Limitless (2015)

Something about this show just works from the crisply polished start, using a premise that is squarely within one of CBS’s favorite wheelhouses--the edgy hero who is gifted with extraordinary mental powers that he or she directs to the purpose of solving crime.

The plotting is pretty perfunctory, but McDorman wears the show’s hyperbolic intensity lightly, as if playfully mocking the hard-boiled self-seriousness around him. But he also brings pathos to Brian’s gnawing sense of failure.

So, basically, this is a drug-fueled Sherlock Holmes situation, although Brian does something so monumentally stupid while supposedly in his smart state at the show’s beginning that it comes close to undermining the show’s premise. Luckily McDorman, who appeared in “American Sniper” with Cooper, has an easygoing charm that helps right the boat.

Limitless may give you an immediate high, but side effects may include listlessness, dangerous plot holes and a sinking feeling you’ve wasted an hour of your life.

Looks like a standard procedural, but McDorman is adorable.

While Limitless is competently executed, what it lacks, finally, is any spark of inspiration. And alas, there’s no pill for that.

One of the most narrow and timid fall seasons in memory. This premise is particularly tired.

This show is not a heavy weight but it was very entertaining without any axes to grind nor SJW identity politics. I actually enjoyed the show way more than the movie. I was completely surprised that it only lasted one season in spite of some solid performances by all actors involved. Jake McDorman who plays Brian Finch is way more than just a pretty face. It doesn't hold the camera back from taking full advantage of his warm demeanor and doughy eyes not to mention an occasional shirtless scene showcasing his impeccable physique. I'll admit it.. I'm smitten.. but back to the fundamentals. Jennifer Carpenter (playing agent Rebecca Harris) seems a little type cast here (Debra Morgan in Dexter) as the savvy and eerily insightful FBI agent. The deja-vu goes a step further when Desmond Harrington (Detective Quinn also from Dexter) swoops into and then out of the series as a possible love interest for agent Harris. I wonder why the creators chose such an obvious similarity in actors playing very similar characters in regards to those two. The stories are a whole lot of fun with tongue and cheek references all over the place with nods to '80's in the know kitsch and album cover/concert t-shirts galore. Brian is an underachieving stoner, easy going, surfer type dude who is out of place in the big city. He stumbles upon the NZT pill which unlocks the entire neural capacity of the human brain transforming Brian into brainiac grounded by who was before the pill and his close knit family. The story hums along nicely from stand alone episode to stand alone episode and develops a couple of parallel arcing story lines that inter mesh seamlessly. Those arcing story lines are more sophisticated and yet don't appear to contradict each other for the most part. Like those parallel story lines, Brian's life becomes extremely complicated by trying to keep his three secret identities from learning about each others existence. At some point one secret identity crashes into his families identity with a dissatisfying result. Keeping his family in the dark after they learn a part of the truth turns into some weird family melodrama where all of a sudden his cannabis smoking becomes the end of the world. WTF? That was an annoying and somewhat lazy plot device that I've seen too many times before where our hero can't tell the whole truth and therefore suffers in their personal family lives as a result of keeping their secret from them in order to protect them. Thankfully, that's my only issue in an otherwise impeccable show. It drives me nuts when Netflix picks up all these orphaned shows that don't go any further than one or two seasons. I then look up the show after enjoying it so much only to learn that it was cancelled waaaay back when and doesn't have a chance of being continued.