I've halfway through the 4th season. Sounds like the 5th which wont be untl 2016 and only 13 episodes is going to be the last. I think it would have lasted longer if it stuck to the original premise instead of going into this second computer trying to rule the world bit.
The original premise was that a computer with the world's first true artificial intelligence program was given to the US government and linked to every video camera and microphone so it could spot terrorists before they strike. A special group of government agents when then kill the terrorists before they strike. Execution without trial. The Machine's creator secretly included a back door program which sent him the social security numbers of people about to be included in non terrorist crimes, which the government didn't care about, so he could help those people. Sometime though the number actually pointed to the criminal not the victim and than plan would have to be changed on the fly.
Season 3 threw in a second computer, Samaritan which lacks the first computer empathy. The original Machine took years make it there were 43 versions, 42 of which tried to kill its creator. Only the last one learned to care about people. Samaritan was put together in a much shorter time spawn by a corporation ran by a psychopath who thinks he's bring order to the world. What he's actually doing is enslaving mankind to an emotionless machine, which has apparently been programmed with only the negative side of human nature, war, crime, poverty. Like its creator it doesn't recognize the good. Both the man and the computer are tying to save humanity by destroying individual humans. They don't see the contradiction. Samaritan has repleted the original Machine as the computer used by the government to hunt terrorists, without the government officials involved realizing the true purpose of Samaritan, world domination. They've been lead to believe the first Machine is no longer functioning.
Instead of saving others, the main characters now spend too much time trying to safe themselves.
Doesn't surprise me its fallen in the ratings and probably going to be canceled after the 5th season. Its become too dark.
The best episode so far in season 4 is "If-Then-Else" in which the original Machine
runs simulations to determine how to save the main characters from the agents of Samaritan. In reality it only takes the computer seconds to run the simulations but we see them play out as if in real time. So we see the same scenes multiple times with different variations. In the last simulation time is running out so the Machine replaces actual dialogue with descriptions of dialoge type for each person. its funny hearing the actors describe the kind of thing they'd say intead of just saying them. The first simulation is shocking because you don't realize its a simulation until its over and the Machine has to run another in which its creator doesn't die. Somebody dies in all but the last simulation but even then survival rate is only 2% but time is up so it instructs the humans to go with that option. In the end Shaw who wasn't there and thus not in the calculations appears and chance of survival for each person increases.
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