Paul Levinson's Infinite Regress

reviewing Black Doves; Dark Matter; Dept. Q; Detective Hole; Dexter: Resurrection; Fauda; For All Mankind; Foundation; Hijack; Memory of a Killer; MobLand; Outlander; Paradise; Presumed Innocent; Severance; Silo; Slow Horses; Smoke; Star City; Star Trek: Strange New Worlds; Tehran;The: Day of the Jackal, Diplomat, Night Agent; Your Friends & Neighbors +books, films, music, podcasts, politics

George Santayana had irrational faith in reason - I have irrational faith in TV.

Showing posts with label Rome. Show all posts

Sunday, February 2, 2020

Vikings 6.9: Othere = ?

Catching up with Vikings, now at episode 6.9 (I've been busy with my music, which you can see/hear a bit more of here, if you're interested). It's an unusual and excellent season, to say the least. And 6.9 had what could be a real shocker.

Ubbe and Torvi get to Iceland, in search of Floki, who hasn't appeared at all yet this season. They meet a very familiar face - familiar because he's played by Ray Stevenson, who's played major roles in Rome and so much more - who is legendary Viking explorer by the name of Othere. He's legendary, because he claims to have sailed to a "golden" land in the West, which I assume is America not Greenland. Ubbe's inspired, but Othere has another revelation: he says his original name was Athelstan, a Christian monk!

Now, back in season 3, we saw Athelstan beaten to death, by none other than Floki, later the discoverer of Iceland, and also a keen object of Ubbe's interest. I should mention that I have a policy when it comes to death in non-science-fiction television and movies. If a character's head is not blown off, cut off, or shot, I think there's always a chance he's still alive. And, although Athelstan certainly appeared dead, I'm pretty sure his head was still attached and more or less intact after Floki's beating.

So, this means, at least by my standard, that Othere could indeed be our original Floki, whom Ragnar so loved. And the episode is entitled "Resurrection". On the other hand, Othere could have had a conversation with Floki, somewhere further west, in which Floki "confessed" what he did to Athelstan, which prompted Othere to take on Athelstan's identity. For all we know, Othere/Athelstan killed Floki - indeed, a conversation with Othere out of Ubbe's presence suggests that something untoward happened to Floki, perhaps something more than what we already know.

I'm looking forward to the mid-season finale, which should also tell us more about the impending battle between Norway and Rus, the other great world-changing story this season.

See also Vikings 6.1-2: Russia!

And see also Vikings 5.1-2: Floki in Iceland ... Vikings 5.3: Laughing Ivar ...Vikings 5.4: Four of More Good Stories ... Vikings 5.5: Meet Lawrence of Arabia ... Vikings 5.6: Meanwhile, Back Home ... Vikings 5.7: A Looming Trojan-War Battle, Vikings Style, and Two Beautiful Stories ...Vikings 5.8: Only Heahmund? ... Vikings 5.9: Rollo ... Vikings 5.10: New and Old Worlds ... Vikings 5.11: Rollo's Son ... Vikings 5.12: "The Beast with Two Backs" ... Vikings 5.13: The Sacrifice ... Vikings 5.14: Fake News in Kattegat ... Vikings 5.15: Battle ... Vikings 5.16: Peace and War ... Vikings 5.17: No Harmony in Iceland ... Vikings 5.18: Demented Ivar ... Vikings 5.19-20: Endings and Beginnings

And see also Vikings 4.1: I'll Still Take Paris ... Vikings 4.2: Sacred Texts ...Vikings 4.4: Speaking the Language ... Vikings 4.5: Knives ... Vikings 4.8: Ships Up Cliff ... Vikings 4.10: "God Bless Paris" ... Vikings 4.11: Ragnar's Sons ... Vikings 4.12: Two Expeditions ... Vikings 4.13: Family ... Vikings 4.14: Penultimate Ragnar? ... Vikings 4.15: Close of an Era ... Vikings 1.16: Musselman ... Vikings 1.17: Ivar's Wheels ...Vikings 1.18: The Beginning of Revenge ... Vikings 4.19: On the Verge of History ... Vikings 4.20: Ends and Starts

And see also Vikings 3.1. Fighting and Farming ... Vikings 3.2: Leonard Nimoy ...Vikings 3.3: We'll Always Have Paris ... Vikings 3.4: They Call Me the Wanderer ... Vikings 3.5: Massacre ... Vikings 3.6: Athelstan and Floki ...Vikings 3.7: At the Gates ... Vikings 3.8: Battle for Paris ... Vikings 3.9: The Conquered ... Vikings Season 3 Finale: Normandy

historical science fiction - a little further back in time

Saturday, January 23, 2016

Black Sails 3.1: Restored

Black Sails was back tonight for its third season, picking up and putting in motion all the pieces from the end of the second season - broken, whole, and all parts in between - in fine, cunning, swashbuckling form.

