Paul Levinson's Infinite Regress

reviewing 3 Body Problem; American Rust; Bosch: Legacy; Citadel; Curb Your Enthusiasm; Fauda; For All Mankind; Foundation; Hijack; House of the Dragon; Luther; Outer Range; Outlander; Reacher; Severance; Silo; Slow Horses; Star Trek: Strange New Worlds; Surface; The: Ark, Diplomat, Last of Us, Lazarus Project, Orville, Way Home; Tokyo Vice; True Detective; You +books, films, music, podcasts, politics

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

Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Emergence 1.5: Supergirl

With last night's episode 1.5 of Emergence, Piper has moved from the category of someone with superpowers to Supergirl. That's because she clearly has more than one incredible superpower.

She not only can move around huge objects with ease - like a truck barreling towards her car - but she can also see inside Ed's body and know that the medication he's taking for his cancer isn't working. Either one of those powers would make Piper a superhero, as Mia earnestly asks Piper if she is after Mia, in the same car, witnesses Piper's trick with the truck. Mia doesn't yet know about Piper's medical diagnostic power. If she had, she would likely realize that Piper is much more than your traditional super hero.

And, like Supergirl, Piper has her Kryptonite. That would be Kindred, and the door he's literally able to draw Piper through, to be assert his authority. The question still remains as to what that authority is.

As I wrote about Westworld - and indeed, twenty years ago in a piece called The Civil Rights of Robots. AIs, androids, robots, are entitled to make their own decisions and chart their own destinies if they are sentient. Making a slave of a sentient being we invented is no better than making a slave of a sentient being already in existence. We know now that Piper is an AI. The growing presence of Kindred means that Emergence is now in the same fascinating and treacherous philosophic waters as Westworld.

Which makes Emergence even more eminently worth watching.

See also: Emergence: May Just Make It ... Emergence 1.2: Cleaning Up ... Emergence 1.3: Robots and Androids ... Emergence 1.4: Android Child

The androids are coming out into the open, for the first time in centuries ....

Prodigal Son 1.6: Bad Boy

Prodigal Son 1.6 brought Ainsley much closer to her dad - at least, much closer to interviewing him - which is good (for her, contra her mother's reservations, and for the overall narrative). But Bright had little do with this, and instead was focused on the murder of a guy, and the murderer, who turned out to be the guy's young son.

This bad boy story - literally a boy, not figuratively - has been popping up a lot on television, most recently on Evil. Fortunately, the episode on Prodigal Son had a much better ending than the one on Evil, which I guess is why they call the series Evil. But I gotta say that, in addition to not being a big fan of this evil with a small "e" child motif because I don't like seeing kids in that position, the set-up and solutions are usually obvious and even trite.

In the case of Prodigal Son, it was obvious as soon as Bright talked the boy with the rabbits that there was something not right with the kid. And it also was obvious that Bright was turning a blind eye to this, because he himself was the edge of being a very bad boy when he was younger.

That said, Prodigal Son still has an excellent set-up, with memorable characters propelled by strong acting. Ainsley's arc is slowly taking off, and when it gets higher in the sky, we should be in for some real revelations. One of the problems with these network shows which try to balance continuing stories with separate episodes is that, the more intriguing the continuing story, the less patience you have for the separate weekly storylines. My recommendation to Prodigal Son - spend less time on them and more on the underlying tale. It's almost impossible to pack as much wallop in a new story that will conclude in under an hour than you can in the longer-range story unfolding on our screen.

See also: Prodigal Son: A New Serial Killer ... Prodigal Son 1.2: Dreams or Memories? ... Prodigal Son 1.3: LSD and Chloroform ... Prodigal Son 1.4: Ainsley

Monday, October 28, 2019

The Deuce Finale: New York

The Deuce series finale was just on HBO. Unsurprisingly and appropriately, not much in the way of happy endings. But ...

