Courtesy of NBC; FOX
Jed Bartlet is fondly remembered in 2064.
Fox's new series Minority Report is a sequel to the 2002 film of the same name, so it's no surprise that the show shares a world and characters -- namely, the three psychics who were at the center of the Pre-Crime unit -- with the movie.
The show also, however, apparently takes place in the same fictional Washington, D.C., where Jed Bartlet once occupied the White House. Watch the early scenes of Monday's Minority Report premiere and you'll see a rather prominent homage to The West Wing.
The real-life connection between the two shows is executive producer Kevin Falls, a West Wing alum who's now running Minority Report. He says the reference began as a small Easter egg.
"That started out as my homage to Aaron [Sorkin]," Falls says. "It was [initially] a tiny graphic on a bus screen, so no one could really see it."
It didn't stay that way. During some reshoots on the pilot involving Dash (Stark Sands), a Precog who has returned to Washington, "suddenly Bartlet Plaza grew," Falls says.
"I was like, 'Oh shit, is Aaron gonna be pissed?' I don't think he will be, because the spirit in which it was intended was a good one," he adds. "... We thought, well, it's Washington, D.C., and we didn't want to use too many real people, government figures or historical figures, so why not Jed Bartlet?"
So that's a yes, then, on whether The West Wing and Minority Report occupy the same fictional world? Says Falls, "I would say yes."
Whether that means the characters will one day walk past a statue of Matt Santos remains to be seen.
Minority Report premieres at Monday at 9 p.m. on Fox. Stay tuned to THR for more from Falls.
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