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; Reacher; 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.

Saturday, October 31, 2026

Nocturne 1.1-2: Nordic Noir in Western Pennsylvania

Lots of excellent streaming TV these days. Just today, Dark Matter's season 2 finale was up on Apple TV, Dexter: Resurrection season 2 debuted on Paramount, MobLand's episode 2.7 was up on Paramount, and Nocturne debuted its first two episodes on Apple. I saw and immensely enjoyed all of them. I reviewed Dark Matter and Dexter: Resurrection, will review all of season 2 of MobLand when it concludes, and here I am with a review of Nocturne. Good thing it's Friday.

Nocturne is a powerful detective series (adapted from The Sandman and Lazarus novels -- which I haven't read -- by Lars Kepler -- pen name for Swedish writer couple Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril and Alexander Ahndoril) and has True Detective vibes. Liev Schreiber is Jonah Lynn, a retired, somewhat burned-out detective who gets sucked back into a kidnap case when one of the two kids shows up staggering across a bridge in Fairfield, a small fictitious town in western PA. His nemesis is Jurek Walter (played by Stephen Graham, with a perfect American accent), who's been in a high security prison for three years, and has a way getting into people's heads -- including guards -- and getting them to do his bidding. The FBI is involved (it's a kidnapping case), as is the daughter (Saga Bauer played by Zazie Beetz) of Jonah's partner who took his own life.

The incandescent acting of Schreiber and Graham works especially well in the rural Pennsylvania locale, which lends Nocturne a Mare of Easttown, American Rust, and even a side of Task flavor, which complement its True Detective and Nordic Noir tones. The key questions at this point are how much will the freed boy be able to tell Jonah and the police, who is Walter's accomplice on the outside, and how powerful is the mental control Walter has with those on the inside he has chosen to enlist with hypnotic effect.

I'm looking forward to see how this all plays out.

Friday, October 30, 2026

Dexter: Resurrection 2.1: His Work Brilliantly Cut Out for Him.

Dexter is back -- in the second season of Dexter: Resurrection on Paramount. It's one of my all-time favorite television series, and I've been reviewing it for 20 years. In fact the very first post in this blog was First Place to Dexter in December 2006. Jeff Lindsay's idea of a serial killer who kills serial killers was and is flat-out brilliant, and Clyde Phillips has done an extraordinary job bringing it to the screen, including getting Michael C. Hall to perfectly animate the title role.

The debut of the second season of Dexter: Resurrection was powerful and empathetic indeed. Dexter's in his 50s, and muses after his kill, which was more difficult than usual, that he needs to work out more. He's less careful than he should be, and his late father Harry (still wonderfully played by James Remar), who lives in Dexter's head, is almost constantly sounding warnings.

This new episode has everything: Dexter needs to attend to some unfinished business from the previous season. New serials killers are emerging in New York City. One of them (the New York Ripper) is played by Succession's Brian Cox. Another (the Five Borough Killer) announces that he plans to kill someone at a baseball game (oi!). Dexter has his work cut out for him.

Meanwhile, Harrison has become an NYPD cop. Joey Quinn is up from Miami, his real motive likely to find out what exactly happened to Batista. (We haven't yet seen Charley, but coming attractions say she'll be in town as well.) Detective Claudette Wallace -- the Saturday Night Fever fan and shrewd detective --is back in style. Dexter has his work cut out for him indeed.

It has always been a real pleasure to see Dexter on the screen. Based on this debut episode, it looks like the pleasure this season will be even realer.

Reviews of Season 2: Dexter's Back: A Preview and Dexter Meets Heroes and 6. Dexter and De-Lila-h and 7. Best Line About Dexter - from Lila and 8. How Will Dexter Get Out of This? and The Plot Gets Tighter and Sharper and Dex, Doakes, and Harry and Deb's Belief Saves Dex and All's ... Well

See also about Season 1: First Place to Dexter

My brand new time-travel story, "Aaron Judge on the Cape", in the just-published 100th Anniversary issue of Amazing Stories. Get the magazine here!

Interview with Jude O'Reilly, who has a kick-a novel about a serial killer

Dark Matter 2.10: A Lesson in Media Determinism

The finale of the second season of Dark Matter, up on Apple TV, was many things: a short, ferocious battle scene in an alternate Chicago (one of the best in the series); the reunion and stranding of characters; the surprising death of others -- though, as I said last week, there inevitably are an infinity of killed characters left in existence in an alternate reality story like this -- all of this and more lit up the fast-moving final episode of the second season of this series.