Well, that last segment of New York City in 2019 was a mini-masterpiece in itself. With almost everyone we came to know dead, decrepit, or just not known, we found one clear winner in 2019: the vibrant, cleaner, streets of New York. Although Vince was less than happy - old and I assume still alive in that last scene, fantasizing not hallucinating on the verge of death as he walked that street - we the audience can't deny that what he saw for real around him was better than what he saw in his prime decades in that place.

The reunion with Frankie was perfectly sad and wise. The encounter with Candy, coupled with what Vince earlier saw about her career, had a similar mix. Sadness and wisdom - or time, as Vince told the image of his brother when Frankie told Vince how bad he looked - was dripping and palpable in every frame.

The only one who was ahead at this point was Abby, a successful businesswoman. Vince doesn't see her in his aged imagination. She walks down the street after Vince has descended into the subway. A symbolically on-key tableau of two former star-crossed, porn crossed lovers, missing each other one last time on the street.

I think The Deuce really said and showed some important things. I'd have liked an even longer finale - what happened to Harvey, for example - but who am I to complain?

See also The Deuce 3.1: 1985 ... The Deuce 3.2: The First Amendment! ... The Deuce 3.3: Love and Money, Pimps and Agents ... The Deuce 3.4: Major Changes ... The Deuce 3.5: Lori and Candy ... The Deuce 3.6: Memorable Scenes ... The Deuce 3.7: Who Is Lori Madison?

And see also The Deuce Is Back - Still Without Cellphones, and that's a Good Thing ... The Deuce 2.2: Fairytales Can Come True ... The Deuce 2.3: The Price ... The Deuce 2.4: The Ad-Lib ... The Deuce 2.6: "Bad Bad Larry Brown" ... The Deuce 2.9: Armand, Southern Accents, and an Ending ... The Deuce Season 2 Finale: The Video Revolution

And see also The Deuce: NYC 1971 By Way of The Wire and "Working with Marshall McLuhan" ... Marilyn Monroe on the Deuce 1.7 ... The Deuce Season 1 Finale: Hitchcock and Truffaut

It all starts in the hot summer of 1960, when Marilyn walks off the set
of The Misfits and begins to hear a haunting song in her head,
"Goodbye Norma Jean" ...

Sunday, October 27, 2019

The Affair 5.10: Helen and Noah

And The Affair checked in tonight with its very next to last episode - 5.10 - and, depending upon what's on the screen next week, the series may have saved its best for next to last.

Noah and Helen frequently had the best stories over the years, and tonight they had it all, with a Helen story, a Noah story, a Noah and Helen story, and another Noah story, all superbly acted by Maura Tierney and Dominic West. It was about how they escaped the fire, and finally ended up as friends, again, at the very least.

The drama was great, as the two walked down a steep side of a canyon, at Noah's behest, as the only way to get ahead of the flames. But if that wasn't enough, Helen getting bitten by a snake, and Noah saving her, again, this time by getting her to hospital on time, was just the thing.

All of this served as a fitting canvas for the two to tell each other, and therefore us, their stories. Why Noah married and then left Helen and their family. Why Helen married Noah, and how she survived Noah's leaving them. If there were another season, I wouldn't mind at all seeing the two get back together again as a married couple. It would be the ultimate healing of what happened. But I doubt that's going to happen next week.

Noah and Helen still wrongly think that Allison took her own life. The coming attractions show Joanie again in the future. This still leaves some room for at least Joanie getting some truthful resolution on her mother's death. If by chance Noah is still alive then, too - it was hard to tell in the coming attractions - then he'll be able to get some truthful resolution on what happened to Allison, too.

I'm sorry to see this unique series come to an end. But tonight's episode shows it's giving coming to an end a good shot at ending well.

Saturday, October 26, 2019

The Current War: "A Lovely Little Movie"

My wife and I just saw The Current War. She said, as we were leaving the theater, that it was "a lovely little movie". I agree completely.

The subject was about as big and momentous as you can get: whose brand/kind of electricity, Edison's or Westinghouse's, would become the national standard? This "war" was fought in the 1880s and 90s. The winner was George Westinghouse, and his AC (alternate current) indeed became the standard for delivery of electricity that we still use.

