where you thought things would be?\u00a0
Greg Plageman: Well, I have to give Jonah a lot of credit here, because we would bring people into the writers\u2019 room [help us look ahead]\u2026we would talk to people like Nick Bostrom, [who wrote the 2014 book] \u201cSuperintelligence.\u201d\u00a0<\/a>
Nolan: [Journalist] Shane Harris.
Plageman: We even tried to get the CEO of Palantir, the guy who\u2019s in the monastery\u2026we tried to get them all to come into the writers\u2019 room, all of them, because we were crazy, and we were just like, \u201cOh, this will be fun. Let\u2019s try to make that happen, and that would be interesting.\u201d And we were just having fun. I think the whole thing was, \u201cOkay. We\u2019ll do episode of the week [format], we\u2019ll crank that out for CBS, but, at the same time, we were like, no, what would be more interesting?\u201d<\/p>\n

And Jonah would get bored. \u201cThis is boring, if it\u2019s just this case of the week s\u2014, I\u2019m out.\u201d [Both men laugh.] We\u2019ve got to do that, or we\u2019re going to get canceled\u2014which eventually happened.\u00a0
Nolan: I feel like we canceled ourselves. From the beginning, I always thought this was a CBS show, right? And we had that conversation with [executive producer] J.J. [Abrams].<\/a>
Plageman: Much gratitude, CBS.
Nolan: I think my friends at Bad Robot thought Fox was a good fit for it when we were taking it out. I was always into CBS, so was [former Warner Bros. CEO] Peter Roth, right? Peter Roth and I were both [thinking] CBS, in part because I\u2019d grown up watching shows like MAGNUM [P.I.], that I thought were terrific. But also because of the case of the week structure\u2014which eventually I would bridle out a little bit and get a little bored with\u2014it was exactly where the pitch started. We didn\u2019t start with, like, \u201cOh, this is going to be like a WESTWORLD.\u201d It wasn\u2019t supposed to be a novel-like TV show. The random access nature of the premise [made it] perfect for a case of the week show. And I grew up loving case of the week shows.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, from the beginning, we thought, \u201cFind the place, find the network, that can support a case of the week show, because that\u2019s sort of essential. And you get to reach this massive audience, which is super cool.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

And, God bless them, there [was] a moment in the pitch, I remember, with Nina [Tassler], who ran the network. She bought the pitch in the room\u2026[Prior to the pitch,] I read all these interviews with [LOST showrunner Damon] Lindelof<\/a>, and other folks like that, where it was like, \u201cYou can\u2019t ever tell [the people you\u2019re pitching to] what the show is really about.\u201d We get to the middle of the pitch\u2014the pitch is going fine\u2014but [Tassler]\u2019s like, \u201cI feel like\u2014what\u2019s the show about, really, for you?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

She wasn\u2019t saying the pitch wasn\u2019t going well; I think the pitch was going fine. But she was like, \u201cWhat\u2019s the thing you\u2019re interested in here?\u201d And I was like, \u201cF\u2014 it, it\u2019s AI. I want to tell a story about AI. I want to tell a story about where this is all going. I think [we] backdoor our way into this cool case of the week thing, but I really want to explore these questions of technology, and where it all goes.\u201d And that was the moment I could feel Peter kind of stiffening [up], and I could feel like my mentors in the television world going, \u201cYou f\u2014ing idiot, you\u2019re not supposed to tell them that.\u201d And then [Tassler\u2019s response] was, \u201cYeah, let\u2019s do it. It sounds fun.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was an example of, you receive wisdom you could never tell the muckety-mucks up at the top what you\u2019re actually [doing,] but Nina totally bought it in the room\u2026and she was excited about the fact that the show was about something, right? That it wasn\u2019t just that sort of nihilistic [attempt to] try to get a show to, you know, 300 episodes. It was like, no, there\u2019s a real story here.<\/p>\n

