Dark Matter 2.7: "Through This Door ..."

The excellent episode 2.7 of  Dark Matter is entitled "The Pyramid," a good title, but I think "Through this door," which Leighton says repeatedly in his rousing speech in support of what the plethora of alternate worlds with wonderful things that Velocity's use of Jason's invention is opening up, is even better.  And I say this even though we see plenty of horrors through this or that door in this episode, and Leighton is looking at this through rose-colored glasses.

There were lots of important and intriguing stories in this episode.  Here are some of my favorites (and they'll be some spoilers ahead):

• Mitchel MacNamara (played by Chris Diamantopoulos), the Humphrey Bogart / Sam Spade-ish character I said I was happy to see in my review of episode 2.2, gets his just deserts.  I hope he'll survive, though.  I still like his character.
• Margot Martindale's new character Laurel is also a pleasure to encounter.  She has a sign in her home that welcomes inter-reality visitors, in this case, Charlie.  Speaking of which, I assume it's Max he sees at the end, but with a show like Dark Matter and its unexpected turns, I certainly wouldn't bet on it.
• I'm as tired of stories about plagues as I assume you are, but I thought the Black Iris Plague was a logically very possible development to explore in a series about a myriad of alternate realities, and I thought it was handled very well.
• Daniela and her alternate-reality father were beautifully rendered, and their story made a crucially important point in this narrative:  although the fire in MacNamara's scene, the plague I just mentioned above, etc., are necessary to portray in this anti-fairytale of a series, there are nonetheless some fairytale-like wonderful elements to it too, and they're heartening to see.
• Finally, the appearance of Jason 2 at Jason 1's home at the end was a perfect teaser for next week's episode.

Now, in my past three reviews, I focused a lot on the cultural trimmings in this season of Dark Matter.  I did see something I thought I liked in 2.7, but I can't say more about it, because all I got was a brief blurry glimpse of it -- the LP cover in Jason's home.  It was reminiscent of Meet the Beatles, but the unclear letters didn't look like those words.  Anyone know what they are?

See also Dark Matter 2.1: Who's Who in the Infinite Bucket ... 2.2: Sam Spade Back in Action ... 2.3: Can Two Couples Be in Two Different Places at the Same Time? ... 2.4: "There's No Entrance to the Diner" ... 2.5: Canterbury Realities and Proust ... 2.6: The Harptones in the Multiverse

And see also Dark Matter 1.1-1.2: Break-Neck Action and Philosophic Contemplation ... 1.3 Missing Fingers ... 1.4 The Multiverse Unveiled ... 1.5: The Lesson ... 1.6 "A Bunch of Chicagos" ... 1.7: Obama Tower ... 1.8: A Bevy Of Jasons ... 1.9: Science Fiction and Horror

Dark Matter 2.6: The Harptones in the Multiverse

The Harptones, 1956

It was so good to hear The Harptones' "My Memories of You" in Dark Matter 2.6.  I love doo-wop.  I sang it with my group The Transits (I'm doing first tenure falsetto in this rough demo we did of The Passions' "I Only Want You").  I've written science fiction stories about doo-wop (check out "The Harmony" in my anthology Peter Brown Called). I even got my family to do a little of the Five Satins' "In the Still of the Night" in the early Covid days.

Now the Harptones song The Transits always sang was "Sunday Kind of Love" -- to this day, one of my favorite songs -- but "My Memories of You" certainly fits better in this episode of Dark Matter, and in Dark Matter overall.

Every time Jason-1 in his travels in interreality runs into someone that he knew in his original world (I suppose our world, yours and mine, too), he wonders if that person knows him, and if so, how much and what that person knows of him.  Jason wants to know the nature of their memories of him, or, from their perspective looking at Jason, my memories of you.

It's comforting to think that the same music exists, at least to some extent, across multiple realities.  But now that I'm thinking about it, where does that music really exist?  If we hear it on a jukebox in a bar in an alternate reality, it exists in that reality.  But lots of the music, including "My Memories of You", are part of the background soundtrack.  When the Harptones play in the background of a scene with Daniela, with her father, and then thinking of her father, are we to assume that she's hearing that song in her head?Maybe ... but unless it's playing in the car she's driving, or she tells someone she loves that song, we can't be sure.  Maybe that song is just something Blake Crouch or Jen Malone (music supervisor) or one of the other people in the 15-person music department put into those scenes to sharpen and enhance our understanding of what's going on.

Whoever chose it -- it was a great choice.  The other thing I especially liked in this episode is this alternate version of Amanda (Alice Braga) and her incandescent smile.  (I don't recall her ever smiling so vividly in the earlier realities she was in.)  And the hooded person who turned out to be Charlie taking a turn towards another reality, after Jason tells him that his lost twin Max is alive in one of them somewhere, promises a new story of some kind for him and us straight ahead.

See also Dark Matter 2.1: Who's Who in the Infinite Bucket ... 2.2: Sam Spade Back in Action ... 2.3: Can Two Couples Be in Two Different Places at the Same Time? ... 2.4: "There's No Entrance to the Diner" ... 2.5: Canterbury Realities and Proust

And see also Dark Matter 1.1-1.2: Break-Neck Action and Philosophic Contemplation ... 1.3 Missing Fingers ... 1.4 The Multiverse Unveiled ... 1.5: The Lesson ... 1.6 "A Bunch of Chicagos" ... 1.7: Obama Tower ... 1.8: A Bevy Of Jasons ... 1.9: Science Fiction and Horror

  

Dark Matter 2.5: Canterbury Realities and Proust

What an exquisite, beautiful episode, heart rending and heart warming at the same time.  Dark Matter 2.5 was in effect a standalone story, with a Jason of whatever number in a world by himself, using his last capsule to go to his childhood house in an alternate reality to see his mother and staying there.  As I said in my review about the end of episode 1.9 -- an end which we see again at the beginning of 2.5 -- this plethora of Jasons opens the gates to a Canterbury Tales, in which each traveler is an alternate Jason.  Call this Canterbury Realities or Canterbury Jasons.

