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Brandon Sanderson & Joe Abercrombie talk fantasy in London

I travelled down to London this evening to see fantasy authors Joe Abercrombie and Brandon Sanderson in conversation. I don't get out to these events as much as I used to, but this was too interesting an opportunity to pass up. Waterstones hosted the event at the Emmanuel Centre in Westminster.

Joe and Brandon are a similar age and launched their careers relatively close together, with Brandon's debut novel Elantris released in 2005 and Joe's debut The Blade Itself following a year later. Both have been highly successful, with Joe moving close to 10 million books and selling his latest novel The Devils to James Cameron for a movie adaptation, whilst Brandon has sold over 50 million books and is writing the screenplay for a Mistborn movie for Apple.

Brandon went over his career in some detail, such as writing thirteen novels before he got published, a good way of getting acquainted with failure and honing his skills of characterisation before hitting the big time. They contrasted their different takes on writing, with Brandon's big picture, pre-planned approach versus Joe's more instinctive approach.

Sanderson confirmed that he is deep in writing the first draft of the Mistborn movie and after that is completed, will work on a pilot script for Stormlight Archive, which Apple wants to adapt as series of 10-episode seasons. He also briefly discussed the adaptation of Skyward, but notes he may only be able to write some scenes or a single episode for that, as he doesn't have the time to be more directly involved.

There was also discussion on how Brandon has expanded his writing career into owning a publishing company that now has 65 staffmembers, more than some moderately-sized "proper" SFF publishers. Sanderson noted that many of the ideas he suggested 10+ years ago in terms of special editions, merchandise, extras etc are now commonplace in the field but it took a long time to get traditional publishers on board. 

There was also a Q&A and some interesting answers. Brandon noted he has his own private wiki, maintained by a full-time continuity editor, to keep all the lore straight. He notes his own memory is pretty good, but one weakness is that he sometimes forgets to remember the "new" version of lore he develops in rewrites, meaning that in writing the sequels he can sometimes use outdated terms (in his example he noted using silver instead of tin in writing the new Mistborn books and had to change that when he realised). Both authors had advice for a 16-year-old in the audience working on his first novel: Brandon's key advice was don't be afraid to throw things out that aren't working and starting again (including the whole thing if necessary).

The authors also discussed the cycles of the industry, with Brandon noting a 20-year nostalgia effect in the field, which made Joe excited to realise the pendulum was about to swing back towards sword-based gritty fantasy. We'll see if that happens!

It was a fun evening, Joe and Brandon made for great conversationalists and the audience got some interesting questions in.

ETA: Skyward is not in development with Netflix directly, but with the production company who handled One Piece for Netflix.

RIP Michael Keating

British actor Michael Keating has sadly passed away at the age of 79. Keating was best-known for playing the fan-favourite character of Vila in classic British science fiction series Blake's 7.

Michael Keating (far right) as Vila Restal in Blake's 7, alongside fellow late castmembers Paul Darrow (far left) as Kerr Avon and Gareth Thomas (centre) as Roj Blake

Born in Edmonton, Middlesex in 1947, Keating started acting as a teenager. After some early stage appearances, his screen debut was in a 1969 episode of Special Branch and he made occasional guest appearances in British dramas through the 1970s. At the end of 1977, he appeared in Doctor Who, playing the role of Goudry in the memorable serial The Sun Makers, alongside Tom Baker.

He was near-simultaneously cast in the role of Vila Restal in Blake's 7. Vila was a shrewdly conniving conman and thief, a petty criminal who is rescued more by default than design and becomes a founding member of Roj Blake's crew of freedom fighters on the starship Liberator. Vila is arguably the most reluctant crewman and initially held in disdain by his fellows (especially the ruthless Kerr Avon) until his supreme skill with computerised lock systems and his handiness in a fight (even if only in ambushes or attacking from behind) becomes apparent. Vila is, despite himself, inspired by Blake's cause and becomes a loyal member of the crew. He ultimately becomes the only character to appear in all fifty-two episodes of the series, airing from 1978 to 1981. Ironically, Vila was nearly killed off several times as the producers pondered which character was for the chop next, but was saved by other actors choosing to leave of their own accord and the growing sense he was one of the more popular characters for his mordant wit. 