And that [was the] tension for Greg and I, over the next five years, of yes, you have this natural case of the week structure to it, but you also have a longer story that you\u2019re trying to tell. Honestly, we\u2019ve seen it done so f\u2014ing badly, so many times; it\u2019s such a hard thing to do. And I credit Greg and the extraordinary team of writers that Greg put together, who largely stayed with the show for years, with that balancing act.\u00a0<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve got to tell a story every week, and that\u2019s kind of fun, because it allows the writer of the episode to take ownership of the story, so they get to own the A-story, and then Greg and I would be nudging, along with the rest of the writers, this larger architecture through the season.<\/p>\n

This was my first enterprise in television. Looking back at it, having worked on a number of shows since then, we did remarkably well. You would think if you had a writers\u2019 room with 15 people in it, that you\u2019d just get group-think muck, right? We just got really lucky; we got really fantastic writers, fantastic co-EPs, who came in\u2026I think we recognized that we had sort of a special opportunity to do something a little weird on broadcast television, if we kind of colored largely within the lines.<\/p>\n

And then there was this wonderful moment a few seasons in, where Peter Roth, who really was a champion for the show, came to us after, I think, the end of the second season. CBS moved us to a different time slot; we were doing well for them, but of course we weren\u2019t a CBS-owned show, which meant that we had to do not just well, we had to do really, really well to stay on the air every year, because they didn\u2019t get the economics that they would have if it was developed internally.<\/p>\n

They moved us from Thursday night [to] Tuesday night, from 9 PM to 10 PM, and the writing was on the wall. Peter came to us\u2014and I will never forget this, and I\u2019ll be eternally grateful to him for this. [To Plageman.] Remember, he came and sat with us? [Plageman starts quietly laughing, prompting Nolan to laugh, too.] And he\u2019s like, \u201cLook, I see what you guys do with the show, and I love what you\u2019re doing with the show. If you do less of the mythological stuff and more of the case of the week stuff, it\u2019ll probably go for seven seasons.\u201d
Plageman: I think he quoted Dustin Hoffman in CHEF<\/a>.
Nolan: Yeah. Play the hits. But the thing I loved about it was he gave us the advice.
Plageman: Peter was on our side. Peter was great.
Nolan: Yeah. And he said, \u201cBut I like what you\u2019re doing, so you guys do whatever the f\u2014 you want.\u201d And we knew, sitting there, okay, if we take this path\u2026maybe we get five seasons. Probably no more than that, but we will be proud of what we did.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And if we go the other way, we\u2019ll have more episodes, but wind up the situation of so many shows that we saw during that era: Where you got the show with six, seven, sometimes eight seasons, and then they just f\u2014ing cancel it. And\u2026they do a cliffhanger for the seventh season, because they\u2019re really hoping to get like a limited order for an eighth season, and then [the show is] just f\u2014ing gone. And all the time that you spent, the 200 hours you spent watching this show, there\u2019s no ending, right? I\u2019ve been there; that sucks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So I think Peter gave us great advice, and the respect to let us make that decision. And Greg and I talked. Peter left, and we sat, and we sort of looked at each other, like, \u201cF\u2014 it, let\u2019s keep doing what we\u2019re doing.\u201d Because we\u2019re proud of it, and because every season had this kind of shape to it, and it allowed us to do both things.<\/p>\n

Speaking of your mythology balance, the show always had serialized elements\u2014you introduced the flashbacks and played with structure very early, foes-turned-allies Elias (Enrico Colantoni) and Root popped up in season 1, etc. But season 5 was the most serialized year of the show, with also the fewest episodes you had to work with. From what you recall, what was the balance like in digging so deep into that final arc while still making it a CBS-friendly show?
Nolan: Well, we always had a number, right? I don\u2019t think we ever broke that. The number sometimes was Finch, Reese, Root, or Shaw. There was always a number, and we never broke that. That didn\u2019t feel like a constraint; that felt like the meter, the structure of it, the haiku of it all. You\u2019ve got to have a number; I don\u2019t think we ever broke from that. I think that helped guide us.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"HBO<\/p>\n