Flint, for my money, was better than he's been since the first season, far better for sure than the second season, dishing out death to anyone remotely connected to the murder of Miranda. There will no doubt be others on the list, but truly the best move of Flint tonight was what he exhorted his crew to do when faced with the choice of surrender and pardon, or fight against impossible overwhelming odds, by Hornigold: take the third option, and sail away into a storm that "kills ships," as someone in his crew put it. Coming up with a third option, regardless of how bad it might be, is the only possibly winning alternative when the two other options are worse - this has a logic Sherlock Holmes would've have understood and approved.

Eleanor could use some of this logic, too, placed in the unwanted position of helping the British Navy against her beloved Nassau. There's no way she'll do the Admiralty's bidding for too long - not to mention that Vane despite the complexity of their relationship will likely apply his considerable savvy sooner or later to free her.

Hey, Ray Stevenson - who was so strong in Rome - is on hand as Blackbeard, aka Edward Teach (I always liked that name, maybe because I'm a professor), and this promises some high excitement ahead, to say the last. In real history, Blackbeard was part of Hornigold's crew for a while, but who knows what role he'll play for or against Flint's plans, given that Flint is fictional. Probably both, and more.

It was great night to see a show about piracy on the high seas, given the blizzard of swirling snow in the New York area, and I'm looking forward to more (drama on the high seas, that is).

See also Black Sails 2.1: Good Combo, Back Story, New Blood ... Black Sails 2.2: A Fine Lesson in Captaining ... Black Sails 2.3: "I Angered Charles Vane" ... Black Sails 2.4: "Fire!" ... Black Sails 2.5: Twist! ... Black Sails 2.6: Weighty Alternatives, and the Medium is the Message on the High Seas ...Black Sails 2.7: The Governor's Daughter and the Gold ... Black Sails 2.9: The Unlikely Hero ... Black Sails Season 2 Finale: Satisfying Literate and Vulgar

And see also Black Sails: Literate and Raunchy Piracy ... Black Sails 1.3: John Milton and Marcus Aurelius ... Black Sails 1.4: The Masts of Wall Street ...Black Sails 1.6: Rising Up ... Black Sails 1.7: Fictions and History ... Black Sails 1.8: Money

#SFWApro

pirates of the mind in The Plot to Save Socrates

Sunday, December 14, 2014

Marco Polo: Evocative History

I just finished watching the remarkable television tableau that is Marco Polo. It was said by some to be Netflix's answer to Game of Thrones, but it's really nothing like that high fantasy of knight and dragon, because Marco Polo is about a real man who lived in and changed history. In that sense, it's more like Rome, but not so much like that HBO masterpiece either, peopled as it was by not one but many real characters from history, whom we know pretty well, ranging from Julius Caesar to Cicero to Antony and Cleopatra. Maybe The Vikings would be the closest fit, a history with hardly anyone we know. But in truth Marco Polo not only has a story but a feel and presentation all its wondrous own.

The action after the beginning of the first episode all takes place in China, though the Europe of 1273 and The Silk Road that connected them are in everyone's thoughts and speech. Marco Polo, who in our real history was a pathbreaking merchant who spent much time in the court of Kubla Khan, bringing marvels of the Orient back to Italy, is here much more than that, almost a Leonardo in his understanding of science and invention, and a poet with words as well. This painting with words is what first gets him into Kubla's good graces, but Marco's facility for machines of war proves crucial in the battles the Mongols are fighting with the Song Dynasty (which I grew up seeing rendered as the Sung Dynasty).