Keating went on to make guest appearances in other British shows through the 1980s and 1990s until he was finally cast as Reverend George Stevens in popular British soap opera EastEnders, a recurring role from 2005 to 2017.

Keating returned to the role of Vila for Big Finish's line of Blake's 7 audio dramas, appearing in intermittent releases from 1998 to 2022.

News of Keating's passing elicited a large amount of sympathy from the Blake's 7 fanbase, as well as friends and fans of his work on other projects. The show had recently received a burst of new publicity with well-received HD remasters and Blu-Ray releases of the original show, and news that a possible reboot was in development.

Peter Jackson hints that films based on Tolkien's SILMARILLION may be possible

Peter Jackson has suggested that, for the first time, the Tolkien Estate may be amenable to allowing films based on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion to be made. The Silmarillion tells nothing less than the entire epic prehistory of Middle-earth, spanning thousands of years of history and backstory, setting the scene for the better-known events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

This marks a substantial shift in the Tolkien Estate's position. J.R.R. Tolkien himself sold the film rights to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in 1969 to generate funds for his grandchildren's education. Tolkien had despaired after earlier approaches for a film version of varying degrees of daftness, adopting a "cash or kudos" approach: either a highly respectable, artistic film or a huge amount of money. The animated Hobbit and Lord of the Rings adaptations, and Peter Jackson's two movie trilogies, were derived from these rights. He did not sell the rights to The Silmarillion since it was unfinished and unpublished; in the event, it was not published until 1977, four years after Tolkien's passing.

However, the Estate, under the stewardship of Tolkien's youngest son Christopher, stridently opposed approaches for additional rights, meaning that The Silmarillion and later books using Tolkien's hitherto unpublished writings, like Unfinished Tales and the twelve-volume History of Middle-earth series, were off-limits. Back in 2017, Christopher Tolkien retired and the Estate relented enough to allow additional, small rights (such as material related to the island kingdom of Númenor) to be licensed by Amazon for their Rings of Power TV series. Since Christopher Tolkien's passing in 2020, it appears that the Estate may have become more amenable to discussions.

To be clear, no new deal has been signed and Peter Jackson has only committed to saying that discussions have and will continue to happen, with the new composition of the Estate (including family members who actually appeared in Jackson's movie trilogy in cameo roles, earning some ire from the older members in the process) more open to at least discussing ideas. Warner Brothers have also gotten involved in some of those discussions.

The Silmarillion is unlikely to ever be adapted in full itself, being too dense and vast in scope, but one can easily imagine pulling episodes out and expanding them into films. Indeed, Tolkien himself did this with several narratives that his son Christopher later published as discrete books, resulting in the volumes The Children of Húrin, Beren and Lúthien and The Fall of Gondolin.

If it came to pass, it might address a major problem for Warner Brothers in trying to create more Middle-earth films. The Lord of the Rings is, by far, the meatiest thing Tolkien ever wrote. Splitting the far slimmer Hobbit into three big movies resulted in an overlong and tedious work lacking much of the charm of the original book. The in-development movies The Hunt for Gollum and The Shadow of the Past sound mildly ridiculous, taking very short episodes from Lord of the Rings (one mostly occurring off-page as well) and trying to make full movies out of them. And Amazon have likewise found with Rings of Power that trying to fill a lot of screen-time with a paucity of source material can easily backfire on you.