\u201cReassortment\u201d \u2014 Reese and Finch become trapped in a hospital that becomes ground zero for a deadly viral outbreak. Also, Samaritan\u2019s newest recruit has second thoughts, and Shaw continues to struggle with reality, on PERSON OF INTEREST, Tuesday, May 24 (10:00 \u2014 11:00 PM ET\/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Pictured L-R: Michael Emerson as Harold Finch, Amy Acker as Root, and Jim Caviezel as John Reese Photo: Giovanni Rufino\/Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. \u00c3\u0082\u00c2\u00a92015 WBEI. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n

Greg, I don\u2019t know if you\u2019d agree, but I think that structure meant that we were always going to sort of be close to the right storytelling cadence for CBS, right? This is part of the reason why I think it always felt like it would be a great fit for, you know, the big tent of broadcast television\u2026The inherent premise was Reese and Finch constantly jumping from one f\u2014ing story that might be connected to the larger story and the randomness of it; that kind of fire hose of data that Shane and others talked about.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s two distinct sort of technological moments that are sort of captured in the show: There\u2019s surveillance technology, and there\u2019s AI. Those are two distinct things, right? There\u2019s a lot of snake oil s\u2014 happening now, where they\u2019re trying to blend those two things together. There\u2019s an assumption, and interestingly\u2026this is something that the show sort of anticipated cannily, although not at all consciously; I guess we read s\u2014, that AI would emerge from large amounts of data, right? That the way that these LLMs work\u2014and the reason why China may well win\u2014is because they have the biggest data pool.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At one point, when we were making the show, I was invited out to talk to a Chinese technology company, and I sat there [listening to] everything they were talking about. I was like, \u201cOh, f\u2014, this is either a buzzword or this is about to happen.\u201d And the emphasis there was on the sheer quantity of data and computing, and that is still very much the world we\u2019re living in. So the two things do collapse into each other, but they are distinct topics, and they were distinct things that we were covering.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Everyone\u2019s gotten very curious about the AI of it all, and I think they\u2019ve taken their eye off the ball a tiny bit in terms of the surveillance part. We sort of, in that f\u2014ing frog in a pot of water way, just decided to trade privacy for security, right? That was always the gambit. I don\u2019t think it works; I think it actually works the other way around.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Our joke was always with the show\u2014the show came off the air in 2016; it came off the air [at] the beginning of the Trump era\u2014and the line we always used was, \u201cYou\u2019re comfortable with the government giving itself this technology because the government, to this point, you\u2019ve largely trusted.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

We\u2019re in a very, very different moment now. [As we\u2019re doing this interview], they\u2019re about to let FISA lapse\u2026they\u2019re going to let it expire, which is actually going in the opposite direction, right? Picture the US intelligence community basically being blindfolded. Which is also scary. [Laughs.] It\u2019s just a fascinating moment. I could go on about this forever. We did for 103 episodes.
Plageman: This is the s\u2014 we talked about in the writers\u2019 room ad nauseam; like, it was like on and on and on. These are like philosophical, larger, technological conversations. But what\u2019s crazy is the premise of the show was an artificial superintelligence that spit out a number, and then we created another artificial superintelligence called Samaritan.<\/p>\n

