That's interesting because on the CBS facebook page most people complain about poi after Samaritan which is the seasons you like. I'm mixed. Some of the Samaritan episodes have been too sci-fi but when its going well such as season 5 and much of 4, its a great story arc and some of the best episodes.
The creators of the show always wanted it to be an epic sci-fi, a battle between two all-knowing ASI's. I've read a lot of interviews with them. The only problem was, CBS didn't want that. They didn't want this big serialized sci-fi show, they wanted a procedural show where each week the team saved a new number. Due to this, the showrunners had to almost sneak the show they wanted, into the show that CBS wanted.
It's honestly kind of a mess, but you can definitely see a shift in the seasons. Season 1 and some of 2 play out almost like any old cop/detective show. And honestly that was boring as shit to me, there's already so many other shows like that, and I almost gave up on the series altogether. But then Samaratin happened, and then they had my interest.
The producers and directors were finally telling the story they wanted, but still focusing enough episodes on "numbers" to keep CBS happy. The only problem with this is, the fans are drawn. Even though I have no idea why personally, a lot of people liked that procedural "number of the week" format that the show was in. So this subtle change into an all-out sci-fi drama has really split the fans as can be seen on their FB page. Their FB page funnily enough has sadly also proven how homophobic much of the POI crowd is.
I'm personally just happy that the creators are finally telling the story they wanted to all along in season 5, even if they had to condense it due to the number of episodes being cut.
Through all of my reading, I've not managed to find
why exactly CBS just wanted another run of the mill cop show, instead of an epic sci-fi. I guess they thought the cop show format would be safer for the viewing numbers which is sad. The show could have been so much more if they didn't waste so many episodes on numbers.
A quote from vox.com that I feel nicely sums up what I'm talking about here.
"No series is harder to convince people who might like it to watch than Person of Interest. Throughout its five-season run, it’s always been locked away on stodgy old CBS, which viewers often associate with case-of-the-week crime procedurals, rather than visionary science fiction tales of the rise of artificial intelligence and death of personal privacy. But Person of Interest has offered just that, as its story of a computer that helped identify crimes about to happen slowly grew into a story of the risks involved in turning over more and more of our tasks to creations that don’t always have our best interests in mind. Now, as the series enters its fifth and final season, it is firmly about a war between two artificial super-intelligences for the future of the planet, and this last set of 13 episodes will hopefully wrap up that story in the sort of bloodily fitting fashion Person of Interest is known for."