But my favorite was the lesson in media determinism that Olu delivers to Leighton as they argue about whether to destroy the pyramid and therein the network of boxes. After Leighton gives a list of all the terrible consequences these boxes have brought into being, Olu tells his alternate self that all technologies have destructive unintended consequences.

"Even the printing press triggered wars, genocide," Olu observes. Yes, indeed. That's what media and all technology do. I wonder if versions of Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan and their path-breaking work about media and their impact were known by Olu in the reality he came from. I certainly hope so, if only because their works were the impetus for my own 1998 book, The Soft Edge: A Natural History and Future of the Information Revolution, which explained how the Protestant Reformation, the rise of national states, the European settlement of America, the scientific revolution, and the rise of public education and democracy, to name just a few, were products of what Gutenberg brought to Europe and the world.

But in the context of Dark Matter -- which in addition to all its other merits is a philosophic picnic -- Olu's point may miss the point that Leighton was trying to make. All of the non-fictional results of the printing press and other media and technologies in our world don't hold a candle to what Jason Desson has brought into being and Leighton Vance has vastly extended. A world of infinite worlds, a universe of infinite universes, holds infinite possibilities, good and bad. So far, we have seen just a tiny, two-season sample of what such an infinity of worlds and carbon-copy characters could bring.

In principle, that could be mean that Dark Matter could be an infinite series. But I'll gladly take that one season at at time, and look forward, for now, to season three.

Thursday, October 29, 2026

Audio Podcast: Paul Levinson interviews Jude O'Reilly about Heartbreaker

Welcome to Light On Light Through episode 423, in which I interview Jude O'Reilly about her novel Heartbreaker. Among the issues we discussed: author/editor frictions and benefits, first readers, serial killers in fiction, wonders of the British north, and time travel and time stoppage. Among the authors we discussed: Karl Popper, Rob Sawyer, George R.R. Martin, Isaac Asimov, Nicholson Baker, Solvej Balle.

Relevant links:

get the novel here
my review of Heartbreaker

Check out this episode!

Sunday, October 25, 2026

Pride & Prejudice, Part 2, Napoleon at Pemberley: A Secret History and More

Jane Austen is in the news these days, given the opening last week of Georgia Oakley's movie adaptation of Sense and Sensibility. Tina and I took a different road tonight, and went to see Ken Ludwig's new play, Pride & Prejudice, Part 2: Napoleon at Pemberley, which had its world premiere at the Westport Country Playhouse in Connecticut. We and the packed house loved it.

Wait, Jane Austen didn't write a sequel to her 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice that has been read around the world by high school students for at least a century, right? Right, this Part 2 is a comedy-drama that continues Jane Austen's story of Elizabeth Bennet and Darcy after they get married, and get a defeated Napoleon on his way to Elba as a house guest.

As such, this play qualifies as a secret history, a close cousin of alternate history, but in which real history is not changed, and we're treated to an account of something that happened in real history that we didn't know about. As is the case in alternate history, you need to keep everything that has not changed as accurate as possible. The at turn brilliant, petulant, vain, and always forceful Napoleon is known to us and well written in this play, and memorably acted by Reg Rogers.

But melded into this secret history is a genuine sequel to Austen's masterpiece, and Ludwig gets this right, as well. Elizabeth and Darcy (well played by Delphi Borich and Tony Roach) and are instantly recognizable from the novel, and continue to grow in this sequel. And the supporting characters, both from the novel and newly invented, are fine and sparkling, too. Emily Mann did an excellent job directing this play, i.e., putting it all together, the comedy and the drama, the history and the secret history and the fiction, on the stage.

Mark Shanahan, the Playhouse's Artistic Director, was wise indeed to bring this world debut to Westport. Jane Austen's novel, like Shakespeare's plays and the Beatles's music, is well on its way to being with humankind as long as we survive. Once word gets out about Ludwig's play, who that has read Pride and Prejudice will not want to see the play?

Friday, October 23, 2026

Dark Matter 2.9: Good News for Actors

So it occurred to me, after watching episode 2.9 of Dark Matter on Apple TV last night, that this series is very good for everyone who is acting in it.

[And there will be spoilers ahead ... ]

The episode ends with a Chicago struck by a fearsome attack -- right after Jason whatever or a closely related Jason lures a Mitchel MacNamara (Chris Diamantopoulos) with a beard onto a sunny beach with happy people just as the attack is about to happen. So Mitchel who is hardboiled is about to get hardboiled in a different way, and I felt a little bad for the character, because I liked him, at least sometimes or in some realities.

But then I realized, in a universe in which there are infinite universes, we'll likely see Mitchel again. A series like Dark Matter is, among its many attractions, good news for actors. In the meta-universe which contains all the universes, all characters are immortal. Even if you kill a character a hundred different times, there will be many more of them potentially on hand.