But like Jonah and I always talked about, if we get like a three- [or] four-episode arc here, and then we can build this thing out, we could still close this case out. So we understood that the gift we had on CBS, which was this is a tremendous platform, and we were grateful for that. It was just that they didn\u2019t really understand us\u2026We were trying to make a show that your mom could watch, but yet maybe our kids could watch, too. [Laughs.] And somehow I think we got caught a little bit in between.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a beautiful final season and series finale, but you were also tasked with ending season 5 without knowing for sure it would be over. (CBS only officially confirmed the series was ending in March 2016, after production on season 5 concluded.) Looking back on that experience, what are your feelings about that, and what did it teach you about crafting this kind of story in your future projects?\u00a0
Nolan: Well, for a total beginner, but armed with a partner and a team of people vastly more experienced [in] television [who are] really smart, we actually kind of nailed it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We got wind that there was some brinksmanship between the network and the studio\u2014again, we were a Warners TV show on CBS. And so towards the end, every upfront, there was this [conversation] like, \u201cOh, you\u2019re on the wall [as part of the schedule for next season], you\u2019re not on the wall.\u201d\u2026And I became frustrated with the existential part of that, because we were dead set on avoiding that outcome: [Being] hat in hand, hope to squeeze out another [year]. It became clear to us [as] we\u2019re going to do this half order [for the] fifth season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We never got a call from the network at that point. Nina was gone; different folks [were in charge] from the folks who greenlit the show in the first place. And that always happens; I don\u2019t think I ever had a movie or a show or anything where the entire executive suite was intact from the green light to broadcast or to the opening weekend. So that\u2019s fine. Which means you\u2019ve got people who aren\u2019t as invested; they\u2019re excited with the new stuff they\u2019ve got. So you better put up numbers\u2014and your numbers better be 20-30 percent higher than any CBS homegrown show to stay on the air.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We did the math on that. We had this very good piece of advice from Peter two years beforehand, stuck in the back of my head. We were told that we were off the wall for a minute, then we were back on\u2026.[We realized] if you wanted to, you could try to squeeze out one more season of 13 episodes; you can find your way to Friday nights, and you can limp on along for [a few] more seasons. We decided to just f\u2014ing cancel the show ourselves. We hadn\u2019t been canceled, we had been parked in this, like, reduced order situation, and do we want to try to, like, cajole, beg our way into another reduced order season, or do we want to just have the f\u2014ing dignity of an end?<\/p>\n

And so we gave an interview where we\u2019re like, \u201cYeah, show\u2019s done, we\u2019re wrapping it up this season.\u201d We knew we\u2019d made the right decision when no one called us to correct that. We never got an angry phone call [from] the network saying, \u201cWhat do you mean it\u2019s over?\u201d And I think there was reading the room, but there was also steering the f\u2014ing ship a little bit, right? I think if we\u2019ve done a cliffhanger, we put up the good numbers, [if] we got a reduced license fee, and [we could have kept] making a cheaper and cheaper and cheaper version of the show. What we decided to do instead was try to go out in good form, tell a complete story, repay the fans that stuck with the show the whole way through, and give them that complete story. And I think it was, in hindsight, a very canny move on our part to basically call it and steer towards a finale. And when they didn\u2019t call to say, \u201cHow dare you?\u201d we knew we\u2019d made a very good decision. So we set about sitting down to architect a fifth season that we could be proud of.
Plageman: I think the economics always work against every Warner Bros. show. Same with Sony. We were fighting [during the show\u2019s run,] \u201cIs there, please, a streaming option somewhere where people can find this show?\u201d And there was nowhere to find the show.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"prime<\/p>\n

Credit: Warner Bros.<\/p>\n

It was impossible to even purchase episodes on iTunes, from what I can recall, in those early years, let alone any kind of official streaming. (The series has bounced around to various streaming homes since the show concluded, but, right now, is available to stream on Prime Video<\/a>.)
Plageman: There was no way to watch it\u2026it was frustrating, because it felt like we were making something that was kind of cool, and prescient, and we just felt like we didn\u2019t [always] have a strong partner in that regard. I remember [in] the first season we did the Elias episode [\u201cWitness\u201d], and they were like, \u201cCan you just bury this? We don\u2019t want to see this episode ever.\u201d\u00a0
Nolan: That was the first real [conflict] with the network. Greg, correct me if I\u2019m wrong\u2014
Plageman: I\u2019m talking out of school, Jonah. Sorry.
Nolan: No, this is illustrative of how this s\u2014 works, right? So the Elias episode is episode 7; I think we tried to do it as episode 4, and [the executives] kind of put off with, like, \u201cToo soon.\u201d And then when it came to episode 7, the response from the network was, \u201cThis doesn\u2019t work. This doesn\u2019t work. They lose, you can\u2019t have this.\u201d
Plageman: \u201cCan you bury this, please?\u201d [Laughs.]
Nolan: And it became this conversation [where] we felt strongly that this was a moment where we decided if the show was going to be [what we wanted]\u2026You\u2019ve got to understand that the way that it used to work in broadcast is you develop the show with one team, and then Current [takes over]. So you do the pilot with one team, and then episode 2\u2026it\u2019s seamless for the audience, but for us, we transition to a year of development with one team, and then get tossed into the pool with a totally different group of people. All great people, but they\u2019re like, \u201cWhat the f\u2014 is this show?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