This concerto of a tale was a lot like "The Inner Light" in Star Trek: The Next Generation, where Picard finds himself in a world with no Enterprise, and lives his life as a blacksmith and then a scientist.  But Picard on this planet is the Picard who knows he was Captain of the Enterprise.  The hero of Dark Matter 2.5 is not our Jason -- not Jason 1 -- whom we last saw in episode 2.4 left alone, as Charlie moves into a dorm and Daniela moves away somewhere to get away from it all.   The Jason in 2.5 is for whatever reason also alone (actually, we later see a note from him that he's lost his wife and son, so that makes him similar to Jason 1, though we don't know how and why this happened), and understandably uses his last capsule to move into an alternate reality.   So although 2.5 is (at this point) a standalone episode, its immediately following 2.4, where Jason 1 is left alone, creates a powerful synchrony between these two episodes.

[And there are spoilers ahead ... ]

The beginning of 2.5 with the ending of 1.9 with Jason 1 and Daniela and Charlie looking down at the crowd of Jasons including the Jason of 2.5 -- alright, let's call him Jason 1b -- also has the big benefit of giving Jason 1b a specific motive for using his last capsule.  He sees Jason 1 with the family that Jason 1b doesn't have.  It also adds punch to the ending of 2.5, where Jason 1b runs into the Daniela of that world, but I'll get to that in a minute.   (All of this complexity, by the way, makes for a wonderful episode, and, indeed, 2.5 may be the best episode in the series so far.  I know, I keep saying that, because it's true).

But back to the story, Jason 1b discovers that in this reality, he died when he was 16!  His mother, Elle, is deaf, and superbly played by Linda Bove, who is deaf.  Ellie accepts and loves Jason 1b, as a miracle that is bestowed upon her.  Jason 1b thrives.   He becomes a chair-maker (analogous to Picard's blacksmith), and rescues an alternate-version derelict of himself.  The three have a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner, and are joined by yet another Jason at Christmastime.  And Jason 1b, apparently an avid reader (there doesn't seem to be TV or streaming in this reality), devours volume one of Proust's In Search of Lost Time.  This is not only a good choice (volume one is entitled Swann's Way, note the double "n") for a protagonist -- or an alternate protagonist -- in a saga like Dark Matter (as I indicated in my review of 2.4 last week, Dark Matter is enriched by its inventory of 20th century popular culture),  it also brings Jason 1b to Maria's Bookstore in search of the final volume of Proust's trilogy, where he meets Maria, and we're treated to a touching falling-in-love story with all the trimmings.  That in itself is a worthy story, well acted by Angela Sarafyan and Joel Edgerton, who is especially outstanding in this episode.

Which also has just the right closer.  Jason 1b encounters the Daniela of this reality as he's shopping for food and flowers for the dinner Maria is preparing.   Daniela (of course) tells Jason 1b he's picking the wrong kind of flowers and should get roses.  Jason 1b recognizes her from the opening scene where he saw Jason 1 and Daniela 1 (and Charlie 1), and realizes he probably could have a relationship with Daniela is this new reality ... but he smiles and goes home to Maria.  A perfect ending to a perfect episode.

See also Dark Matter 2.1: Who's Who in the Infinite Bucket ... 2.2: Sam Spade Back in Action ... 2.3: Can Two Couples Be in Two Different Places at the Same Time? ... 2.4: "There's No Entrance to the Diner"

And see also Dark Matter 1.1-1.2: Break-Neck Action and Philosophic Contemplation ... 1.3 Missing Fingers ... 1.4 The Multiverse Unveiled ... 1.5: The Lesson ... 1.6 "A Bunch of Chicagos" ... 1.7: Obama Tower ... 1.8: A Bevy Of Jasons ... 1.9: Science Fiction and Horror

Dark Matter 2.4: "There's no entrance to the diner"

Nighthawks by Edward Hopper, 1942

So I'll tell you my favorite scene in Dark Matter 2.4: Charlie and Daniela looking at Edward Hopper's 1942 painting "Nighthawks", hanging in an art gallery in Chicago (it hangs in the Art Institute of Chicago in our reality).   Charlie tells her we're not supposed to connect to the people in the diner, because "there's no entrance to the diner".

Science fiction is supposed to be about science, not art.  But Ray Bradbury's celebrated The Illustrated Man, an anthology in which each story tells the tale of a different one of the 18 different tattoos on William the Illustrated Man's arm, is a notable exception, and there are others.  So the first thing that grabbed me and stayed with me about this scene is: good for Blake Crouch for including it in this episode of Dark Matter.

But disconnection, the difficulty of people to connect and relate, is a hallmark of this series, and the transcendent watermark of this episode.  Everyone is cut off from people they care about -- not because they're far away physically, but far away emotionally, separated in some cases by the chasms of alternate realities.

The Dessens are the most affected and afflicted.  Daniela still can't get over shooting the version of Jason she shot to death, and who can blame her.  I mean, the guy looked and sounded like Jason, because he was a Jason, and in shooting him Daniela inevitably killed something of the man she loved -- who, as far as we know, also loved her.

So the people in Hopper's painting capture the predominant disconnection of the people in Dark Matter.  But maybe that painting holds a ray of hope for the people in this streaming series.  The viewers of the painting, anyone outside of the diner in the painting -- we don't see any in the painting --can't connect to the people in the diner.  But ... the people sitting in the diner, the couple, the man sitting alone, the counter man behind the counter -- there's no reason they can't connect, right?  And if that's possible, maybe the same is true for the characters in Dark Matter, especially the characters who come from the same reality.

I wish there was some way to get this message to Daniela.  But, as far as I know, there is no way to directly communicate with characters on the other side of the streaming screen.  Though, come to think of it, in a way, maybe there is ...

See also Dark Matter 2.1: Who's Who in the Infinite Bucket ... 2.2: Sam Spade Back in Action ... 2.3: Can Two Couples Be in Two Different Places at the Same Time?