The Silmarillion wouldn't necessarily be a slam-dunk success either. The work is tragic and bittersweet, with the "good" guys frequently losing battles against the evil, original Dark Lord Morgoth (of whom Sauron is a middling-at-best servant), and the "good guys" often riven by internal conflicts against one another rather than the true foe. There are also, very strictly, no Hobbits in the work, and humans do not play a major role until halfway or more through the narrative. This might be a harder sell than the original Lord of the Rings. Still, at least it would be a more sensible idea than some of the other attempts to make more Middle-earth material. More developments as they are reported.

Warhorse Studios confirm they are making an open-world Middle-earth video game

Warhorse Studios have confirmed long-bubbling rumours that they are working on an open-world, single-player RPG set in J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium.

Er, that's about it. Aside from confirming the game is on its way, Warhorse haven't shown anything else from the game. However, for the announcement they showed a classic map of Middle-earth depicting Gondor, Mordor and Rohan, hinting that the game will be set during the War of the Ring or perhaps the centuries leading up to it.

Warhorse also confirmed that they will also be releasing a new Kingdom Come "adventure," which isn't as firm a commitment to a full-scale Kingdom Come: Deliverance III. Warhorse isn't the largest studio in the world, so perhaps making two full-scale RPGs is a bit much. Warhorse may also be teasing further expansions or spin-offs from its bestselling, critically-acclaimed 2025 RPG Kingdom Come: Deliverance II.

Expect more information on both titles in the future.

Tempest Rising

1997. In this world, things have gone differently. The Cuban Missile Crisis exploded into a "restrained" World War III, which devastated parts of the world but did not end humanity completely. In some of the more irradiated parts of Earth, a strange substance called Tempest rose to the surface. Incredibly energy-rich and easy to mine, it led to a technological renaissance for the Global Defence Force, a pact between the surviving western nations, and the Tempest Dynasty, an alliance of eastern nations desperate to recover from the depredations of war. The two sides reignite old conflicts whilst both striving to seize full control of Tempest, and unlock its secrets.

We are now deep in the era of "spiritual successors," where game franchises which were hugely popular back in the day but left to rot by their official licence-holders are continued through legally-distinct-but-still-pretty-much-direct sequels. Tempest Rising proudly presents itself as the heir to the Command & Conquer franchise, playing, looking and sounding almost exactly like you'd imagine a new official C&C game to. I can only conclude that either Danish developers Slipgate Ironworks have the best legal team on the planet, or Electronic Arts have completely forgotten they even own a franchise called Command & Conquer in the first place.

Tempest Rising casts you as a new commander for both the GDI GDF and the Brotherhood of Nod Tempest Dynasty. Through a set of linear missions for both sides, you have to guide the two factions through increasingly challenging missions with a likewise expanding roster of ground and air vehicles (naval assets are firmly off-screen, perhaps being saved for an expansion or sequel). You harvest Tiberium Tempest, which is both useful but hazardous (units crossing Tempest fields take damage and eventually die), unlock upgrades by building more structures in your base, and have to carefully keep an eye on your energy supplies. You then unleash your armies into battle, all accompanied by a solid Frank Klepacki soundtrack

It's all executed pretty well. The game isn't quite nailing the more rapid-fire gameplay of the original game or its spin off, Red Alert, but it compares favourably in graphics style, UI and tone to its 3D variants, particularly Command & Conquer: Generals and Command & Conquer III: Tiberium Wars, arguably two of the strongest games in the franchise. The RTS genre's central appeal of mining resources, building up a base, establishing defences and then going on the attack is as compelling in 2026 as it was in 1995 with the original Command & Conquer (not to mention 1992's Dune II).

The game also benefits from arguably its core focal decision to, if in doubt, go with the original RTS paradigm. Many recent RTS games have stumbled due to a hesitance about embracing old-skool design or trying to do something modern and "streamlined" (usually meaning "soulless"), perhaps with an eye to Twitch streaming, leading to misfires like Homeworld 3 and Dawn of War III. Tempest Rising gleefully embraces a more classic RTS design, including clunky interface choices and mission briefing cutscenes that go on just a little bit too long.