At one point, with the Current team, they\u2019re like, \u201cIt\u2019s like you\u2019re saying the show is kind of about AI.\u201d I did the thing in the meeting where I copped to what the show actually was, but these people weren\u2019t part of it, so you started the creative process from scratch with a totally different team. And so they pushed back on [\u201cWitness\u201d] being episode 4\u2014and, in fact, I think they\u2019re probably right about whether it should be episode 4 or 7. Where they weren\u2019t right was where they got to episode 7, and we shot it. [Director] Fred Toye\u2014who I\u2019ve now worked with on three or four shows\u2014shot this beautiful final moment with Enrico and his guys walking away, right?\u00a0
Plageman: Nina Simone!<\/p>\n

\"Person<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Devil You Know\u201d \u2014 Reese and Finch are caught in a power struggle for control of the city\u2019s gangs when Elias (Enrico Colantoni, pictured) is targeted by Dominic, the ambitious leader of the Brotherhood, on PERSON OF INTEREST, Tuesday, Nov. 25 (10:01-11:00 PM, ET\/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Photo: John Paul Filo\/CBS \u00c3\u0082\u00c2\u00a92014 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n

Nolan: [We had a] Nina Simone [song playing]! We\u2019re like, this is f\u2014ing great, this is a great episode. I was like, \u201cOh, we got a cool thing here. This is neat, it\u2019s a case of the week, but there\u2019s a bigger story.\u201d Which, again, was something that were my favorite episodes of MAGNUM\u2014the ones where you learn about his kid, and his ex, and his time in Vietnam, and all that kind of stuff, right? It was few and far between, and these clues that you\u2019re putting together [were] over the course of like ten seasons of television, because that\u2019s all you got to do. I was like, \u201cOh, we can do this in episode 7. This would be great.\u201d And they came back, and they were very unhappy. They didn\u2019t think the episode was bad. They\u2019re just like, \u201cYou can\u2019t have an episode where the good guys lose.\u201d
Plageman: The bad guy wins!
Nolan: The bad guy wins in spectacular fashion\u2014like a cool song [is playing], it looks cool, and the good guys kind of look like schmucks. They got played [because Elias tricked them by concealing his identity, and got away in the end]. To us, we were like, \u201cThis is where the show comes alive for people.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