And see also Dark Matter 1.1-1.2: Break-Neck Action and Philosophic Contemplation ... 1.3 Missing Fingers ... 1.4 The Multiverse Unveiled ... 1.5: The Lesson ... 1.6 "A Bunch of Chicagos" ... 1.7: Obama Tower ... 1.8: A Bevy Of Jasons ... 1.9: Science Fiction and Horror

Paul Levinson interviews Paul Kaplan about The Thingy That's Stringy

Welcome to Light On Light Through episode 422, in which I interview Paul Kaplan about his book of poetry for people of all ages, The Thingy That's Stringy. 

Relevant links:

• get The Thingy That's Stringy here
• my review of The Thingy That's Stringy here or here

Check out this episode!

Fauda 5: Powerful, Necessary, Unforgettable

I binged the fifth season of Fauda on Netflix the past two nights.  As is well-known, the script for this season was substantially re-written after the savage Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.  The result was the story of an increasingly desperate attempt to stop a new terrorist attack -- an attempt by three members of the original Fauda team, Doron, Eli, and Steve -- each of them with a direct involvement in the Israeli attempt to stem the Hamas slaughter of unarmed Israelis in 2023.

In fact, the most effective two episodes in this 11-part season -- episodes 7 and 8 -- tell the harrowing stories of Doron, Eli, and Steve on that October day, an emotionally explosive account that made a highly effective, two-part movie in itself.  With all the anti-semitism rising around the world, it's more important than ever for the terrible story of October 7 to get out to the world.

This explicit connection to and depiction of such a vile real life event makes this fifth season of Fauda in significant part a docu-drama, an evocative, unforgettable depiction of fictitious characters in an all-too-real situation.  That reason alone makes this fifth season uniquely important and memorable.

But the fiction was significant, too.  Mélanie Laurent's Anne, the wife of someone who may be a Hamas operative in Marseilles, is an excellent addition to the story and cast, and plays a crucial part in the narrative.  Lior Raz as Doron (co-creator of the series with Avi Issacharoff), Yaakov Zada-Daniel as Eli, Doron Ben-David as Steve, and Itzik Cohen as Gabi are always welcome on the screen -- Gabi frequently has the best lines, like "I'm getting too old for this" -- and as always, the Yiddishkeit is good to hear and see.

Indeed, last night was the final night of Rosh Hashanah, so seeing Fauda over the past two nights felt especially right.  But its story, especially the story this season, is especially appropriate, any time, and any year.

Wars always have unforeseen wretched consequences.  World War I spawned fighting from the sky, World War II gave us nuclear weapons, the October 7 Hamas attack led to the decimation of Gaza.  Fauda 5 doesn't tell us that story, but it vividly reminds us why it happened.  It will be an essential marker of an unspeakably inhuman part of history.

See also Fauda: Beyond Homeland ... Fauda 2: Another Unforgettable Visit ... Fauda 3: Blood, Tears, Humanity ... Fauda 4: Very Much Alive and Wounded ... 

Dark Matter 2.3: Can Two Couples Be in Two Different Places at the Same Time?

That question -- can two couples be in two places at the same time -- is posted fairly early in the latest episode of Dark Matter, 2.3.  Let's look at that question more carefully.

The obvious answer is of course not, unless you're a world in which alternate realities exist.  But, actually ...

We've been in such a world ever since mass media were invented.  I mean, a photograph printed in a newspaper can be in as many realities or worlds simultaneously as the number of newspapers printed. If people are careful with their newspapers, or were talking about books, photos of people can also travel forward in time without aging too much.

But wait, a photograph of a person isn't really a person, right?  People can move and talk.  Ok, well, what about a person talking on the radio, or talking on television, or talking on a streaming service like Apple TV?   Edmund Carpenter, someone who worked with Marshall McLuhan, said when people are on television, they're like angels, which in some interpretations can be omnipresent, much like a deity.

So we can add angels to alternate realities as places where people or humanlike entities can be in more than one place, indeed an infinite number of places, at the same time.  But there's an important difference between angels and the characters we see in Dark Matter.  Those folks are certainly not angels, and some of them do some very bad things.  After all, Dark Matter is a life-and-death got-you-by-the-throat science fiction drama in just about every scene.

But angels and Dark Matter and alternate realities do have one thing common:  they're all modes of fiction, as far as we know.  See you back here next week, after we find out what happens next to the devils and angels on our screen.

See also Dark Matter 2.1: Who's Who in the Infinite Bucket ... 2.2: Sam Spade Back in Action

And see also Dark Matter 1.1-1.2: Break-Neck Action and Philosophic Contemplation ... 1.3 Missing Fingers ... 1.4 The Multiverse Unveiled ... 1.5: The Lesson ... 1.6 "A Bunch of Chicagos" ... 1.7: Obama Tower ... 1.8: A Bevy Of Jasons ... 1.9: Science Fiction and Horror

In-Depth Two-Part Interview about Neil Postman and Marshall McLuhan

Here's the two-part interview Andrey Mir recently did with me about Neil Postman and Marshall McLuhan.  I was Postman's student, and I wrote two books about McLuhan, as well as organized the one and only conference about the Tetrad.   

Dark Matter 2.2: Sam Spade Back in Action

Dark Matter 2.2 starts off with a nice piece of alternate history, as Jason, Daniela, and Charlie seek "A Perfect World" (title of the episode), actually a world in which they can find some relief from the chaos.  And they find a world with no Internet, smart phones, home computers, or social media -- all because Nixon beat Kennedy, and defunded NASA, and we never got to the Moon -- the race to get there in our reality having sharpened science and invention.

[More slight spoilers ahead .... ]

And the ending had a nice piece of a different kind, as we see Jason and Daniela unknowingly just across the hall of the hotel from Ryan and Amanda, one of the other couples and people making their way through the maze of alternate realities in this so-far not only exciting but conceptually rich second season.