The Chancellor of the Song is a brilliant adversary, who has beaten and may still be able to beat the Mongols. On his side is an impenetrable wall and a secret new weapon, gunpowder. What Kubla has is lethally good Mongol cavalry - who conquered more of the world than Alexander the Great or the Romans - and Marco. Unless you know your history better than I do, you won't know who wins what battle until you see it on the screen. (The winning weapon in the decisive battle is entirely true to recorded history.)

The personal duels are also excellent. My favorite involved a blind monk, who is not only Marco's tutor in arms, but better than just about every fighter with sight, including more than one at the same time. The ballet of Far Eastern interpersonal combat is excellent and a sight to behold.

Women play a major role in this story, with Kubla's wife smarter than he, and younger women not only good in bed but better in combat than many a man. The cinematography is outstanding - looking like paintings I've seen in books and museums come to life - and the music is haunting, too, representing, I assume, real traditional Mongol music.

If I had to compare Marco Polo to other real historical drama on television, I'd say it's better than The Borgias, about as good as The Tudors and The Vikings, but not as good as Rome. But that's high praise indeed in my book, and I highly recommend Marco Polo.

Sunday, October 26, 2014

The End of Boardwalk Empire

I was sorry to see Boardwalk Empire end tonight, not only because I generally really enjoyed the series, but because the ending was so obvious and, sad to say, shabby.

The series has always been fast and loose with history. But the finale did that with a vengeance, in little and major ways. Joe Kennedy, one of the best historical characters in the series, just introduced this season, knows that the polls that show Hoover beating Roosevelt are wrong, because only the very rich were polled. Actually, the polls which were notoriously wrong would be conducted four years later, when FDR was shown losing to his Republican challenger big time. It was realized only years later, in astute historical analysis, that the Literary Digest poll made the mistake of conducting itself via telephone, which of course only the very rich had in their homes at that time. (I have a 1931 New York City phone book which is thinner than today's New York Times.) No way Joe Kennedy could have realized this four years earlier, as smart as he was.

But the big historical discrepancy was the killing of Nucky at the end. In our history, the real Nucky Johnson (that was his name, not Thompson) died decades later, in 1968. Yeah, I know this story from the very beginning was fictionalized - including the change in last name - but to differ so drastically on such a major point undermines the story. Maybe it's just me, but I always like my historical dramas to stick to the major facts. Show Marc Antony with as many women on the side as you like, but don't leave out that he was with Cleopatra, or that he lost the Battle of Actium. Rome, still one of the best historical dramas ever on television - also on HBO - walked that line beautifully. Boardwalk Empire looked like it was doing that for much of the series, but fell out of step in the end.

Still, if the ending of Boardwalk Empire was disappointing and even trite, that was only because so much of the show previously was so good. The series gave us riveting story lines, brilliant acting, and brought a somewhat unexplored part of history to life. I've seen dramas about Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky lots of times. Boardwalk Empire was one of the very best. R. I. P.

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Outlander 1.1-3: The Hope of Time Travel

I was drawn to the Outlander series on Starz, because, as all of you devoted and casual readers of this blog well know, time travel is one of my passions, as a viewer, reader, and author. In addition, the retooled Battlestar Galactica on the SyFy Channel a few years, by Ronald D. Moore, is one of my favorite series ever on television, period, and Outlander, based on the novels by Diana Gabaldon, is Moore's baby on television.

The story certainly is firmly situated in time travel. Claire, a newly married nurse in Britain in 1945, somehow slips through time and finds herself in the tumultuous Scotland of 1747. But, so far, in the first three episodes at least, there's little more than a dash of time travel in this excellent historical narrative.

Indeed, we actually get a double historical narrative in Outlander, because 1945 is after all history to us, too. But almost all the action after the first episode has been in 1747, where we meet a bow-legged Laird, and all kinds of colorful characters. Claire's being a nurse makes her a good character for a time travel scenario, given that she brings to 1747 the greatly evolved medical knowledge of 1945. But the main time travel in the story so far, other than her falling through time, is her interior monologues, interestingly consisting of her musing about how she can apply her future medical knowledge without arousing too much suspicion.

Instead of time travel, we get an immersion in the politics of the time, and a brewing flirtation between Claire and a handsome Scot soldier. This creates a significant tension, since Claire's happily married in 1945 - but it's worth pointing out that someone who looks just like her husband is a no-good Brit in 1747, played by Tobias Menzies of Rome and all kinds of other fame. If all of this were Claire's dream, her husband being a bad guy in 1747 would say something about her marriage in 1945 - but presumably, this is real not a dream. So, what's someone who looks exactly like her husband doing back in 1747? Surely not coincidence. Did he time travel, too? But, if so, how come he didn't recognize Claire?

