Preguntas Frecuentes

I believe this "fact based" refers to the technologies and tools they're using on the show and the methodology of doing particular things.

For example, when they're attempting to trace the AI's location, they've set up a monitoring pcap (packet capture) stream and are using a UI very similar to wireshark shown on the screen doing ... mostly what you could do with such a setup. Curiously, the IP-addresses we see on the screen basically make no sense seeing how each of the addresses seems to contain at least one byte with value higher than 255 - but this is most likely done for the same purpose that TV and movies use "555-phone numbers" ... i.e. to make it impossible for keen eyed viewers "calling" numbers belonging to real people/companies/entities.

Also, interesting tidbit ... at least one of the captured packets seems to be routed through a router built by (based on its MAC-address) "Arris International Ltd", which was a real world telecommunications equipment brand until 2019, so most likely they're using real world data capture to run the visualisation but forgot to hide some pieces of the real data. Furthermore, one thing other shows normally don't reveal is that during their trace, they need to gain access to various routers outside of their own network in order to get more details of what is going on. In NEXT, when they do this, there is no dialogue explaining what they're doing, but you can see them doing it on the screen - albeit very briefly.

Compared to other shows that pull off similar tricks, the details of doing things are usually both left much murkier and have hidden stuff "just happening". On such shows the characters magically have access to all internet routing going on in real time and get flashy animated world maps to see where the data is coming from, where it is going to etc. ... not to mention that so far I think in NEXT they've managed to avoid my pet peeve; the "enhance"-trope completely :)

So... while the story itself is not "fact based", the way things get done is much closer to real world than I've seen on pretty much any show thus far. It is "fact based" in the meaning that doing things the way they show does actually "make sense" even in a real world context. This, on my opinion, is a nice touch because people these days are getting more and more tech-savvy and movies & shows no longer get a free pass with their handwaving when even highschool kids know "that's not at all how that thing works" :D

One thing on NEXT that I do hate though, is that in the beginning of the end credits they show a function declaration with at least one syntax error (missing whitespace between keyword "return" and the value to be returned "x+5") and one logical error (assignment to an assumedly upper-level variable "record" placed after the return statement; i.e. "unreachable code") ... but this is just my inner peer reviewer nagging in the back of my head ;)