In that sense Tempest Rising's greatest strength - its embracing of old-skool design leading to fun gameplay - can also be its greatest weakness. It feels like there's a little bit too micromanagement of units to stop them walking through radiation and Tempest zones when they should really be doing that themselves. The interface can feel a little laborious as you click through different tabs to do something basic like keep the power on. Formations are a concept neither army has ever even remotely heard of. Both units have devastatingly powerful units or unit combos and just building an infinity blob of those and storming around the map will win every mission, with the AI just unable to cope with that. It's all true to the late 1990s, early 2000s classic design, but it can also end up reminding you of why games moved on. In particular, the utter lack of using buildings, walls or sandbags as cover for infantry, something standard in almost every RTS since 2004's Dawn of War (which had a recent, superb remaster), feels completely jarring. For a near-future game, it also feels like it half-arses drones. Either don't have drones at all, using Tempest interference as an excuse, or maybe develop them a bit more. As it stands, the game's use of drones feels about as interesting as Generals, and Generals had the excuse of being released in 2003 when the full potential of the technology was still not clear.

But, it's hard to impossible to argue against the core appeal of building a base, harvesting resources and sending a truly ridiculous number of tanks towards an enemy base. Tempest Rising may play it safer than houses made of cotton wool, but it's also tickling the nostalgia nerve just right. Also, at around 20 hours for a single-player run-through (not even looking at skirmish or multiplayer), the game's length and amount of content is positively generous compared to many of the classics without outstaying its welcome.

Tempest Rising (***½) is available on PC right now. It won't surprise you in the least, but it's a solid time for anyone missing the RTS genre.

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Person of Interest: Season 4

A powerful new AI has been created and allied with the United States government. However, Samaritan has its own agenda and no interest in being shackled by human control. Meanwhile, the Machine has gone undercover, trying to resist Samaritan or align its goals with humanity. With this becoming less likely, the Machine's operatives - living incognito for fear of discovery - have to take the fight to Samaritan where they can, whilst also dealing with a burgeoning gang war in New York.

Person of Interest's fourth season marks a significant shift in the show's format. Our erstwhile heroes are living under cover identities they cannot endanger without immediately being detected and eliminated by the Samaritan AI and its operatives. This forces them to have to act within the normal confines of their job at all times, even when dealing with their regular "persons of interest." This adds an interesting new tension to the show.

This tension means our characters can't go in all guns blazing as much as they did in previous seasons, and helps with the problem last season that our team was too overpowered, between Finch's elite hacker skills, Reese's formidable military abilities, Shaw's exceptional infiltration skills and Root as an even eliter hacker and competent combatant and AI-assisted assassin, not to mention access to two highly competent police officers (before one of them was killed off). Our crew have to be more circumspect in Season 4, forcing the writers to be more creative.

The result is probably the strongest run of episodes in the show's history. The already exemplary cast is expanded by the addition of some pretty big names (either at the time or in the years since) including Cara Buono (Stranger Things), Winston Duke (Black Panther), Wrenn Schmidt (For All Mankind) and Jamie Hector (The Wire), who are all superb. John Nolan (uncle of showrunner Jonathan and his director brother Christopher) continues to impress as semi-antagonist John Greer, and Enrico Colantoni has a bigger role as recurring frenemy gangster Carl Elias. Camryn Manheim also continues to be superb as "Control," this season moving from enemy to extremely reluctant, situationally-dependent ally.

What is interesting is that format encourages both greater serialisation and a renewed focus on the person-of-interest-of-the-week cases, an unusual move in a show with a continuing storyline in its penultimate storyline, when you'd expect the serialisation to have completely taken over. Instead, the threat of Control or the growing war on the streets between Elias and new kingpin Dominic often take a backseat to whomever the person of interest is.

This has several benefits, most notably it encourages the main storyline to be less convoluted than if it had had to fill 22 episodes. The show notably eliminates several factions this season to make the main storyline much clearer: The Machine versus Samaritan, who is allied to the US government, but some government officials are very uneasy about the deal they've made.