The loser, Thomas Edison, was a far more important person in history, having harnessed not only electricity in his electric light, but invented the phonograph and motion pictures (the latter also invented at pretty much the same time by the Lumière brothers in France and William Friese-Greene in England). But Edison and his team rightly get the credit in the United States.

So what made this movie "lovely". Edison is usually portrayed in straight-up history books as ruthless and obsessed with success. Benedict Cumberbatch's Edison has these traits, but they're tempered by a real humanity. Edison doesn't want to use electricity to take human lives, including in the electric chair, thought to be more humane than hanging. Yet he gives one of the electric chair champions explicit instructions, in a brazen attempt to stain Westinghouse (also perfectly by portrayed by Michael Shannon, who, like Cumberbatch, is outstanding in everything he does). And when the electrocution is applied, it turns out to be a very inefficient, cruel method of meting out death. Question: Did Edison deliberately give poor instructions, because he was steadfast in his desire not to see electricity employed to kill human beings, including those convicted of murder?

The history, as far as I know it, was right on the major details, but perhaps not in every conversation portrayed. At one point, Edison characterizes his motion pictures as doing for the eye what his invention the phonograph does for the ear. As I always heard it, it was the phonograph does for the ear what the camera (not Edison's invention, having been invented nearly half a century earlier) does for the ear. But who really knows.

My wife and I also really enjoyed the movie because we've long been fans of late Victorian culture. There was something truly heady about the first use of telephones, phonographs, and electric lights, and this was sensitively and satisfying portrayed in The Current War. It was also instructive to see the beginning of almost no holds-barred corporate rivalry, and the manipulation of the media to win these battles.

One thing you won't find in this movie, however, is a satisfying portrait of Nikola Tesla, who is suggested as a major character but actually isn't in this narrative. No matter, there were and will be other movies which focus more primarily on Tesla.

See the movie and enjoy the lights, the tenderness, and the struggling to set up the future, all so well shown on the screen.

Edison has a major role in this novel

Friday, October 25, 2019

Mnemophrenia: Never Saying Goodbye

I just watched Mnemophrenia, put up yesterday on Amazon and made last year. It's a brilliant, provocative, startlingly original movie, with no actresses and actors I've heard of, and written, directed, and produced by Eirini Konstantinidou, her first time out with a feature-length movie. I'll predict flatly that Mnemophrenia is destined to become a classic, and the first of movies made by Konstantinidou that will be similarly received.

The story is about a mental state - seen as an affliction by some, a liberating step in our evolution by others - called mnemophrenia, or the inability to tell the differences between virtual reality experiences and the real thing. But like all good science fiction and and even McLuhanesque thinking about the media, it may be that virtual memories, once embedded in the brain, are more real, or at least as real, as what we take in with our naked senses.

This new virtual/biological experience mix certainly has some profound benefits. In the far future - there are three futures portrayed in this movie, near, mid, and far futures - and in that third future it also becomes possible to record a human being's experience on a chip that can be implanted in someone else's brain. (One reason I really liked this movie is in my 2003 novel, The Pixel Eye, I had squirrels implanted with chips that recorded what they saw and heard, for the purpose of spying.) In Mnemophrenia, this allows a kind of immortality, and picks up on a very powerful theme previously explored in a bunch of novels, my favorite being Charles Platt's The Silicon Man in 1993. In the far future in the movie, a couple is able to stay together and go beyond via the implant, when the wife is stricken by a rare fatal illness. There are several worthwhile stories in the movie, but the implant narrative in itself is heart-tugging and makes the movie memorable.

And the cinematography is vivid, surprisingly so for a first time director. Although conversation is king, hands and feet play almost as much a major role as the expressive faces. And the little futuristic windows that pop up in some of the scenes actually provide a stream of very useful information, in addition to being fun to look at.

See this movie, and see if you agree. I should mention that Eirini Konstantinidou was my student at Fordham University, in our MA in Public Communication program, more than a decade ago. That accounts for the speed with which I put this movie on my screen and reviewed it here, not what I've said about this movie in this review.