But my favorite part of this episode is private detective (listed in the IMDb credits as "agent", though I thought I saw "Private Investigation" on his door) Mitchel MacNamara, whom Jason goes to for help, but we see at the end investigating the box that is the conduit to alternate realities.  MacNamara (played by Chris Diamantopoulos, an actor with a dossier of many roles) has a Sam Spade played by Humphrey Bogart kind of vibe, which is always welcome, but an especially good addition to this story of alternate realities with omnipresent life-and-death implications and consequences. 

And come to think of it, Sam Spade is a logical inhabitant of the technologically stifled world that Jason finds himself in -- The Maltese Falcon movie adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's 1929-1930 novel in which Bogart's Spade appeared hit theaters in 1941, a world just slightly less advanced than the place that Jason and family are hoping is a refuge.  

I really like that world in movies made at the time, and in streaming series and movies that harken back to that early media world (by our current standards).  But you know what?  I streamed Dark Matter 2.2 on my Mac Airbook last night, and I'm writing this review on that same laptop computer, and posting it on my blogs, and I like that world just fine, thank you. :)

See also Dark Matter 2.1: Who's Who in the Infinite Bucket

And see also Dark Matter 1.1-1.2: Break-Neck Action and Philosophic Contemplation ... 1.3 Missing Fingers ... 1.4 The Multiverse Unveiled ... 1.5: The Lesson ... 1.6 "A Bunch of Chicagos" ... 1.7: Obama Tower ... 1.8: A Bevy Of Jasons ... 1.9: Science Fiction and Horror

Review of Paul Kaplan's The Thingy That's Stringy: Be Careful, You Might Laugh Your Head Off

I rarely review poetry, and I don't think I've ever reviewed a book of poetry intended to be read by kids.  But Paul Kaplan was my student in Fordham University's Masters program in Media back in 2002-2004, just a few years after I got there, and I knew he was brilliant and funny, so ...

It turns out The Thingy That's Stringy is not only very wise and hilarious, it can be equally enjoyed -- immensely, if you ask me -- by adults as well as children. (It also has funny drawings done the author.) Kaplan is a master of taking metaphors literally, and this collection explores someone who wants to borrow a nap someone else is taking, a fish that has an underbite because it lives under water, dogs that walk people, a really lost sole, a kitten that catches colds not mice, hens that sit on eggplants, someone who looks for a giraffe after being told that his calf is behind his shin, someone who wonders why we call it a funny bone when it hurts so much after we hit it, someone who balks when someone asks him to give a hand because he only has two, someone who wonders exactly where the skin of their teeth is, a frustrated hummingbird who yearns to actually sing, a lazy eye that won't do any work, a student who asks the teacher can I go to the bathroom and gets an answer "I don't know -- can you?", and, well, you get the picture.

My copy of The Thingy That's Stringy is now plastered with post-it notes, in case I want to get a poem that will make me chuckle or laugh my head off in a hurry.  "A man's reach must exceed his grasp or what's a heaven for," the poet Robert Browning advised in the middle of the 19th century.   A century later, Marshall McLuhan upped the ante by replacing the word "heaven" with "metaphor".   And poet Paul Kaplan has now done it again with a deconstruction of metaphor that will keep your mind in stitches (ouch)  :)

And to be clear, kids will laugh with this book of poetry, too.  My wife sent a copy of the book to our two grandsons, then aged six and ten.   The first loved it, and the second was laughing too.  Whatever your age, I predict that you will be too.

Dark Matter 2.1: Who's Who in the Infinite Bucket?

Dark Matter -- the TV series on Apple TV -- based on Blake Crouch's novel -- which Blake Crouch created -- is back for its second season.  I thought the first season was thought-provoking and excellent, all that an alternate history science fiction TV series should be.  I thought episode 2.1 was even more so.

[And there will be a few spoilers ahead ... ]

The episode starts with a great punchline, as Jason tells the police detective (Keller from the first season) before she's replaced (along with Mason, also from the first season) by some other kind of cop (who says he's not a cop), "What, is it illegal to look like a bunch of dead people?" in response to being questioned about the bevy of dead Jasons who have turned up on the tables.  No, it's probably not, but we'll soon see another dead Jason, killed by Daniela because she's sure he's not her Jason, let's call him, Jason 1. The slain Jason does seem a little more ragged than our hero, and that ring on his finger, some of what he said, but ...

All of which raises an interesting question, at least to me.  Can we be 100% sure that the Daniela who pulled the trigger is Daniela 1, and the Jason she killed is indeed not Jason 1?  I mean, I get that we're supposed to think that the Jason who shows up after Daniela pulls the trigger is her (and our primary) Jason, but how can we know for sure in a series in which doppelgangers show up everywhere, including in the song "The Quiet Life," heard early in the episode (and indeed the name of this episode), which sure sounds like it was written and performed by Leonard Cohen, when in fact it's by Teho Teardo and Blixa Bargeld?

But that's all part of the mental stretching aka deep fun that characterizes alternate realities -- that's why I read them, watch them, and write them -- and season 2 of Dark Matter looks like it will have plenty of doppelgangers in the story, additions to the seemingly infinite number of Jasons, of which the Jasons on the tables at the beginning of 2.1 are just a drop in the infinite bucket.

And I'll be back here every week with a review of every season 2 episode, which looks to be well on its way to becoming classic.

See also Dark Matter 1.1-1.2: Break-Neck Action and Philosophic Contemplation ... 1.3 Missing Fingers ... 1.4 The Multiverse Unveiled ... 1.5: The Lesson ... 1.6 "A Bunch of Chicagos" ... 1.7: Obama Tower ... 1.8: A Bevy Of Jasons ... 1.9: Science Fiction and Horror

Audio Podcast: Paul Levinson interviews Matt Witten about His Cyberpunk Novel 51%

Welcome to Light On Light Through episode 421, in which I interview Mitt Witten about his new novel 51%.  In all seriousness, I consider this cyberpunk novel in the same league as Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and George Orwell's 1984.

