"Paul Levinson's It's Real Life is a page-turning exploration into that multiverse known as rock and roll. But it is much more than a marvelous adventure narrated by a master storyteller...it is also an exquisite meditation on the very nature of alternate history." -- Jack Dann, The Fiction Writer's Guide to Alternate History

Monday, March 31, 2008

New Amsterdam 6: The DNA of Art

Tonight's New Amsterdam - Episode 6 - started out great: John is called in on a case, and finds the victim looking just like his son - John's son from 1913, in his late teens.

Now, we know that time travel is not one of the ingredients of this series, so the deceased could not be John's son who literally traveled from then to now.

One possibility might have been that John's son somehow inherited part or all of John's immortality - and lived, not aging a day, from 1913 until now, only to die riddled by bullets. Perhaps John's son had found his true love, the one who would set him free from his immortality.

Instead, the story took a more tame but still intriguing turn: this was a descendant of John's son who just happened to look like John's son. So we get get a nice episode tonight about another one of the many branches of John's family tree.

Along the way, we get some good thoughts about the immortality of art - John's a painter in 1913 - and some fine scenes in which John's art from 1913 shows up today.

I wished, again, that the show was more focused on this aspect of John's story than his police work.

On the other hand, there's more than enough of John and his many relationships and accomplishments through time to still make New Amsterdam an unusual series of lasting appeal.

See also New Amsterdam, 1,2,3 ... 4. Poetry and Parenthesis ... 5. Meets Mad Men ... 7. What Kept John from Dying? ... 8. New Amsterdam Bows: Lessons in Cons and Backsides





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4 comments:

Deborah said...

This one aggravated me a little. The plot was so "done," so played out, and his exploration of his own family tree ended up too neatly. It's like they couldn't let him have his remorse, it had to be made all better by making Rosie a good guy.

And the timing is wrong. Rosie is 17 in 1913, but his son is the one who takes the family into the mob, because of the Depression? Do the math, it doesn't work.

Paul Levinson said...

Well, the math's not all that bad ...

Rosie might get married and have a son when he's 20 ... in 1916 ... the son would be 20 himself in 1936, right smack dab in the middle of the Depression ... just married, about to become a father himself, and goes mob to give his family some financial security...

The "son" we saw in 2008 would be 92 ... the guy looked a little younger, true, but, hey, it's possible that some of John's descendants don't age quite as much as everyone else...

Deborah said...

It's some very tight math, and when the son was 20 and making the decision about the family, Rosie was 40 and a teacher and not exactly not making decisions.

Paul Levinson said...

That's true about Rosie being 40 in 1936 (in my scenario)...

I can't recall ... what did Rosie's son say about his father when he (the son) went into crime?

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