I'll keep watching Outlander, but more for the historical romance than the time travel, which at this point is more of a hope than a reality.

podcast review of the first half season

Sierra Waters series, #1, time travel

#SFWApro

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Turn Premiere: Good Historical Drama in Revolutionary New York

Hey, the first episode of Turn on Sunday night on AMC was quite good. Here's what I most liked about it -

It's fun and interesting to see a series set in our Revolutionary War era. You don't often see a drama series in this time period - in fact, I can't really think of any (I don't think of Sleepy Hollow historical drama) - and even movies set in this era are few and far between. But it's certainly a crucially important era in American, British, and for that matter world history.

There have been superb docu-dramas set in the Revolutionary War and a little beyond - like the John Adams series, and the Adams Chronicles before it - but docu-dramas are something very different from historical dramas, like Rome, Vikings, The Tudors, and Black Sails. Turn, based on its debut episode, looks like it has good chance to join those winning shows.

There's excellent character development in Turn, even at this early point in the narrative. Abe Woodhull is a suitably conflicted, messily recruited spy. And his personal life is no less complex - he's married and a father, but also loves another woman. Anna at very least is Abe's first love, but she may well be his true love. Abe also has problems with his father, who is his champion but in some ways his worst enemy, being thoroughly loyal to the British in all matters other than his son, at least as far as we can tell (I say this because of the great twist in Zorro in which the father joins the son in opposing the military.) And Abe's friends are an appealing combination of people who in their own ways offer a variety of opposition to the British. This includes Anna, who married Abe's best or least very good friend. We'll likely soon meet some friends, though - or at least one - who are not only British sympathizers but the British spy.

The British are mostly villains, though there may be lurking in their leadership someone with a little more understanding of the way history is beginning to turn. Captain Simcoe epitomizes the attitude of even some of the British officers, restrained by the thinest veneer of gentlemanly conduct from rape, and not all from savagely beating a colonist who crosses them in any way. It's especially shocking and instructive to see the Brits treating American colonists the way we later treated conquered people like Native Americans.

And a particular plus for me is the location of the show - New York City and its environs, especially Long Island, with sojourns to New Jersey and Connecticut. I'm looking forward to more.

a little earlier history in ... The Plot to Save Socrates

Monday, June 17, 2013

Magic City: Yiddish, Cuba, Bathing Suit Excellent

I caught up with the first season of Magic City and the first episode of the second season in the past few days, and was impressed indeed. It takes place a tad before the start of Mad Men - in late 1958 into 1959 - but it has almost nothing else in common with Mad Men. Instead of high-rolling Madison Avenue advertising, we get beach-front Miami Beach, where the main high-rolling depicted is among gamblers, mobsters, and hotel owner Ike Evans. The mob - in the person of Ben Diamond - contributes murders - and the women, from prostitutes to girl friends and wives, are sassily bright and beautiful. There's plenty of nudity of all kinds, making Magic City much more like Rome than Mad Men.

The plot is pretty good, too, with some genuinely climatic and touching moments, and a few over-the-top situations and resolutions, which are ok by me. Ike - well played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan - is struggling to keep his hotel successful and even afloat. He seeks the help of Diamond, ends up with a murder of union head on his hands, who also happens to be an old friend. To make matters even more tense, Ike's son Stevie is sleeping with Diamond's wife, and Ike's other son Danny wants to work in the DA's office - the very DA who is out to get Ike and Diamond at any cost.

A lot of the first season was devoted to Stevie keeping polaroids of him and Diamond's wife out of Diamond's hands. When Diamond finally does get a look at them, however, he kills neither his wife or Stevie, because he rather watch them making love. Not completely believable, but I guess there are crazed mobsters like Diamond around somewhere, so why not in Miami Beach.