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

My Set List for 9 November 5:30pm Philcon performance

Jeremy Thompson, Paul Levinson, Steve Padin, Chris Hoisington

Here's the set list for my 9 November 2019 (Saturday), 5:30-6pm performance at Philcon (in Cherry Hill, NJ, at the Crowne Plaza Hotel), room Plaza VI (Six) - the first public performance of songs from my new science fiction related album, Welcome Up: Songs of Space and Time, produced by Chris Hoisington and to be released by Old Bear Records in early 2020:

If I Traveled to the Past (words by Paul Levinson, music by John Anealio)

Tau Ceti (Paul Levinson and John Anealio)

Samantha (Paul Levinson)
Welcome Up (Paul Levinson)

Alpha Centauri (Paul Levinson and Peter Rosenthal)

Cloudy Sunday (Paul Levinson and Linda Kaplan)

I Knew You By Heart (Paul Levinson and Peter Rosenthal)
Picture Postcard World (Paul Levinson)

The names in parentheses are the songwriters. I'll be singing all the songs, against backing tracks from my new album Welcome Up (to be released by Old Bear Records early in 2020) and two other songs from Twice Upon a Rhyme (Happysad Records, 1972).

backing tracks for If I Traveled to the Past, Tau Ceti, Samantha, Alpha Centauri, Welcome Up, I Knew You By Heart, Picture Postcard World: guitars Jeremy Thompson, drums and keyboard Steven Carlos Padin, harmony and production Chris Hoisington, keyboard Anthony Hoisington, accordion Don Frankel

backing track for Cloudy Sunday: guitar Peter Rosenthal, piano Barbara Krupnick, harmony and production Chris Hoisington, production Paul Levinson

more about my music: Reverbnation, Facebook, Bandcamp, Spotify

==========
The rest of the convention should be lots of fun, too. Here's my schedule:

Fri 6:00 PM in Executive Suite 623 (1 hour) READINGS: PAUL LEVINSON, APRIL GREY, JAMES CAMBIAS (3723) [Panelists: Paul Levinson (mod), April Grey, James L. Cambias] Note: I'll be reading from a brand new alternate-Beatles story, "It's Real Life," for the first time in public!

Fri 7:00 PM in Crystal Ballroom Promenade (Gaming) (1 hour) AUTOGRAPHS: PAUL LEVINSON, APRIL GREY, JAMES CAMBIAS (3726) [Panelists: Paul Levinson (mod), April Grey, James L. Cambias]

Sat 11:00 AM in Crystal Ballroom Two (1 hour) ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND CONSCIOUSNESS (3590) [Panelists: Jeff Warner (mod), David Walton, Rebecca Robare, Anna Kashina, Paul Levinson, Muriel Hykes] Does “I think, therefore I am” apply to AI? Could it ever? How could we tell if it happens

Sat 3:00 PM in Plaza V (Five) (1 hour) JEWISH SCIENCE FICTION (3530) [Panelists: Simone Zelitch (mod), Paul Levinson, Aaron Feldman, B. Lana Guggenheim, Daniel Kimmel, Alex Shvartsman] Is it a subgenre of its own? Plenty of Jews write SF, and plenty of non-Jews incorporate Jewish history and elements of the Jewish supernatural into their work. What can we learn from this classification, and does it enrich or limit how we read

Sat 5:30 PM in Plaza VI (Six) (30 mins) Paul Levinson mini-concert

Sat 11:00 PM in Crystal Ballroom Two (1 hour) GAME OF THRONES (3600) [Panelists: Charlie Robertson (mod), Michael A. Ventrella, Muriel Hykes, Paul Levinson] It wouldn't be inaccurate to say that *everybody* lost when it comes to the HBO adaptation. How should the show have ended? How might the ending of the novels differ

Sun 12:00 PM in Crystal Ballroom Two (1 hour) HOW FAR CAN YOU SUSPEND SOMEONE'S DISBELIEF? (3514) [Panelists: Elektra Hammond (mod), Paul Levinson, Lawrence Kramer, Julie Ann Dawson, Robert E. Waters] How much can you ask a reader to take on faith before they can't take your story seriously any more? Are there ways to get readers willing to accept more challenging changes and assumptions? What authors have succeed at pushing the boundaries without pushing their readers out of the story

Watchmen 1.1: Promising Alternate History

I guess I'm either the best or worst kind of person to watch and review Watchmen on HBO: I've of course heard of the iconic comic book story and its adaptations over the years, but I never read or saw any of it, and really know nothing about it. But with a cast consisting of Regina King and Don Johnson, and the creator being Lost's Damon Lindelof, how could I resist?