Relevant links:

• my written review of 51%
• get the novel here
• Cass Sunstein about Orwell's 1984 
• Rob Sawyer's novel Flashforward
• my novelette "The Chronology Protection Case"

 

Check out this episode!

Review of Matt Witten's 51%: 100% Excellent, Relevant, Enjoyable, and Important

There couldn't be a better time to read Matt Witten's cyberpunk novel, 51%, in which Ayn Randian corporate power and philosophy controls and permeates all parts of American life, including the NYPD (New York's police), which are named NYPDInc, and in which police need payment from the people to do their work.  Apple's adaptation of William Gibson's Neuromancer will be streaming this coming January.  Even more important, Trump's hijacking of American democracy is claiming more innocent lives via ICE and other Federal police just about every week -- the most recent, Edwin Lopez-Cornejo, a 41-year-old migrant from El Salvador, died the day before yesterday at the Delaney Hall Detention Facility in Newark, NJ -- and that kind of "legal" killing requires vigorous response in all aspects of communication, including science fiction.

Witten's novel, published this past April, takes place 20 years from now.  People who are not rich pay for their medical treatment, education, and other essential needs by selling percentages of themselves to corporations.  If they sell more than 50%, they become corporate property, with where they live and work completely controlled by their owners.  To make sure that the 51%ers don't try to evade this corporate slavery, biochips are implanted in them, and their owners are alerted if anyone tries to remove them.

This is the environment in which NYPDInc Detective Luke (aka Juke) O'Keefe and his partner Halee Navarro (who carries a gun but is actually a “Crime Marketing Consultant”) must work in as they attempt to find the killer of Talia, a young immigrant 51% woman in New York City, and get drawn into a desperate, ingenious plan to break free of the corporate enslavement.  Witten has a keen sense of what the city would look like in such a corporate-glorified country, with streets renamed "Ayn Rand", "Randy Weaver", "Fountainhead", and "John Galt" -- right alongside current names like "Waverly" -- and gun models called "Hestons" and "Ruby Ridges".  Witten also knows his kittens, writing  "She started down the hall -- and tripped on a kitten, which had slipped out of the speck between her legs".  ("Speck", by way, is slang for apartment in this Big Corporate Apple, in which NYPDInc cops are called "Dincs" and the FBI cleverly called "Fincs".)

Given the ascent of AI in our world today, there of course is an AI character in 51% who, in another move that will make you smile, speaks with Margaret Thatcher's voice.  There's also use of fireflies in the story, which I'm also glad to see because they harken at least as far back in science fiction as my 1999 novel The Silk Code and Peter Watt's 2006 Blindsight, and they warrant more widespread use in our world.  And in the last third of the novel, there's almost nonstop action that will keep you glued for at least a few hours or longer, capping the memorable love story throughout.

But those are the science fiction and police fiction wheels of 51%, and the most important raison d'etre for this successor to Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and George Orwell’s 1984, along with the enjoyment it provides, is the lesson it gives us about the likes of Trump and his allies and the damage they continue to do to our country and our world, and why we must show up at the ballot box this November and begin to get them out of office.

more about The Silk Code here

Detective Hole: Nordic Noir with a Vengeance

It's been a while since I reviewed a Nordic Noir series, and that's because I've been watching science fiction, and also a variety of Britbox and Acorn whodunnits with my wife. We binged Detective Hole on Netflix the past few nights -- pronounced Holeh or Hola -- and whew, it's a combination of well worth waiting for and Nordic Noir to the max, based on the fifth novel of the Jo Nesbø's series, which I haven't read.

Nesbø was also the writer and showrunner of the series, which began streaming on Netflix in March, so he deserves a lot of the credit for the extremities -- the blood and sheer gore -- or blame, if you find them a bit too much.  If you do, I'll say it's at least redeemed by a complex story about serial killing that will keep you guessing until the ninth and concluding episode.

The acting is also top-notch.  Joel Kinnaman, whose breakout role as an American police detective in The Killing was outstanding (and who was great in the first through current season of For All Mankind), projects a very different kind of power in Detective Hole.  Tobias Santelmann plays Harry Hole (first name pronounced Harey, like you pronounce the word "are"), and like Kinnaman's Tom Waaler, Hole is emotionally crippled, though in a very different way. (The two exemplify a genre that I identified decades ago -- the "defective detective":  Barnaby Jones was aged, Columbo was a schlep, etc.)  In contrast to Hole, his domestic partner Rakel (very well played by Pia Tjelta) is usually a cool voice of reason like a ginger ale with ice on a hot summer day, and I like Beate's detective work (well played Ellen Helinder) too.

I'm not going to say anything about the plot, because I don't want to give anything away, other than I've always thought, watching shows about serial killers (my first review on this blog some 20 years ago was of Dexter), that the serial killing could be for a very different reason...

But I will say that I read recently that crime in Norway, where Detective Hole takes place, is among the lowest recorded the world, and my wife mentioned, as we were enjoying and sometimes cringing at what we were seeing on the screen, that maybe viewers in Norway have a special interest in seeing in their fiction what they happily don't see much of in their news.  But I'd bet that Detective Hole will keep you hostage as a viewer wherever you are.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 4.1: Safeguarding the Future

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds kicked off its fourth season with a cracker-jack episode of my favorite kind of science fiction: time travel.  Now, I entitled this review "Safeguarding the Future", which is always a good thing.  But it becomes a pre-eminently essential thing when travel to the past is involved.  And Captain Pike is the perfect person to be helming this episode, making the crucial decisions, given that he is walking around with knowledge of a future he most certainly doesn't want to safeguard, because ...

[And there will be spoilers ahead ... ]

In case you didn't already know this, Pike gets severely disfigured in "The Menagerie," a two-part episode aired on broadcast TV -- NBC -- in the original Star Trek series back in 1966.  So, he'd love to avoid that future, not protect it, if there was anything he could do, any way he could prevent it from happening.

