Some critics elevated their already positive opinions of the series to the level of high praise when the program introduced multiple ongoing story arcs and deepened its speculations on the power and implications of superintelligent artificial intelligence. Writing on "io9," Katharine Trendacosta noted that by the end of the series in 2016, "Person of Interest" had been transformed from a "crime-fighting show" with an entertaining plot device into "one of the best science-fiction series ever broadcast". Trendacosta wrote that this was because the first-season finale set up the rest of the series to move away from "a crime-fighting show with a kind of nifty plot device... [and instead]... put the Machine, its intelligence, and the ethics of[...] using it at the center of an ideological battle", and gave the Machine a voice of its own. The show won the 2012 People's Choice Award for Favorite New TV Drama and the 2016 People's Choice Award for Favorite TV Crime Drama.