A new TV series on TNT, Perception revolves around Doctor Daniel Pierce (Eric McCormick), an eccentric neuroscience professor with paranoid schizophrenia. He’s recruited by the FBI to help solve crimes. The show also stars Rachael Leigh Cook, Arjay Smith, Kelly Rowan, and LeVar Burton.
During last night’s premiere, McCormick visited Jimmy, a young man with Aphasia — a disorder that causes someone to lose the ability to comprehend spoken language. To compensate, many Aphasiacs become highly tuned to subtle speech inflections. They are heightened when someone lies and, to people with this condition, lies seem funny. In short, they are human lie detectors.
To demonstrate the young man’s abilities to his former student (Cook), Pierce first shows Jimmy a video of President George W. Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address, when he said that Saddam Hussein amassing materials to build weapons of mass destruction. The young man laughed, inferring that Bush was lying.
The scene lasted a minute or so and wasn’t the focus of the episode but many people have expressed upset over it and have vowed to never watch the show again. (Despite the fact that Jimmy was later seen laughing over President Clinton’s “I did not have sex with that woman.” speech.)
What do you think? Was this a poor choice? Will the Bush scene influence your decision to watch the Perception series again? Is the show too political?
Yes, it was poor judgement to use that clip. But that doesn’t mean the show is too political or unwatchable. Nothing remotely politically incorrect happened during the entire rest of the show. This isn’t that bad compared to other stuff on TV. In a recent episode, a main character in HBO’s The Newsroom directly made fun of a bonehead statement Sarah Palin made in 2010. Perception just took a point in history when someone lied that people would remember. Maybe they should have used anything that came out of Snooki’s mouth recently instead. 😉
How stupid of the writers to offend half of their viewing audience. Probably over half of their viewing audience. So long Perception, I perceive you will be short lived.
Only a idiots would be upset over this – people who should go live in North Korea or something.
I had no interest in watching anyway, but I don’t think that would turn me away from it if I did. It probably would make me mad if it was Obama, but that’s just one episode. It’s no worse than seeing a ton of sex happening on all these cable shows.
I was interested in the show until the Bush set up. No need for it. It will turn off many, just like it turns me off.
Oh please spare me the constant TV show drumbeat of bashing Republicans.
If they wanted to use nuances of inflection in voices the best candidate would have been Barak Obama who voice inflections and lies are legendary!
It is probably a poor choice. We have seen several times where a show makes a political statement about something that the public has strong and differing feelings about, and the ratings for the show have fallen. To do that during the pilot before the audience can even make a connection with the show just makes it a larger mistake.
I was looking forward to seeing this show. I was taken aback when the scene played. I was angry that politics was introduced. It cements my belief that a liberal bias is permeating the media. I was disappointed in Eric McCormack for going along with it.
Furthermore, Bush was telling the truth as he knew it at the time, along with Colin Powell, Brittains Prime Minister Blair etc. I am sorry to say that I will NOT watch it again.
Because of that scene, I will not watch another episode of this show. I turned the channel as soon as the scene ended. Once again Hollywood is pushing their agenda in the form of entertainment. Every evil politician portrayed in movies or television shows is republican, every warm-hearted politician is a democrate. People need to stop eating the propaganda that Hollywood dishes out.
Because every evil politician is Republican! Deal with it…
Haven’t watched the show yet, but that sounds very similar to Lie to Me. On that show they used the Bush clip several times.
That might be one reason that Lie To Me was cancelled after just three seasons.
Seriously-people are upset that a TV show has someone calling G W Bush a liar when he lied the US into a war with dead people, devastation etc?
The issue I had with it is that the Clinton quote was an admitted lie. Bush was reporting the content of some report that he referenced. It was a true statement. The report itself is debatable in its accuracy, but Bush not only believed it was accurate, but was telling the truth about what the report said. As such, it was an unfair representation. You would NEVER see them do something similar to Obama making some claim about ObamaCare in the State of the Union address where he says something that nobody really believes.
Too Political? Please! What is wrong with showing that ALL politicians lie? It goes with the territory of being a politician. Now that some people do not want to wake up and grow up and be accounted for gullibility is their problem not the people who produced this show. Excellent in production, a very good choice with the actors and the theme is so insightful. Perception and reality dealt through a TV show is refreshing and comical in a way. The media is all about playing on peoples thoughts of what is real and what can be considered an illusion.… Read more »
As a general rule for me, scripted shows should stay completely away from politics unless they are about politics. You’re here to entertain, and if you make the slightest hint of bias in either direction you will fail at that and offend SOMEbody.
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