The show has a Yiddishe tahm - look it up if you don't know the language - which makes it especially welcome and appealing. More than just a Yiddish word is thrown in every now and again. Magic City is thoroughly steeped in Jewish customs and attitudes. And among the characters who are Jewish are not only Ike and his kids (though not his second wife, who is Cuban), but Ben Diamond (far more brutal than Meyer Lansky), the late union leader, and even the obsessed DA. And Cuba indeed plays a significant role in this story. As does JFK, not yet seen, but on his way to becoming President.

In short, Magic City is zesty, refreshing, pounding, and sexy - I'll be an avid viewer from now. And my wife really likes it, too.

#SFWApro

Monday, May 6, 2013

The Borgias 3.4: Incest and Debauchery

Well, The Borgias continue to go full-throttle provocative in episode 3.4, following Lucrezia and Cesare in bed last week with Cesare and King Ferdinand of Naples watching Lucrezia and her hapless husband Alfonso at last making love this week.

This happens because, earlier, Lucrezia couldn't bring herself to sleep with her new husband - not after the exquisite pleasure she finally had from sleeping with her brother - and the clueless Alfonso babbles out the lack of consummation to Ferdinand. The King of Naples now demands confirmation of the consummation, and Rodrigo is obliged to give the King what he wants, because there is after all a precedent.

And so one of the hot, perverted scenes of the evening features Cesare and Ferdinand watching Lucrezia and Alfonso making passionate love - passionate because Lucrezia has her eyes all the time on Cesare behind the curtain and has him in mind when she achieves "ecstasy," as Ferdinand so artfully puts it. Ferdinand thoroughly enjoys this confirmation process, from the instant Lucrezia disrobes, and he (and the television viewing audience) see her from behind.

Cesare of course does not, and seems to want to put himself and Lucrezia as an erotic couple in their history, as the two move on to live and perhaps enjoy the rest of their lives. Whatever Cesare may want, this is highly unlikely to happen - at least, not in the television series (who knows what happened in real history back then) - given Lucrezia's unabated intense passions from her brother.

Meanwhile, Rodrigo seems thoroughly recovered from his poisoning, to the point of once again sleeping with women - or at least, one woman - other than his wife. And this of course leads to political headaches.

And I haven't touched the chestnut scene, which probably outshines in debauchery anything we've ever seen even in Rome, not least because the players are cardinals.

See also The Borgias Season 3 Premiere: "Blade's Breath" ... The Borgias 3.2: Going Both Ways

And see also The Borgias Season 2 Sneak Preview

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

The Following Begins

A nasty night of entertainment on Fox tonight, with a dark episode of Bones followed by the premiere of a much darker series - as in a serial killer just one or so steps below Hannibal Lecter - called The Following.

James Purefoy, best known to the American audience as Mark Antony in Rome, plays the erudite serial killer Joe Carroll. He was an English professor with a poorly selling first novel (uh oh) and an obsession with Edgar Allan Poe. He breaks out of death row, and that brings his arresting officer, Kevin Bacon's Ryan Hardy, back into play.

Except Ryan is much more than an arresting officer. He was an intrepid FBI agent who against all odds nabbed Carroll some years ago, and was nearly killed in the process. He's retired due to his wounds, and an alcoholic (though he maybe was that way before). He also wrote a book, has a following of at least one young FBI guy, who is thrilled to be working with Ryan on this new Carroll case.

Except Carroll is much more than a literate serial killer. While he was in prison, he somehow attracted a cadre of blindly devoted followers, women and men, who will do anything he commands. Hence the name of the show.

So what starts out as a show about a brilliantly, sickeningly demented serial killer who thinks women look their most beautiful when dead and who takes out his victim's eyes - ala Poe - and prides himself on all the ocular muscles he expertly severs, segues into a show more about a Charles Manson writ large. Or, what might have happened had Charles Manson been able to command a following even once he was behind bars.

It's a frightening prospect, powerfully acted by both Purefoy and Bacon, and I'll be watching the rest of the harrowing story this season with one eye on the screen and one on the door.

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Boss is Back for Second Season

Boss was back for its second season last night on Starz. Aptly compared to The Sopranos and Rome in its no holds barred intensity and life-and-death plotting and plot twists, Boss stars Kelsey Grammer as the ruthless Mayor Tom Kane of Chicago, ready and willing to do anything to keep in power. That's not easy, given that he has a neuro-degenerative, ultimately fatal illness (five years), and the anything includes betraying his own daughter (who had been helping him with his illness), and killing his second-in-command (Ezra) who at least did betray Kane. All of this makes Kane one of the most appealing mixes of brutal and oddly sympathetic to come along on television well - since The Sopranos.   And, actually, Kane is even more ruthless than Tony Soprano, for whom selling out his daughter Meadow would have been unthinkable.