Here's what I now know after watching the first episode: This is an alternate history or reality in which, by 2019, Vietnam is a state in the United States, which must mean we won that war (undeclared and therefore illegal, and badly lost in our reality). Police wear masks so they don't risk killers in the public, well, killing them. So far, this is taking place mostly in Oklahoma, to the point where the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical plays a big role.

Now, I'm a sucker for alternate realities - I have a song, Samantha, on my new album coming out early next year, which I'll no doubt tell you about later on in these weekly reviews, but for now I'll just mention that that song is about star-crossed love across alternate realities (ok, here's a rough mix of it). And I thought Counterpoint, now sadly departed, was one of the best shows on television in the past few years (not to mention The Man in the High Castle, which with one more season left is almost sadly departed, and is flat out one of the best shows ever on television, period). So, yeah, I'm a fan of alternate reality TV and novels (here's what I said about the late J. Neil Schulman's The Fractal Man), and I very much like the set-up so far of Watchmen.

I also liked the narrative. Don Johnson's character is killed at the end if the episode (sorry, that's a spoiler in this reality), but the laws of television say that a star that big won't play a character who gets killed after one episode, so that means Judd (Johnson's character) either isn't really dead, even though we saw him hanging there, or he'll come back to life, which amounts to the same thing.

I also liked the music, not only because I always liked "Oklahoma" - my wife may have played a part in some summer camp production (I'm not sure, and she's sleeping, so I'll ask her tomorrow*) - but all the music is original (i.e., meaning, you don't usually hear it in a television series, even one on HBO), with, for example, a powerful rendition of a song that accompanied Judd's hanging body. (By the way, Trump, if you're reading this, that's what a lynching is, not the justified investigation that you're now undergoing).

*Note added next morning: She did!

So, yeah, I'm liking this a lot, and expect I'll be reviewing Watchmen once a week.

more alternate reality - "flat-out fantastic" - Scifi and Scary

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Evil 1.4: Raising the Ante

I generally don't like or review TV series in which children and babies are endangered - actually take away the word "generally," I don't like them at all. But I'm making an exception for Evil 1.4, because the child and baby endangerment was part of a much larger, crucial story in the series.

As I've indicated earlier in these reviews, the central tension in Evil is the conflict between science and religion - which one provides the better explanation of evil, and with it the means of best dealing with it? Up until episode 1.4, science was pretty much the victor. But that changed.

In the main story, we encounter what science would call a sociopathic boy, who is a danger to his family, especially the new baby. Our intrepid team comes to the conclusion that an exorcism might help, but before the exorcist is able to do his thing - or attempt to do it - well, if you've seen the episode you know what I'm talking about, and I won't be talking any more about that here.

But there is also a secondary story, which is powerful and frightening, and that concerns Kristen's four talkative and delightful daughters. The virtual reality game they're playing is supposed to be disconcerting - for adults. Ben gets this, and assuredly makes the game childproof. But ... of course, that doesn't work. Ben's too good to have made a mistake in his lock-out programming. So, either someone else is removing the lock, or there's a real, evil something in that game.

Before we can see what damage it can do, the episode ends. But this leaves the story wide open in the next and subsequent episodes to see what kind of evil has invested that otherwise well-designed virtual game.

I'll be watching.

See also: Evil: Incubus Mystery ... Evil 1.2: Miracles and Racism ... Evil 1.3: Possessed Alexa

The Deuce 3.7: Who Is Lori Madison?

A beautiful, tragic penultimate episode of The Deuce on HBO tonight, as I suppose intelligent stories about the porn business are wont to be.