I remember our post[-production] producer was like, \u201cThat episode was really cool.\u201d [We felt] people are starting to get what we\u2019re trying to do.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, we had this very respectful [conversation]. I call the approach polite, but firm. We went back and forth, and then, finally, what saved us was it was sweeps. [They said,] \u201cLet\u2019s air episode 8,\u201d and we\u2019re like, \u201cWe haven\u2019t even shot it yet. So you either air this one or we\u2019re off for a week in sweeps.\u201d And they begrudgingly [asked], \u201cOkay, well, can you take a song off?\u201d We\u2019re like, \u201cNo, we really like the song.\u201d It is just back and forth of, \u201cWe think this will be cool, we think the audience will like it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s hard to say\u2026I think a group of people who were watching the show dug in even harder [at that point]. Whether or not the opposite is true\u2014were there casual fans who were watching it [and stopped]? I don\u2019t even remember if the ratings went up or down.
Plageman: Nobody remembers.
Nolan: Who gives a s\u2014?! It was where we sort of dug our heels in a little bit, but, like, if we don\u2019t have this, then\u2026this is not the show we want to make. We\u2019ve got to have [the good guys] lose.
Plageman: That was one seminal moment. There were two others that I remember: When time slots mattered, we thought we were gonna get the Super Bowl slot. They called us, and they go, \u201cWe\u2019re gonna give the post Super Bowl slot to [someone else].\u201d And we\u2019re like, \u201cWhat are you talking about?\u201d And they\u2019re like, \u201cYeah, but you guys don\u2019t need it. Show is great.\u201d [Nolan laughs.] [We were like,] \u201cHuh?!\u201d
Nolan: Well, different model, not a CBS[-owned] show.
Plageman: Back then, [getting that slot] kind of mattered.
Nolan: It mattered for everything. Marisa, to your point, one of the things I really appreciate about that experience was we must have been one of the last shows [to not have streaming rights]\u2026that\u2019s how TV was for like 50 years, this model of if you didn\u2019t catch the show Thursday night at 9 PM, you had to wait six months for a rerun. Consequently, the writer who wrote that show got a good check; there\u2019s residual income that all disappeared<\/a>, right? But you had to watch it as it aired. We were not on Netflix [until the hiatus between seasons 4 and 5<\/a>]; we were not streaming anywhere. The whole run of the show was identical to how a TV show would have aired in the 1950s. And I\u2019m very proud of the fact that people found a way to watch it, that they found a way to kind of assemble [our storytelling].\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was difficult for us in the writers\u2019 room to keep the thread of the larger story. There\u2019s a lot of work, and a lot of hard work on the part of our writers\u2019 assistants, [to keep the mythology straight].\u00a0
Plageman: It was a lot of work.
Nolan: And the audience wasn\u2019t able to refer back. We put out a DVD box set<\/a> for each season, but for the audience to be able to look back and try to remember exactly what was happening, and how it worked, was certainly challenging. But it was kind of cool to be in that kind of\u2026not [quite] ephemera, but, like, yeah, if you didn\u2019t watch it, you\u2019re reading your recap somewhere. And I do miss a little bit of that\u2014miss the event nature of how broadcast television used to work, the appointment television aspect of it. I think it\u2019s a little sad that that\u2019s gone now.<\/p>\n

\"HBO<\/p>\n

Credit: CBS\/WB<\/p>\n

Greg, you said there were three defining moments. What was the third?
Plageman: We would disappear into our own navels about Samaritan\u2014we talked about the [1970] movie COLOSSUS<\/a> a lot, where there were these two competing intelligences. So [in our show], Samaritan was the other ASI, artificial superintelligence, and that became the be-all, end-all of the final season. And the network would call us and say, \u201cCan you just lose the whole Samaritan thing? Can you stop talking about Samaritan?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was hilarious, because, like, now in hindsight, when you look at it, you go, wait, what are you talking about? Like, that\u2019s the ultimate villain of the final season. [Nolan laughs.] That\u2019s the whole show.\u00a0
Nolan: I can\u2019t remember, Greg, was that season 4 or season 5?
Plageman: I think it started in season 4.
Nolan: Season 4 was literally like, \u201cCan you not use the word \u2018Samaritan?\u2019\u201d
Plageman: Yeah. We were negotiating with the network.
Nolan: And this is it, right? And this is where, at the end of the day, I\u2019ve got a lot of love for the show, and the whole experience of making it, because there were various moments in which very smart people shared with us the mistakes we were making, and let us make our own decisions. So, they kind of tried to maybe [get us to] stop talking about Samaritan, but we didn\u2019t. And they respected that. And after that first back and forth in the first season about Elias, it was like, \u201cHey, you know what, it\u2019s going to be both things, and that\u2019s going to be okay.\u201d And I think the experience of, yeah, you could have maybe [stretched] it to seven or eight seasons, if you sort of begged, borrowed, or stolen a few more episodes here and there, [but] we didn\u2019t want to do that.<\/p>\n