And this is good news for viewers, too. As I said in my review of Dark Matter 2.2, I liked Mitchel's Sam Spadish vibe. And in Dark Matter, killing off one of them means it's more than likely I'll see him again.

The immortality of characters also plays well into another thread of this fine episode, when Charlie finds a universe with his twin-brother Max alive and thriving. This reunion made for a tender, winning part of the narrative, and Oakes Fegley did a fine job as the two Charlies (our Charlie and the Charlie in the universe in which Max is alive) and Max.

Next week is the season finale, and I miss this show already.

Sunday, October 18, 2026

My Story "Aaron Judge on the Cape" in 100th Anniversary Issue of Amazing Stories

My brand new time-travel story, "Aaron Judge on the Cape", in the just-published 100th Anniversary issue of Amazing Stories. Get the magazine here.

See Ian's Ions and Eons for three previous stories featuring this time-travel agency in the Riverdale section of the Bronx.

Saturday, October 17, 2026

Dark Matter 2.8: Amanda's Smile and Laurel's Singularness

I loved Dark Matter 2.8, because of its tenderness, because we get more of Laurel's story, and because of Jason and Amanda.

I said in a review of an earlier episode this season that I like Amanda (Alice Braga) much more than Daniela. I felt that way in Season 1, and even more so in Season 2. She's a better match for Jason than is Daniela. Jason and Daniela rarely if ever seem as happy as Jason and Amanda. And as I also said earlier, Amanda's smile radiates a feeling that no other character on Dark Matter has.

But let me also say here that I'm not sure which version of Jason we see in episode 2.8. We know that Jason 1 has a tattoo, which we didn't see in this episode. I know it takes place near the beginning of this season -- I think it was in the second episode -- when Jason 1 gets the tattoo, which means not seeing the tattoo on Jason in 2.8 does not absolutely disprove that's he's Jason 1. But if he is Jason 1, that means, what? After what we see in this episode, he goes back to Daniela? And this Charlie in this second season is which version of Charlie?

I think maybe the only character with just one version (so far) is Laurel (Margo Martindale). It was great to see her again, and learn about her past and her world, and since she's not going through a box (as yet, as far as we know), we can reliably believe we're seeing the exact same person, not a different version of her.

In a meta-universe in which there are alternate universes bumping into one another with the drop of a hat/ampule, this reliability becomes a rare and beautiful thing. You could well say that about this whole season, which is why I'm always looking forward to another episode.

Friday, October 16, 2026

The Diplomat Season 4: How to Deal with Trump

How to continue a streaming Netflix series like The Diplomat in its 4th season of edge-of-your-seat American, British, and therefore world political intrigue and turmoil when the real world we see on our news screens is beset by an American President, Donald Trump, who creates crises home and abroad, with our allies and friends and enemies almost every time he opens his mouth?

You tell a story of an American President who embarks on a course of action even more dangerous than Trump's.

[And there will be some spoilers ahead ...]

Grace Penn (Allison Janney) became US President when the elected President died in office, and Penn as per our Constitution assumed the office. At the end of season 3, she appointed Hal Wyler (Rufus Sewell) Vice President, and his wife Kate Wyler (Keri Russell) continued as our ambassador to the United Kingdom. This season, President Penn is shot during a visit to London. It turns out out that she wasn't very badly wounded -- physically -- and is back up and working as President in lightning-fast time.

Not badly wounded physically. But we soon learn that her close brush with death did something to her mind, soul, brain, or whatever you want to call it. And she makes a series of decisions that amazingly pit the United States not only against Russia, but the UK, NATO, and some crucial members of her cabinet.

Kate and Hal and a variety of people -- including Grace's husband Todd (Bradley Whitford, who plays a welcome larger role this season) -- increasingly try, in their disparate ways, to bring the President to her senses. I won't spoil this season any further by telling you how that worked out, but I will say that wouldn't it be wonderful if people in the current Trump administration tried to do some of that with Trump and his policies of getting us into economic conflicts with our friends in Canada, setting ICE on murderous rampages in the US, starting an ill-conceived war with Iran, and the rest of his depredations.

I guess that's the difference between riveting fiction like The Diplomat and the harrowing reality of Trump. But, optimist that I am, who knows, maybe watching this season of The Diplomat on Netflix will give some people in his administration a little more courage.

My 2021 in-depth interview with Rufus Sewell about The Man in the High Castle

Saturday, October 10, 2026

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?

Friday, October 2, 2026

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.

Saturday, September 26, 2026

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.

Friday, September 18, 2026

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 ...

"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!