The beautiful part was a beauty of the soul, when Candy asked Lori who she was. Candy explained that she was two people - the former prostitute and now porn director, Candy, and the woman, daughter, and mother, Eileen. Candy could've read some of Erving Goffman, the sociologist who said all of us lead at least two lives, our public lives that we show to the world, and private lives that we show only to our family and close friends. Sometime they're not very different. Sometimes they are.

But Lori was unwilling to talk, even to her benefactor and friend of sorts, Candy, about Lori's private life. She wouldn't even tell Candy her real name. And so we were left to conclude that Lori was missing a life. And the most important life at that. Her private life. Who she was, when only those she loved were looking. So maybe that was an admission that she loved no one, and no one loved her. The negation of what Candy had assured Lori of, that everyone loved Lori Madison. Because Lori Madison was not a real person. She was just an act.

And I suppose that explains what happened at the end of the episode. It was horrible and so unnecessary. You get the feeling that if only Lori had given herself more of a chance, she would have been professionally more successful, on her terms, and also found somebody to love. (Unforgettable performance as Lori by Emily Meade.)

Did Candy realize, the next day, what happened, when Lori didn't show for work? I think she certainly sensed it. If you haven't seen The Deuce, it's worth seeing if only for this episode.

Next week is the series finale.

See also The Deuce 3.1: 1985 ... The Deuce 3.2: The First Amendment! ... The Deuce 3.3: Love and Money, Pimps and Agents ... The Deuce 3.4: Major Changes ... The Deuce 3.5: Lori and Candy ... The Deuce 3.6: Memorable Scenes

And see also The Deuce Is Back - Still Without Cellphones, and that's a Good Thing ... The Deuce 2.2: Fairytales Can Come True ... The Deuce 2.3: The Price ... The Deuce 2.4: The Ad-Lib ... The Deuce 2.6: "Bad Bad Larry Brown" ... The Deuce 2.9: Armand, Southern Accents, and an Ending ... The Deuce Season 2 Finale: The Video Revolution

And see also The Deuce: NYC 1971 By Way of The Wire and "Working with Marshall McLuhan" ... Marilyn Monroe on the Deuce 1.7 ... The Deuce Season 1 Finale: Hitchcock and Truffaut

It all starts in the hot summer of 1960, when Marilyn walks off the set
of The Misfits and begins to hear a haunting song in her head,
"Goodbye Norma Jean" ...

Sunday, October 20, 2019

The Affair 5.9: Thoughts, Looks, Words, and Actions

Whew, quite an episode 5.9 of The Affair tonight - the headline of which would be: Helen realizes that Sasha is responsible for Noah's lynching in the press, but Whitney is still furious with Noah for what he did to her and their family.

Unpacking this ... Helen realizes that Sasha wanted Noah's name and influence exorcised from his (Sasha's) movie, so Sasha seized an opportunity to make connections to make that happen. Since Sasha's a master at publicity, it pretty much worked, and also had the benefit of pulling Helen further away from Noah.

Whitney's story is more complex. She at first comes to her father's defense when she confronts one his accusers, on a plane to LA (ok, my late and brilliant editor David Hartwell always said that readers would allow one very unlikely coincidence in a story, and I think this applies to movies and TV series as well). Noah's accuser, Audrey, was his student right after he was released from prison. He put down her writing with a declaration that she had "no inner life". It devastated her, and now she's joined the women who say Noah demeaned women.

As Whitney tells Audrey, ok, so my father was a "shitty" teacher, but that doesn't he deserves this kind of public destruction - losing his name on his movie, losing his new book deal, etc., so you can some big publicity for your book. Audrey's not convinced. But later, back in LA, when Helen tries to explain that all of this was her fault - because she inadvertently gave Sasha a rope to hang Noah - it turns out that Whitney's not convinced, either. She recalls a scene from several seasons back when Noah joined her in a steamy hot tub, not realizing she was Audrey. And she saw the way Noah looked at her and friend - like "prey" was the word Whitney used. And this visceral recollection touched all the pain she carried inside her about Noah breaking up their family.