And so on the one hand, you know, they weren\u2019t necessarily wrong to try to steer us away from the bigger mythological storyline. We probably could have limped along for a few more seasons. If you can\u2019t go back and rewatch the episodes, if you don\u2019t exist anywhere outside Tuesday nights at 10 o\u2019clock or Thursday nights at 9 o\u2019clock, how is an audience supposed to keep track of this larger story? That\u2019s a reasonable thing to point out, right? But we weren\u2019t interested in telling that kind of story. And so we kept doing the story that we wanted to do, and ultimately read the writing on the wall, and wrapped it up ourselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Look, if it had gone a different way\u2014and sometimes it goes a different way. Sometimes you win these things, sometimes you don\u2019t\u2014I might have felt differently about it. But I really feel like we got to do the exact show that we wanted to make. Was it tough, was there some back and forth? Absolutely. Was there confusion about how the show should be put out there? Yeah. But at the end of the day, we kind of got to do it exactly the way we wanted to do it. That\u2019s a very, very special thing, even now, even in this day and age.<\/p>\n

Greg would always laugh at me about the different Golden Ages of Television. There\u2019s the ER Golden Age of Television, the NYPD BLUE Golden Age of Television, the HILL STREET BLUES Golden Age of Television, THE SOPRANOS Golden Age of Television\u2014many, many golden ages of television. We\u2019ve lived through several of them now. But there was something very, very special about making 22, 23 episodes a year. And you would think that with a huge staff, and all the battles with the network and the back and forth, the economic models, and all the lack of streaming\u2014you\u2019d think that you get something pretty compromised. I\u2019m amazed when I look back on the show and how uncompromising it feels in that way. And how distinct the storytelling was. And I think that\u2019s a testament to everyone who worked on it: network, studio, and the writers\u2019 room, and the amazing cast and crew in New York. I\u2019m very proud of it.<\/p>\n

\"City<\/p>\n

Nolan and Plageman with the PERSON OF INTEREST season 5 cast at Comic-Con. Credit: WB<\/p>\n

I imagine it\u2019s not easy to say farewell to the characters you spent so many hours of your life thinking about. In the past decade, when and how have they stayed with you? Are there things that you wish you could have written for them, things you think about where they are now, or just general stories you wish you could have tackled that you can share?
Nolan: The funny thing about writing, and it\u2019s a world that is somewhat in the past now [for me], but writing a network television show where you write 23, 24 episodes a year\u2014it\u2019s not at all like a movie or anything else in my career. It\u2019s become\u2026 We joke that the audience[\u2019s] relationship with them is like a family. And that\u2019s really how it felt for us a little bit, too. These characters you live with for so long, you spend so much time with them. I think about them all the time and I always say they are still with us. Ironically, [I] think that Finch, and the idea of someone principled bringing the end of the world, is an important story. The science-fiction idea that you have one person who built AI by themselves seemed far-fetched at the time, but we are seeing that a very small number of people are going to have undue influence over how these things work out. And the character of that person is going to matter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Machine noted, \u201cIf even a single person remembers you, then maybe you never really die.\u201d Even though POI has been off the air for ten years, it feels like the fans (and the state of the world) have kept it alive in big and small ways. For you, what do you feel the legacy of the show is? What do you hope its legacy is for the fans?
Nolan: More than anything else, the legacy of the show is an entertaining and hopefully still prescient look at the very dawn of that thing coming into existence. And a really lovely group of people who came together to make a TV show in New York for five years. There were so many wonderful people I got the chance to interact with making this show, who have remained friends for life. That\u2019s the legacy of this show for me.<\/p>\n

The obvious question: So many shows have been rebooted or revived. There were certainly doors left open in the final season of POI, both with the surviving characters and just the general world. What interest, if any, do you have in returning to this world at some point?
Nolan: If the timing was right. More than anything else, the extraordinary thing I took from the show are the friendships and people I got to work with. You never close that door.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.<\/p>\n

\u2013<\/p>\n

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