But the same, of course, is not the case with our human species. Because if that is not safeguarded, then there wouldn't be a Captain Pike or any human being in the first place.  So that is Pike's guide when the Enterprise gets caught up in a cosmic storm (a frequent source of predicament in the Star Trek universe) and finds itself some 65 million years back in the past, when dinosaurs ruled the Earth.  And since this is science fiction, a time when sentient Martians, which look a lot like we humans, are in mortal conflict with intelligent space-faring insects that come from a fifth planet in our solar system, between Mars and Jupiter, and are bent on destroying the Martians.

Now, as any Star Trek fan well knows, the Federation would want any starship to do whatever it could to protect a human-like sentient species from marauding insects out to exterminate the humanoids -- short of wiping out these Dol'Drm intelligent insects themselves.   But as Pike to his credit realizes, far more important than Star Fleet policy is making sure that Star Fleet exists in his present, and that includes his crew and him.  His own understanding, his own prime directive, thus leads him to allow the humanoid Martians to destroy the 5th planet (because it doesn't exist in our reality, which is Star Trek's reality).  And, though he likes the humanoid Martians, especially Commander Cassel (pictured above in a scene with Pike), he accepts that the force of her destruction of the fifth planet will encompass her ship and her, with the energy from the blast turning neighboring Mars into a barren planet, and a fragment from the blown-to-bits fifth planet hitting the Earth and wiping out the dinosaurs.

All of that, if not exactly cause for celebration, is certainly a source of satisfaction and happiness. Pike saved the Enterprise and all aboard and everyone he knows from being instantly erased from existence.  He saved our human species on Earth, because had the dinosaurs continued, the little mammals that existed in their time might have been wiped out before they evolved into primates. That's not only good time-travel science fiction, but a cause for everyone watching this episode to be happy as well, that we're here and able to watch and enjoy episode 4.1 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, right?

See also Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 3.1-3.3: Gorn, Spock & Chapel, and The Walking Dead ... 3.4: Lots of Laughs and Serious Business ... 3.5: Endearing Pseudo-Science ... 3.6: Chris and Jim ... 3.7: The Medium and The Message ... 3.8: Pike's Hair and Spock's Smile  ... [Note: I didn’t review 3.9 because, though it had a few good moments, I didn’t have enough worth saying about it.] ... 3.10: Season 3 Finale: The New Story

And see also Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 2.1: Nurse Chapel ... 2.2: Racism and Sexism in the Courtroom ... 2.3: Time Travel and Alternate Universes ... 2.5: Chapel and Spock ... 2.6: Jimmy Kirk ... 2.7: Pike, Spock, and Boimler ... 2.8: Ethically Wrenching ... 2.9: The Operetta ... 2.10: Young Scotty and Five Other Great Things about This Season 2 Finale

And see also Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1.1-1.2: Great Characters, Actors, Stories ... 1.3: "Instead of terraforming planets, we modify ourselves ..." ... 1.4: The Gorn and the Wub ... 1.5 Going to the Chapel ... 1.6: Two Stories ... 1.7: The Kiss ... 1.8: Ends of the Continuum ... 1.9: Momentous! ... 1.10: Everything!

 another kind of time travel story ...

Condemned Dreams: Compellingly Relevant Truths

I just saw George Tsouris's Condemned Dreams.  The feature-length movie, now streaming on Amazon and Tubi, is billed as a philosophical horror movie.   And it's not that horror films cannot have philosophic depth -- see Frankenstein and Dracula -- but Condemned Dreams has and is much more.

It's the story of a woman, Shy, arrested and sentenced to death, because the government doesn't like her ideas.  As such, it's a needed and much welcome attack on the fascism that's currently in power in the United States (and in Russia, etc.).  And its story of the condemned Shy interviewed in her cell by a reporter as she awaits her sentence, has much in common with 1984, Waiting for Godot, and Plato's dialogue Crito about Socrates in his cell, awaiting his deadly punishment and visited by his friend Crito.

Now, as is well known even by a student who took an introduction to philosophy course, Socrates refuses Crito's offer of escape, explaining that he (Socrates) might criticise the state, but would never put himself above it and evade its sentence.  I've actually been disbelieving that that's what actually happened, ever since I first read Crito in my Intro to Philosophy course with Prof. Henry Magid at CCNY in the 1960s -- not believing that really happened, because I know had I been in Socrates's shoes, I would have taken Crito's avenue of escape in  a New York minute.  (I was so vexed by the decision Socrates made, I eventually wrote The Plot to Save Socrates.)

Shy (Soft Abilez) in Condemned Dreams gets no visit from an old friend.  Instead, Lauren (Catherine Parish), a reporter whose career is tanking, pays Shy a series of visits, and their discussion, along with Lauren's conversations with Detective Marshall (Brady Moldrup), one of the cops who arrested Shy, are the beating heart of this riveting movie.  We're treated to a discussion of how we evaluate the life we've lived (Shy laments "all the time I wasted -- I could have accomplished so much more"), the meaning and limits of freedom (I always liked the Millian libertarian view that everyone should be free to swing their arms as far and wide as they please -- as long as they don't hit someone else's nose), and the proper role of police in a democratic society (distressingly relevant, as I indicated above, to what ICE is continuing to do in our country).

If this sounds like a lot of conversation, there is, and as such Condemned Dreams would make a highly compelling, relevant play.  In the meantime, check out the movie, and if you're in the mood for more talk, come to the free online conversation that will occur on StreamYard tomorrow (July 25) at 11am (New York time), featuring George Tsouris, Catherine Parish, Rew Starr (Lauren's editor), as well as panelists Nick Zaino, Ken Holmes, Caleigh LeGrand, and Yours Truly, hosted by Samita Nandy.

 

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (The Play): WhoDunnit in the Roaring 20s

My wife and I saw a preview performance last evening of Agatha Christie's 1926 novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, written, directed, and adapted by Mark Shanahan to the stage of the Westport Country Playhouse (in Westport, Connecticut), and we loved it.  The cast was nimble, the setting including the music and sound effects was fetching, and you can't go wrong with an early Hercule Poirot story.  As John Lennon might have said, "a splendid time is guaranteed for all".