My take at this point: I would say, in general, looks and thoughts don't and shouldn't count. Words count, and actions even more. And for the kind of blowing up of his life Noah is enduring now, he should have been guilty of actions - as he apparently was not with Eden.

More after the next episode, next week.

Peaky Blinders season 5: A New Window on Fascism

With fascism rearing its ugly heads around the world, including in the White House in the United States, it was timely, chilling, and good to see it front and center stage in Season 5 of Peaky Blinders on Netflix.

Thomas has intersected with British government in previous seasons. But in Season 5 we see him an eloquent member of Parliament, soon befriended by Oswald Mosley, a real MP who was prominent in the 1930s as head of the British Union of Fascists. I had heard of him, but didn't explicitly know his story, which worked well for watching Peaking Blinders, since the shocks were real shocks to me.

Mosley seeks to recruit Thomas as his second-in-command, or prime deputy. Thomas accepts, but seeks to use this position to bring Mosley down, with the cooperation of the British government. Thomas sees Mosley as "the devil," and he is, ranging from his treatment of women to his Hitlerian anti-semitism, and he's vividly portrayed by Sam Claflin (whom I don't recall seeing before, but will look out for now as a top-notch actor).

Fascism fed on the discontent and dislocations caused by the stock market crash of 1929. The Shelbys lose tons of money, and Thomas blames his cousin Michael, who was repping the family in America. The conflict between Thomas and Michael provides a trenchant secondary theme of tension in this season, and of course Polly is drawn into the imbroglio, since she's Michael's mother. Thomas still seems young and not that old (to me), but Michael and his wife cast the conflict with Thomas as one of age, with Michael urging Thomas to give way to a new generation and its new ways of conducting business. If you know anything about Thomas, you don't need to see this season to know how he will react to Michael's suggestions.

But you do need to see Season 5 for many other compelling reasons. Arthur once against presents an unforgettable portrait of a decent man riven by and unable to control the inchoate violence that inhabits his soul. Winston Churchill, who appeared earlier in the series, puts in another few captivating minutes (as MP - he was not yet Prime Minister). And the sheer flavor of the cultures portrayed, from the Protestant Scots to the Peaky Blinders' Jewish allies, is indelible.

Bring on Season 6.

See also Peaky Blinders: Peak Television ... Peaky Blinders Season 3: Still Peak ... Peaky Blinders Season 4: Best So Far

Wednesday, October 16, 2019

Emergence 1.4: Android Child

Ok, as of the beginning of Emergence 1.4, we know what/who Piper is, if not the full story of how she came to be. As Emily says, Piper is a totally artificial creation - body as well as mind. This would make her, in science fiction parlance, an android. Akin in television land to the beings in Westworld and Humans. Maybe even more so, as there don't seem to be any trace of wires or digital circuitry in Piper.

And, as Benny helpfully explains, a child is a perfect vehicle for getting androids into human society. After all, an android child can be made to look cute and in need of protection and sheltering. Exactly what made Piper so irresistible to Jo.

So what now? Kindred (aka John Locke from Lost, i.e., Terry O'Quinn is determined to get back his property, which apparently Piper is. We still know little to nothing of his master plan. But we know he has no trouble meting out death to anyone or thing who get his way. And we know that Piper has no trouble doing that, either, though she may be troubled by her actions afterwards.

At this point, it's still hard to say what Piper is really up to. When she screams and gets Jo to stop the car, and Pipe jumps out ... It turns out that Piper is doing that to save a turtle, to keep it from getting run over. Is that just more of Piper wanting to seem so sweet, to disable Jo's suspicions, or did Piper really care about saving that turtle? In any case, it certainly had the effect of once again disarming Jo - psychologically.

So welcome Emergence to realm of full-fledged, undeniable science fiction. Androids are one of my favorite sub-genres of the field, as both a fan and a writer.

See also: Emergence: May Just Make It ... Emergence 1.2: Cleaning Up ... Emergence 1.3: Robots and Androids

The androids are coming out into the open, for the first time in centuries ....

"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!