The second season of Boss looks to be in as good form as the first.   And last night's episode ended in something we didn't see in the first: an attempt on Kane's life, after a rally, results in his beautiful wife Meredith getting shot.   She of course wasn't killed - thank you, coming attractions, for spoiling any uncertainty we may have had about that - though she's too important and charismatic a character to remove from the series.

But who did the shooting? Or, more important, who put the shooter up to it? I'm thinking Kane hired a sharp shooter to do the job.   Indeed, he had been hallucinating about Ezra right before the shooting. Meredith had betrayed him too in the first season - not as badly as Ezra, and she had been suitably punished, but maybe not enough for Kane, who is a stickler for the right level of payback. Or, maybe Kane needed the sympathy lift, which is what he got by busting his loyal daughter.

Should be provocative, riveting viewing, like first season, and I'm looking forward to it.

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The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Political Animals: Alternate Hillary History

Political Animals (6-part mini-series) debuted on the USA Network Sunday night. The Hollywood Reporter called the 2.6 million viewers "soft ratings"- I disagree, those numbers are pretty decent. I hear tell that the producers say that series was not really inspired by Hillary and Bill Clinton - that's complete nonsense, and another demonstration of literary critic I. A. Richards' admonition that the creator of a narrative is the last person you should go to for an explanation of what it means - the creator could be anything from dissembling to not being in touch with the implications of the work.

Alternate history is a form of story telling well known in science fiction. How would the world have been different had Lincoln or JFK not been assassinated, had Germany won the Second World War, etc? I take a similar tack about Socrates and the hemlock in The Plot to Save Socrates.

Political Animals is the story of Elaine Barrish, former First Lady of a popular two-term President (the most popular "since Kennedy") with a southern accent and a penchant for the ladies and affairs. She loses a close campaign for the nomination for President to a young, well-spoken, dynamic opponent. So far, the history is not alternate but all but identical to Hillary and Bill's. But on the night she concedes to her opponent, the divergence from our real world begins: Elaine wants and gets a divorce from her philandering husband.

So the excellent set-up for this series is: what would have happened had Hillary left Bill after conceding the nomination to Barack Obama in 2008? One highly significant development stays the same: President Garcetti (played by Adrian Pasdar, who also played a President in one of the realities in Heroes) makes Elaine his Secretary of State. And the show if off and running.

There are inevitable minor differences between the reality of Political Animals and ours. Former President Hammond and Elaine Barrish (who uses her original name, unlike Hillary) have two sons (one gay, the other engaged to a bulimic) and no daughter. And, at this point, it looks like Obama is a better President than Garcetti (who is Italian American not African American).

But the tableau is easily recognizable as ours, with the twist, and that's its appeal. What differences will this twist engender? Elaine is free to sleep with other people - though the only man she sleeps with so far is her former husband, at least once, for special emotional support - and she vows to run again for President. The acting is excellent - Signorney Weaver as Elaine and Ciarán Hinds (Caesar in HBO's superb Rome) as her former husband and former ex-President, and I'm looking forward to every episode of this original, courageous, and highly entertaining series.

The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Hell on Wheels: Blood, Sweat, and Tears on The Tracks, and the Telegraph

Thought it was time that I rolled in with a review of Hell on the Wheels, which rolled out its 5th episode on AMC this past Sunday.

I gotta first say that AMC has been coming up with nothing but aces with its series. From Mad Men to Breaking Bad to The Walking Dead to The Killing and now Hell on Wheels, I'd say AMC has more top-notch series on the air than HBO and Showtime put together these days.

And Hell on Wheels is one of the best - which is to stay, every bit as good as those other four so far. Now readers of this blog will know how partial I am t to historical dramas - Rome (HBO), The Tudors (Showtime), Mad Men (AMC), The Borgias (Showtime), Boardwalk Empire (HBO) - and Hell on Wheels has carved out a niche all its own, in 1865, with the Civil War just over and Lincoln in his grave, as the opening episode tells us.

