Perception: Is the Eric McCormick Series Too Political?

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?