Comedy
Dead Boy Detectives
Dead Boy Detectives targets teens in style and story. But it comes with very adult, problematic content.
Oh, how we love our troubled TV geniuses. Call them, if you will, the “brilliant buts.”
Consider some of the most famous television sleuths of the 21st century. Monk: brilliant but OCD. House: brilliant but a big ol’ jerk. Sherlock: brilliant but a recovering drug addict.
They solve the crime and save the day while driving everyone around them a little nuts. (Kind of like my editor.) These guys and others like them have become increasingly popular with viewers (who only have to put up with them once a week for an hour or so), and the copycats are now nearly endless. Pretty soon everyone on TV will be a genius with autism or social myopia or really horrific table manners.
And that must be why Scorpion decided to not stop with just one “brilliant but” character, goosing the show with a gaggle of “brilliant but” folks. If one Monk is a hit, why, four would surely bring in Super Bowl-type numbers!
Scorpion is supposedly inspired by real-life brilliant people—surprising, given the show’s inherent sense of the outlandish. Walter O’Brien leads this elite, government-employed geek squad. He has a 197-point IQ (we know because he tells us), a Holmesian knack for observation and is, naturally, clueless when it comes to dealing with others. His crew includes Happy Quinn, an angry mechanical prodigy; Sylvester Dodd, an OCD “human calculator”; and Toby Curtis, a behavioral specialist with what was, early on,an out-of-control gambling problem. Together, they have a combined IQ of nearly 700 (we know because they tell us) and the social skills of a rabid dachshund. But as viewers, naturally, we’re expected to like them anyway.
And there are reasons to like them. They do, after all, use their considerable brain power to save people, despite the fact that the people they’re saving aren’t as smart as they are. And they’re even making efforts to communicate with non-Mensa members, bringing in former waitress Paige Dineen to serve as a translator of sorts. She has no special qualifications to be on this elite team except that she’s the mother of a troubled genius and, I suspect, Walter thinks she’s kinda pretty.
I’d like to like this show more than I do, because it’s less problematic than many. There’s action, but not a ton of gory violence. (It’s hard to get into too many knife fights when you spend most of your time in front of a computer.) But these characters break the law all the time. I just can’t keep from wondering if all these “brilliant but” characters might cause the bright folks watching—some of them still kids—to say, “Hey, smart people don’t have to be nice or obey the law! As long as I repeat my IQ often enough, I can dispense with all sorts of social norms.” (You know, like ever looking up from my smartphone.)
And, ironically, this smart show can feel pretty dumb.
In the pilot episode, a virus has been inserted into the Los Angeles airport’s computer system, making it impossible for planes to communicate with the tower and get automated help with their landings or some such thing. To get everything back up and running, our “brilliant but” team must snag an uncorrupted version of the software from a flight currently still flying—but to do so, they’ll need to physically hook a laptop to the airplane’s control board to download it. To achieve this, the team calls the plane with a cellphone, and then Walter and Paige commandeer a Ferrari and drive underneath the low-flying craft on a cleared runway as a pilot dangles from the landing gear and spools an all-too-short cable to the speeding car below.
“This is our only chance!” Walter exclaims.
OK, so wait. Even without the automated software, the pilot found the runway just fine to fly 20 feet above it. Seems like landing the thing wouldn’t have been too hard after that. Couldn’t have they just touched down and then let someone stroll onboard to download the info to flash drive?
‘Course, maybe that’s just me being dense. After all, I’m not nearly as smart as Walter.
The Scorpion team is called in to figure out why a computer server—one tasked with tallying votes nationwide during a presidential election—seems to be overheating. Turns out someone’s hacked into it. And there’s another wrinkle: Because Walter is technically not a citizen, he’s not allowed to work on the case, leaving his fellow geniuses to solve the problem all on their own.
That’s unacceptable to Walter. He defies the FBI’s order. He lies, misleads and finally imprisons the FBI agent who’s guarding him. He impersonates said FBI agent, steals a food truck, breaks into Air Force One, makes a loud noise onboard to simulate some sort of attack and hacks into the tablet of a high-level administration official all while using Paige’s son as a pint-sized accessory to this bevy of felonies. Walter’s team breaks nearly as many laws over on their end, with the group discovering that Chinese diplomats were responsible. Both sides eventually agree to forget the whole thing.
Someone’s punched in the face, while others are wrestled to the ground. Guns are brandished. Paige wears a gown slit to the hip and revealing cleavage. Happy and Toby talk about Happy’s alleged pregnancy: The couple isn’t married due to legal red tape. (The red tape is finally cleared and the two get engaged, even though it turns out that Happy isn’t pregnant.) There’s speculation about whether Paige and her boyfriend are “intimate” yet.
Characters say “a–” once, “d–n” twice, “h—” once, “p–s” once and “crap” three times, once by Paige’s son. (“Where did he learn a word like that?” she asks.) Toby twists the names of three FBI agents, calling them “Backside, Fart and Gosmellme.” He also says of the electoral system, “I haven’t seen a system this burned out since my digestive system on taco night.”
In this extended (90-minute) episode, the Scorpion team unveils the smartest of smart buildings they helped concoct at the behest of a billionaire Walter idolizes. Alas, the software Walter designed to run this state-of-the-art skyscraper is maliciously buggy: It locks doors, starts fires and begins wreaking havoc on the eager tech journalists—and innocent children—trapped inside.
It’s not Walter’s fault, he’ll have you know. The program was sabotaged! The night before, you see, he went to a bar and chatted up a woman who likes dry martinis for herself and drugged drinks for her companions. After he apparently orders shots for everyone in sight, they end up in the same hotel room. Walter insists nothing happened. Regardless, you know that mystery woman was up to no good and, of course, the building soon starts going wonky. (Walter is seen in boxers and an undershirt.)
Toby nearly suffocates. He’s happily revived thanks to some mouth-to-mouth resuscitation administered by his crush, Happy. Walter burns his arm trying to extinguish a fire. Someone hits someone else over the head with a laptop. A guy falls from a ledge, hurting himself. People drink champagne, discuss imbibing too much and suffer through hangovers. They say “h—” about 10 times, “d–n” four or five. God’s name is misused.
“Pilot”
Walter and his team struggle to pay the bills: Toby gambles away one paycheck, while Sylvester misplaced another. “We have a combined IQ of nearly 700 and yet we can’t pay our bills,” Walter sighs. Good thing, then, that Homeland Security barges in and asks for help getting the Los Angeles airport rebooted—a job that could save their financial bacon.
There’s a somewhat graphic discussion about what planes falling from the sky would look like. A couple of cars crash into each other, though it doesn’t seem like anyone is seriously injured. Angry gamblers chase after Toby. Commandos storm a farm in Ireland, guns pointed, after a kid there hacks into NASA. Walter and Co. break laws so they can break open the case. Government agent Cabe Gallo blackmails a thug. Walter threatens to erase Gallo’s online identity.
We hear “h—” five or six times, “d–n” once and “a–” twice. God’s name is misused a half-dozen times.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
Dead Boy Detectives targets teens in style and story. But it comes with very adult, problematic content.
An elf mage contemplates on connection and regret as she watches her human friends grow old and pass away.