What I especially like about historical dramas is when they not only get the events but the technology and media of the time just right. Hell on Wheels is about the building of the transcontinental railroad in the U.S., so it's just bursting with technology, accurately portrayed, blood, sweat and tears at every turn.

The only long distance medium at hand in those days was the telegraph, whose poles went up alongside the tracks, and kept information and money, the lifebloods of the massive construction project, flowing. Colm Meaney puts in his best performance since Miles on Star Trek: The Next Generation (hey, another travel show) as the boss of the whole railroad operation - Thomas 'Doc' Durant - and one of my favorite parts of every episode is watching him bark messages ("STOP") to his hardworking telegraph operator. (For more on the history and early impact of the telegraph, see my 1997 book, The Soft Edge: A Natural History and Future of the Information Revolution.) The telegraph has been called The Victorian Internet, and I call it an early form of tweeting in New New Media (2009).

Dominique McElligott is beautiful and bright as Lily Bell, whose beloved husband, surveyor for the railroad, dies at Indian hands in the first episode. Durant certainly wants Lily - though he probably loves his railroad more - but it's likely just a matter of time before she gets together with Cullen Bohannan (Anson Mount), the other fine lead of the series, a former Confederate determined to kill all of the Yankees who killed his wife in their home.

There's just one of those Yankees left, at this point, and it will be interesting to see whether he remains elusive for the entire season or series, or meets his demise sooner. One of many interesting stories, subtle and powerful, that keep this railroad of a series and its viewers stoked.

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Friday, October 21, 2011

Boardwalk Empire 2.4: Nearly Flagrante Delicto

HBO's Boardwalk Empire put up one of its most powerful scenes - sensual and psychological - in episode 2.4. It involved two characters who are major but not the most absolutely central to the series. And the scene in effect came in two parts.

The characters are Gillian (Jimmy's mother, played by Gretchen Mol) and the Commodore (Jimmy's father, played by Dabney Coleman).

In part one, Gillian starts seducing the Commodore with a 1920s exotic strip tease that leaves her naked and the Commodore breathless. Gillian never looked better - we see her waist up from the front and all the way down the back - indeed, the only scenes I recall as seductive as this were Atia's (played by Polly Walker) completely nude scenes in HBO's Rome.   But the result of Gillian's temptations is not the greatest for the Commodore, who has a stroke.   We learn later that men in his condition apparently can't take this much excitement.

In part two of this story within a story, which comes much later in this episode, Gillian talks to the Commodore, immobile in his bed. The talk is her reminiscence of the first time the two made love, which turns out to be a harsh and cruel tale of the Commodore plying Gillian (both were 20+ years younger - Gillian was just 13) with alcohol and starting to rape her when she's passed out. But Gillian woke up, and has always remembered the incident with understandable revulsion and horror.   Which raises the question: did Gillian deliberately try to seduce the Commodore to provoke a seizure?

I'm not sure, but I do find it just-desert O'Henry-esque (you can't escape your fate) that the Commodore is now pretty much back where he started last year, an invalid in bed in serious condition. And this is one of the things - actually, three, the scene and the questions and the cycles - that makes the series so good, and this episode especially. It also featured Chalky's flaws as a father (he's insecure when his daughter brings home a well-educated young suitor), and the gang back in New York.   Any scene with Lucky, Lansky, Bugsy, and Rothstein is always one of my favorite scenes on this show.

So far, Season Two of Boardwalk Empire is even better than Season One, which is saying a lot, because Season One was fine indeed.

See also Boardwalk Empire 2.1: Politics in an Age Before YouTube ... Boardwalk Empire 2.2: The Woman Behind the Throne ... Boardwalk Empire 2.3: Frankenstein and Victrola

And see also Boardwalk Emipre on HBO ... Boardwalk Empire 1.2: Lines and Centers Power ... Boardwalk Empire 1.10: Arnold Rothstein, Media Theorist ... Season One Finale of Boardwalk Empire

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...

Monday, May 30, 2011

The Borgias Season One Concludes

I haven't had a chance to review as many episodes of The Borgias as I would've wanted, but I've watched and greatly enjoyed every single one. As I said in my first review of the series, The Borgias is not quite as good as The Tudors, which was almost as good as Rome, one of the transcendent masterpieces of television. But that leaves The Borgias pretty good and entertaining indeed.

