My thoughts mid-binge watching the series

7) One of the first, and oft repeated, lines in the series is Sydney in 1963 saying "This one's been with us for 36 hours and so far he's demonstrated more talent than any of our others". Through the course of the series we learn Catherine Parker rescued children from The Centre, Jarod's brother Kyle was also in the Pretender program, and in Pretender 2001 Miss Parker & company are shocked to learn that Jarod escaped with other captives alone. What did she, Sydney, & Broots think, that all the kids who were captured for the Pretender program, except for Jarod, were eventually released or rescued and that the only one who grew into adulthood while still at The Centre was Jarod?

8) Kyle was allegedly released, though Raines still kept him, so what did Mr. Parker & everyone else in The Tower think, that Kyle was released back to his & Jarod's parents, to an orphanage, or abandoned somewhere?

9) Jarod is eventually reunited with his father & sister, and his dad even escapes with Jarod's clone, but they're never seen, and rarely mentioned, after that. What gives?

10) What's with the inconsistency about where & how Jarod lived in The Centre? In the pilot his room is depicted as being off what looks like a main corridor, spacious, fully furnished, & full of stuff he'd been working on. Part way into the first season this room is shown but for the rest of the series it's shown that he was essentially confined to a small cell at night and wore drab clothes like a prisoner.


(this signature was absent on picture day)

1. Human interest Stories... arguably they shouldn't be above the fold Headlines, but as you say it is a device

2. TV Tech is always a few years ahead of reality...

3. there's only so much he can get out of them... Neither one is exactly 100% Normal in the head, not to mention they might have conditioned themselves to resist... you have to assume Kidnap and Ransom is an occupational hazard in their line of work

4. considering their work with the CIA et al any investigation will likely be ham-stringed by Centre allies

5. It may not be vertical... what's to say it's not an old Mining System; what if several secret 'levels' are lateral into the hills behind the "Main Office' and then down

6. Just like Legitimate Businesses, if they turn over the Running of the Business to a Board of Directors, and ownership to shareholders; the name can stay on the company, but the Power is divested enough that they have no more influence than anyone else.

7. well if Each Pretender had their own assigned Doctor, they could have assumed things were compartmentalized...

and as I recall Sydney either believed or more likely lied to himself, that the adoptions were Legitimate, so why not believe the less than stellar kids were returned home (the original Lie about Jarod was his Parents being killed in a Plane Crash) or sent to an orphanage...

But not everything the Center did was in the Pretender Program... some could have been taking part in semi-legitimate research studies

8. Remember Raines cycled through Kyle, Angelo, Dannie and Alex... the party line was, as stated in #7, Jarod and Kyle's Parents supposedly died in a plane crash... and wasn't Dannie sent to a mental facility? Why wouldn't Parker assume Raines did the same with Kyle, especially how 'broken' he was.

9. They're constantly on the Run... and if I recall Major Charles did pop up once after helping Clone Jarod escape

10. Early Installment Weirdness. or with minimal Ret-con... The 'apartment' was his 'Sim Room' and the Cell was his official residence

2) Internet speeds in 1996 had mostly 28k or 33k dial up modems. 56k modems came out in the late 90's. Video chatting would have been slow and would have been in a tiny window on your PC to allow it to happen. But products such as CU-SeeMe were available and made it possible.

DSL was faster and available to subscribers at that point. If you take into account that Jarod was a genius he could have 'tapped into' DSL service if he knew of a subscriber or found a way onto their network to use their speed.

Does anyone else remember The Pretender, the weirdest show of the late '90s? http://on.io9.com/t6eKHdb