The gang war storyline could threaten to be formulaic, but it is elevated immensely by Winston Duke and Jamie Hector (here playing the right-hand-man rather than the boss, which prevents too many comparisons with his epochal turn as Marlo on The Wire), whose formidable charisma makes the Brotherhood are force to be reckoned with. The show also cleverly integrates the gang war into the main storyline with Samaritan, in a way it never managed with the HR storyline which dominated the first two-and-a-half seasons and threatened to become tedious. This storyline is better-handled and better-paced, being wholly contained within this one season. There's also a number of short arcs revolving around new recurring characters, and some PoIs from previous seasons return in clever ways.

The season also features several of the show's very best episodes: The Cold War features the first direct confrontation between the Machine and Samaritan, whilst If-Then-Else has the team trapped and the Machine has to run tens of thousands of simulations on their best way of escaping. The what-if nature of the episode is tremendous fun, allowing the characters to have several moving/dumb-as-hell death scenes. One sequence, where the Machine cuts the detail of the simulation to move things along faster, resulting in the characters becoming paper-thin descriptions of themselves, is the funniest thing the show has done so far. A twist ending prevents the episode from being too lightweight.

The back half of the season suffers a little from losing one of the regular castmembers due to behind-the-scenes circumstances beyond their control, which makes some episodes feel a bit clunky, with the introduction of some recurring characters clearly meant to just stand in for the missing one. It's not a major problem and some of the new characters are interesting, but it is a slight bump in the road. As we get to the end of the season it throws up another one of the show's best-ever episodes with Terra Incognita, where Reese has to investigate one of Carter's cold cases, resulting in the return of Taraji P. Henson in flashback sequences. The two-part season finale is also huge, packed with big plot twists and revelations that are quite satisfying.

Person of Interest's fourth season (*****) is potentially its very best, with excellent ideas and plot twists being undertaken by a cast at the top of its game. 

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Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett

Tiffany Aching is continuing her training as a witch under the fearsome Miss Treason, though Granny Weatherwax is still keeping watch from afar. Tiffany makes an unfortunate choice during a winter festival and attracts the attention of the Wintersmith, a mythological figure who, this being Discworld, is rather less mythological and more real than Tiffany prefers. Once again, she joins forces with the Nac Mac Feegle to try to overcome this threat...before she is sucked into the mythological story against her will.

Wintersmith is the thirty-fifth Discworld novel (out of forty-one; the ending is just starting to edge into sight) and the third to focus on the character of Tiffany Aching. Nominally, this is a YA-focused Discworld novel. However, given Sir Terry Pratchett's resolute refusal to talk down to younger readers, there isn't a vast amount of difference between this and an "adult" Discworld novel, save toning down Nanny Ogg's double entendres a tiny bit.

Wintersmith's theme, as much as can be said, is about the interaction between mythology and reality. The Wintersmith - not quite a god but more than just a spirit - is brought into the real world by Tiffany's actions and fixates upon her, forcing her to try to find a way of removing his interest.

As is usual with Pratchett, there are plenty of laughs, some impressive character development - Roland, Tiffany's would-be romantic interest, gets plenty of solid advancement here - and some thoughtful musings on the ideas of responsibility and how some people prefer comforting illusions and lies to harsh reality. But the book also has some weaknesses. The Wintersmith himself is the latest in a long line of incorporeal characters who want to become human but don't quite get it (Death famously spent a book or two flailing around this idea) and his level of threat is quite vague for most of the book. The idea of an ancient spirit falling in love with a young teenage girl is also a bit weird, and doesn't really go anywhere.

If anything it's the numerous subplots and side-character which fare much better. Roland's attempts to evade the attentions of his aunts and turn into a good would-be ruler are entertaining, and Tiffany's tutoring of a superficial and apathetic young witch into a more responsible figure feels like it could be a whole book by itself. The Nac Mac Feegle also don't have much to do and Pratchett's attempts at giving them more development feel a bit more perfunctory here than in A Hat Full of Sky. Still, at least they are not overused.