The last two episodes show why.   Not in command of any military to speak of, relying on his wit and devotedly loyal and brilliant family, Rodrigo Borgia - the Pope - manages to fend off and in effect defeat the awesome military might of King Charles of France. Charles and his cannon have brought Milan to its knees, and ripped the front line of Juan's (Rodrigo's son's) army to shreds. Rodrigo and Rome are defenseless. His cardinals flee like rats from a sinking ship.

But beautiful Lucrezia, with a mind like her father's - sharp as a whip - turns being taken prisioner into a Borgia victory. She charms Charles into sparing Rome and having a meeting with her father.   Charles is putty in Rodrigo's hands.   By the time the episode is over, Charles takes claim not of Rome but Naples - a city decimated by plague.

As Charles lays claim to a city of corpses, Rodrigo celebrates the birth of his grandchild, Lucrezia's son by her stablehand lover, not her boorish husband.   Rodrigo has managed to finesse that as well, manipulating the boor - who also deserted Rodrigo in his military time of need - into accepting an annulment.   As the Borgia family gathers, we see them at the height of their power, influence, and happiness.   They love no one as much as themselves, and that is their great attraction and key to their power.

History tells us there will be severe trials ahead. I'm looking forward to the second season, and its scintillating mix of story, passion, skin, and spot-on technological accuracy.

See also The Borgias Sneak Preview Review ... The Borgias 1.5: Machiavellian Politics and Marriage ... The Borgias 1.6: Beds, Leg, Cannon

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...

Monday, March 28, 2011

The Borgias Sneak Preview Review

I saw the first episodes of The Borgias last week, courtesy of a Showtime screener. The series is a worthy successor of HBO's Rome and Showtime's The Tudors, by which I mean vibrant with great acting, lusty scenes, and a keen eye for historical detail, if not quite literal historical chronology.

The Borgias in question and on the screen are the family headed by Rodrigo (Jeremy Irons, always rewarding to see), who became Pope Alexander VI in 1492, the same year, of course, that Columbus reached the New World. This plays a role in the story, since Rodrigo is Spanish, and Columbus sailed across the Atlantic funded by Queen Isabella of Spain. Her desire, after Columbus's return, was to Christianize the New World, and this fits right into Rodrigo's schemes.

Also on hand are the beautiful and already beguiling Lucrezia (Holliday Grainger), barely a teenager at this point in the story (and a few years older here as a character than she was at the time in real life), and her brothers Cesare (strong role for François Arnaud) and Juan (David Oakes), each more or less willing to kill for their father. There's treachery, passion, loyalty, jealously, hatred and love flashing around every corner, in every scene, with a series of unexpected (or expected, if you know your history) murders and near-murders in every episode. Poison and knives are the weapons of choice, and the team that prevails usually does so because they have the best assassin.

There's also no shortage of torrential prejudice in the story, which makes for a compelling narrative, accurate history, and a reminder about how far or maybe not we've come in our own time. Marrano Jews (Jewish people who escaped the Spanish Inquisition by pretending to be Christian but secretly practiced their Jewish faith) play a significant part in this story, as Rodrigo's opponents whisper that he is Marrano, a serious charge to be make about a Pope. Muslims (or Moors, in the parlance back then) are on hand - distrusted and exploited. And women are clearly second-class citizens, with the partial exception of Lucrezia at this point, though even she is used for her father's political purposes and forced to bend to his will.

A nest of highly attractive people and vipers, and highly recommended.

The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

"challenging fun"
- Entertainment Weekly

e-mail received from a reader:
Dear Paul, I just dreamed of airships flying between raindrops. I just returned from 2042 CE, where I sold my hardcover copy of The Plot to Save Socrates for seventy million Neo-Euros, because it had your response to this e-mail from way back in 2007 scotch-taped onto the inside of the cover. A Paul Levinson collector paid top Neo-Euro, because of the authentic archaic e-mail printout from you. It turns out that not many of your e-mails from before your tenure as CEO of HBO/Cinemax and terms as United Nations Secretary General will survive that far into the future. So, please respond to this e-mail, to help found my great-grandchildren's fortune. My Will will stipulate that they must share with your great grandchildren. Thanks! Tom

I of course happily replied...

42 reviews of The Plot to Save Socrates!