A few words about Mark Shanahan:   He was my student in Fordham University's MA in Media Studies Program, where we first met in 2002.  I soon learned he was not only a brilliant student, but a gifted actor and playwright.   Indeed, his adaptation of my novelette, "The Chronology Protection Case," was a finalist for the Edgar Award in 2002, and you'll find Mark's audiobook adaptations of that, along with my novels, The Consciousness Plague and The Plot to Save Socrates over on Audible. 

You of course all know about Agatha Christie and her character Hercules Poirot.  I consider her the whodunnit equivalent of science fiction author Isaac Asimov.   His character Hari Seldon maps out the future, just as Poirot maps out the past, in particular, who murdered whatever suitable victim.  More than 50 movies and 70 television episodes feature the fastidious, deductive detective, some in the time in which the novels were first published, others in the present day.  One of the joys of Shanahan's adaptation is its zestful presence in the 1920s -- when the novel was first published -- down to the stick-like telephones and the dictaphone, which indeed plays a role in the ending (Mark learned his media well :)

Anthony Cochrane is a fine, emotive, justifiably pompous Poirot, and I especially enjoyed how he and a few of the actors talked not only among themselves but to the audience.  (Just about everyone on stage is a suspect, so I'm not going to say anything more about anyone else's acting, except it all was delightful.)  The story is of course a homicide mystery, but if you'd like a breath of fresh theatrical air in this hot, smokey summer,  I highly recommend The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, which will be on stage at the Westport Country Playhouse July 14 through August 1, 2026.

Nemesis: Good to the Last Drop

My wife and I binged Nemesis -- eight episodes all up on Netflix -- and really enjoyed it.   The story is a life-and-death contest -- psychological, physical, strategic -- between two brilliant, driven men: LAPD Detective Isaiah Stiles and suave criminal mastermind Coltrane Wilder.   Stiles is convinced that Wilder, who has high-profile fronts in real estate and philanthropy, is behind and actively involved in all kinds of big crimes, including at least one that affected his family, but nobody including his police superiors believe him.

That's a good enough set-up for an edge-of-your-seat police series in itself, but both men are married to beautiful, highly intelligent women in complex relationships, and their families play an increasingly important role as the narrative unfolds.   Stiles's father and son, and Wilder's sister-in-law are major characters with elements of compelling stories that intersect with unforeseen consequences.  In addition, police of various positions and loyalties, and people in Wilder's gang with different levels of reliability, play crucial roles.

All of this rolls out with shoot-em-up action, including an excellent massive battle between good guys and bad guys, neither of which are entirely good or bad.  The acting was excellent.  No one other than Domenick Lombardozzi (Ray Donovan) (born on my birthday), Chris Bauer (For All Mankind), who both played senior LAPD people, and  were known to me, but all were memorable, especially Y'lan Noel as Wilder, Matthew Law as Stiles (a great example of name determinism), Mo Irvin as his father, Cleopatra Coleman as Wilder's wife (whom I just realized I saw and liked in a strange little time-travel movie In the Shadow of the Moon), and Gabrielle Dennis as Stiles' better half.

Hey, Nemesis was great summer fun, and would likely be just as good in winter.

Project Hail Mary: Better Than Disclosure Day

Well, the wife and I saw Project Hail Mary last night on Amazon Prime (it just got there this month, after its release in theaters in March) and I  liked Project Hail Mary a lot more than Disclosure Day.  Which is not to say I didn't like Disclosure Day, and the two are not exactly the same exact genre, so maybe the comparison is unfair.   But they do have a lot in common: humans and interstellar intelligences, unlikely heroes, oddball humor, life and death situations on the planetary level.

But Project Hail Mary has a lot more soul in the story, more humanity in the best sense of the word, and a more memorable, lovable interstellar intelligence.   Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) is one of the best human emissaries to the stars -- Tau Ceti, in this case -- in all the movies and TV shows I've seen on that topic over the years, beginning with Captain Video and His Video Rangers in the 1950s on the shortly lived Dumont Channel.   Grace surprises us at numerous junctures, as does Rocky (James Ortiz), the intelligent being from the planet Erid (circling the real star 40 Eridani), who with Grace goes to Tau Ceti e (the planet named Adrian in the movie).  Rocky doesn't have a face, though if you look at Rocky carefully at certain times from certain angles, it almost seems he does (I say "he" because Ortiz does Rocky's voice).

Drew Goddard wrote the screenplay from Andy Weir's novel, not surprising given the excellent job they did with The Martian.  Like that movie, Project Hail Mary is a fine piece of science fiction that plays with the limits of scientific plausibility.   Indeed, because the threats and solutions in Project Hail Mary are interstellar, far wider in scope than Mars and Earth, its connection to science is stretched pretty far and thin.   But in the end -- and in the beginning and middle, too -- I felt I was seeing a riveting story that Isaac Asimov or Robert Heinlein could have written, unlike a central element of Disclosure Day which felt more in the province of Walt Disney.

I also had no idea about how Project Hail Mary would end, until the very end, which is always a big plus in a movie.   This derives from the complex, unusual character of Ryland Grace, astutely written and perfectly acted.   In addition, the cinematography was otherworldly convincing and topnotch.   If you're in the mood for a movie in which Earth is threatened by something from outer space, in a situation that unfurls in a way that Hugo Gernsback would have really enjoyed, you can't go wrong with Project Hail Mary.