Neither are Discworld heavy-hitter characters Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg, who back off for most of the book to let Tiffany deal with the threat of the Wintersmith herself. This is a good move by Pratchett, who resists the temptation of fanservice to better develop his new(ish) protagonist.

Wintersmith (***½) is a solid, if unspectacular, slice of Discworld. It has great characters, comedic moments and some nice thematic ideas, but the central plot feels a bit wooly and never quite gels together into a concrete threat. But the Nac Mac Feegle storming the Underworld with the help of a sentient cheese and negotiating a discount on crossing the River Styx is an all-timer Discworld moment.

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Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files - Volume 04

Mega-City One, 2102. A Psi-Judge has made a dire prediction. Mega-City One will be annihilated in the coming decades if the "Judge Child" is not found and returned to the city. Judge Dredd has located the child, but he has been whisked off into deep space by hostile forces, resulting in the Justice Department having to fund Dredd on a long, expensive trek across settled space in search of the child...with the fate of Mega-City One and perhaps Earth itself hanging in the balance.

The fourth instalment in Judge Dredd's Complete Case Files turns the comic into something a little unexpected: a full-blown space opera. Having traversed the Cursed Earth, saved Mega-City One from an insane tyrant and brought law and order to the Moon, Dredd is now representing humanity and Earth on the interstellar stage as he goes in search of the titular Judge Child. At 26 issues, spanning a full half of a year (and half this collection), the story is a proud epic to follow up on the Cursed Earth and Day the Law Died sagas, but again it's somewhat episodic, an excuse for the writers to come up with increasingly crazy characters, planets and aliens for Dredd to come up against with the search as a framing device.

It's still a reasonably good story and a somewhat iconic one, introducing the Angel Gang and Judge Hershey, who will go on to be a key player in future stories spanning decades (including a sequel in this very volume, where a serial killer starts trying to pick off the survivors of the mission). The ending is interesting but a bit under-explored, and it has to be said that the sudden shift back into standalone adventures and short arcs is a bit jarring, especially when some of these can be best described as "bonkers whimsical." A story about an evolution virus escaping in Charles Darwin Block and "devolving" the inhabitants into angry monkeys is vaguely entertaining, if a bit obvious. A recurring storyline across multiple stories sees Mega-City One gripped by yet another craze, this time for plastic surgery to make people incredibly ugly, which of course makes the creator of the first "Ugly Clinic" insanely wealthy and ripe for criminal exploitation.

The second major story arc, though considerably shorter, is Pirates of the Black Atlantic, in which a pirate group based in the Black Atlantic off Mega-City One's coast causes absolute havoc, even going as far as getting their hands on a nuclear missile, forcing Judge Dredd to storm the vessel. The story itself is slight, despite the devastation inflicted, but more importantly is the ending, in which it turns out that another faction was manipulating the pirates, and Dredd exposing them only delays their plans, not halts them. But that's a story for Volume 05 to pick up on.

The remaining stories have Dredd teaming up with an alien reporter, dealing with pop stars and stopping a graffiti craze in Mega-City One, resulting in the first appearance of Chopper, the Midnight Surfer, a key Dredd character who will recur many times in future stories.

The volume is interesting in being basically made up of a huge epic, several short arcs and a whole bunch of standalones, mixing the approach of previous volumes, where Volumes 01 and 03 were standalones and Volume 02 contained two massive sagas, an approach also favoured in Volume 05. I would say that the Judge Child story, though well-conceived with some great characters, feels a bit slight. The massive build-up to a limp ending is a classic case of storytelling bait-and-switch (albeit one with some further pay-offs down the road), and the story really only ends up being memorable for the secondary characters it introduces. The standalones are a mixed bag, but there's a lot of interesting worldbuilding going on and some good laughs (Walter the Wobot also continues to be a low-key presence, which I am thankful for), as well as a few more, briefly thoughtful moments. The collection ends up being interesting, but it is really the calm before the absolute storm that is Volume 05.

The Complete Case Files Volume 04 (***½) contains every Judge Dredd story printed from Prog (issue) 155 to Prog 207 of the comic 2000AD, published from March 1980 to April 1981. The stories are set in the years 2102 and 2103. The writers in this collection are John Wagner, Alan Grant and Kelvin Gosnell. The artists in this collection are Brian Bolland, Ron Smith, Mick McMahon, Ian Gibson, Steve Dillon and Brett Ewins.

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Person of Interest: Season 3

The Machine continues to provide intelligence to both the United States government to deal with large-scale threats to national security, and to its creator, Harold Finch, to deal with crimes that are "irrelevant" on the large scale but hugely important on the individual. But, to Finch's distress, the Machine has also chosen a new operative, the hacker of dubious morality known as Root. As Root operates as the Machine's free-roaming agent of chaos, Finch's police allies are consumed by the battle against corruption, and Finch slowly becomes aware that a second, potentially more powerful AI is about to be born.

Person of Interest's first two seasons were mostly made up of procedural, episodic stories linked by a few continuing arcs. The third season nominally continues in this mode but the story arcs are now much more front-and-centre. We have former antagonist Root gradually coming in from the cold as a fellow ally (albeit a very unpredictable one) in the service of the Machine, and the police storyline becomes more desperate as a now-demoted Carter and still-in-the-loop Fusco work to finally expose the machinations of HR. The team's ability to deal with the numbers has been augmented by the full-time joining-up of Sameen Shaw, though having two extremely competent ex-government agents on the team does threaten to make them a bit overpowered.

For a show that basically started off as a two-hander between John Reese and Harold Finch, it's now quite busy, with an ensemble cast to rival any other show's, to the point that Reese feels like he's getting lost in the mix a bit. The results in a mid-season decision to reduce the cast by one, with a huge build-up to a major climax that finally resolves the long-running HR storyline. I'm going to be honest and say that this storyline was never the most gripping, and only really worked because the actors involved (particularly Taraji P. Henson's Carter and Clarke Peters's Alonzo Quinn) are so damn good. Still, once it's wrapped up, it's at least wrapped up for good.

The show shifts gears in the latter part of the season thanks to a superb episode where Finch is reunited with one of his former friends (an outstanding guest turn by Saul Rubinek) and learns that a second AI may be on the verge of coming into existence, which triggers a complex multi-episode story arc involving our team, the intergovernmental organisation Decima, the US government, and an anti-surveillance state hacktivist terror group known as Vigilance. Though this arc risks getting a bit convoluted at times (there's only so many secret organisation names one can take), it remains pretty gripping, as well as timely.

This storyline exposes Person of Interest's central core theme, and the one that will span the rest of its run: the struggle to create an AI Aligned with human interests, and will therefore protect us, and the dangers of creating one that is Unaligned with them, and may simply choose to destroy us, with the Machine as the former and Samaritan as the latter. This was science fiction in 2014, when this season aired, but is a distinctly closer idea now.

The strengths of the show remain the core cast's excellent performances, the strong exploration of increasingly topical ideas, and the show's interesting willingness in maintaining its number-of-the-week storylines, sometimes right in the middle of critical arcs, always giving each episode its own identity instead of completely losing itself to serialisation. It's a tricky balancing act the show handles well.

On the negative side of things, the HR storyline outstays its welcome by at least a few episodes, and the interweaving of different conspiracies from multiple organisations risks tripping up the plot a few times, but the show at least is willing to kill off significant recurring characters and entire organisations to maintain a strong plot focus.

Person of Interest's third season (****½) is its strongest so far, with some gripping storylines and thorny questions raised, with no pat answers given. The show is available on physical media and streaming worldwide.

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