Star City 1.8: Sacrifice and Relevance

from my collection of Soviet space medals

Well, the season one finale of Star City -- episode 1.8 -- was one of the best finales of any season of any series I've ever seen.   It fired on so many cylinders -- ethical, personal, and sheer human accomplishment.  Here are some of them (and there will be spoilers ahead):

• Valya actually landing on Venus -- the end of his "one-way" trip (as he put it) to our neighbor planet between us and Mercury and the sun.  He did this because he had to be in the bathysphere, firing off Venerus, so Venerus could get back to Earth.  Also, because he knew the Soviets would hunt him down and kill him if he got back to Earth.
• Belikova, the first woman to land on the Moon, doing her best to stop the Soviet fascist monsters from killing Sasha and Lakshmi.  She knew those fascist soldiers would stop for a least a few seconds before they shot her down -- she was known to everyone in the Soviet Union -- and indeed they just took her into custody, without harming her.
• Sergei working with Chief Engineer Korolev to get Venerus back to Earth safely, which in this alternate history is Finland, not the Soviet Union, whose lunatics in power would kill their own people.
• Not completely a sacrifice,but nonetheless very admirable: Sasha not going with Lakshmi into Finland, but staying in the Soviet Union, so he could in some way be closer to his wife Belikova, whom he’s come to love.

I know I keep talking about the Nazi-like government that existed in the Soviet Union.  Korolev says none of that really matters, the important thing is "We sent human beings to Venus."   As usual, he has the best lines.  He sees the deepest truths.   But, for me at least, the fascism of the Soviet Union -- the murder of anyone who gets in the way of their agenda, even heroes who have risked their lives to go to Venus and back -- is also a deep truth, and very dangerous.  And its depiction in Star City, as I keep saying, is especially relevant -- fortunately for the series, unfortunately for us living in the United States and therefore the world at large.   I look forward to its continuing depiction in Star City, and its reduction in relevance to what is happening in the real reality unfolding in the United States.

See also Star City 1.1-1.2: Fascism and Space ... 1.3: Sadness and Joy ... 1.4: Venus in Blue Genes ... 1.5: The Spy Who Went to Venus ... 1.6: "You're A Monster" ... 1.7: Return Voyage

in Kindle, paperback, and hardcover

The Fix: A Short Film with a Crucial Story

I first met Amanda Greer nearly a decade ago, in 2017, after I saw her performance as Marilyn Monroe in Anthony Marinelli's play, Max & Domino, which was playing at The Duke on 42nd Street in Manhattan.  I had first gotten to know Anthony some years before, when he asked me if I thought he got Marshall McLuhan's concept of "acoustic space" right in the play Anthony wrote (later made into a movie) of the same name (Anthony did get it right).  And I first got to see Denise Reed, with Amanda, in Marinelli's production of Sartre's No Exit in 2020, and I saw the two again in Anthony's wise and hilarious Why I Had to Kill You While You Slept in 2023.  Denise also played an important role in an episode of FBI on CBS in 2024, and joined Amanda and Anthony and me in a dramatic reading taken from my 2024 novel It's Real Life: An Alternate History of The Beatles at Big Red Books in Nyack, NY in 2025 (Anthony and Amanda are real-life characters in the novel).

I tell you all this because when I heard that Amanda and Denise had formed a production company -- The Abbey, Stories Worth Telling By Women, For Women -- I couldn't wait to see one of their movies.  And The Fix, an 18-minute short (co-written by Chelsea Hattan and Anthony Marinelli, from a story by Amanda Greer), is one powerhouse of a film -- a brutal,  scathing, heartbreaking, hopeful, all-too-real portrait of what it means to be a woman addicted to heroin.

The heartbreak and horror of heroin addiction has been depicted in feature-length films like Trainspotting (1996) which also tried to leaven its message with dark humor.  The Fix has no time for that.  There's nothing funny about its smiles.   Anyone who thinks there's an easy exit out of this kind of hell will be quickly disabused.  Indeed, the creative work that comes closest to the The Fix in tone and message is something even shorter than this movie, John Lennon's "Cold Turkey", a song 5 minutes and 1 second long.

Speaking of cold turkey, of course in reality there are ways out of heroin addiction.  But all are life shaking.  Is The Fix wrong to vividly portray such a painful situation?  No, because it's also a testament to sheer human willpower, how the part of us that strives to save our lives can triumph over the part that seeks to blissfully self-destruct -- they're two sides of the same human coin.  Anything that shows people this reality is eminently worth seeing.  The Fix been making the film festival rounds -- garnering 16 nominations and 9 wins -- and will be at the 32nd Annual San Antonio Film Festival later this month of July.

Here's the trailer.

Star City 1.7: Return Voyage

I always say that unless you see a character's head blown off, or dissolved in a vat of acid, he or she may still be alive.  I learned this watching 24.

[And there will be spoilers ahead ... ]

It apparently happened again at the end of Star City 1.7.   Last week, in episode 1.6, we saw Colonel Raskova of the KGB ordering the murder of cosmonauts Sasha, Valya, and Lakshmi, by depriving them of their oxygen on their way to Venus -- after Sasha and Lakshmi disobeyed Raskova's order to do that to Valya --and Chief Engineer Korolev quit in fury and disgust as a result.  This week, in episode 1.7, we learn that the Venera (the Soviet ship to Venus) is returning to Earth as per schedule.

Now, that does not necessarily mean that the three cosmonauts are alive.  For all we know, the Venera was designed to move through space to and from Venus and even send messages back to Earth automatically.  And I guess the KGB and their lackeys in Star City could explain the three cosmonauts dead on the ship as due to a malfunction. But from what we've already seen on Star City, the cosmonauts, like our astronauts in that period of time, were more than spam in the can, as our real astronauts used to say.  They had work to do, making sure the voyage was on track, and all the tech was operating as it should.  So chances are the fix we saw Sasha attempt to put in at the end of 1.6 indeed got working to save at least one of the three, and I hope even more.

As I've already said here in earlier reviews, the battle between science and paranoid fascism in Star City is an excellent metaphor for the battle the U.S. is going through right now, with RFK, Jr and his anti-vaccine policy in our Department of Health, and much more.   I'm very glad to see science perhaps gaining the upper hand in Star City, and I'm hopeful it's beginning to happen right here in America on this Fourth of July.

See also Star City 1.1-1.2: Fascism and Space ... 1.3: Sadness and Joy ... 1.4: Venus in Blue Genes ... 1.5: The Spy Who Went to Venus ... 1.6: "You're A Monster"

in Kindle, paperback, and hardcover