Citadel 1.1-1.2: Memories and Questions

Saw the first two episodes of Citadel on Amazon Prime Video -- all that are available this week.  Very good, recommended, and --

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

The key ingredient in this series so far is: memory.  Or, more precisely, memories.  We see in the first episode that the memories of Citadel agents can be remotely erased.  (So, obviously, this takes place in the future.)  This erasure makes lots of sense if you're part of an international organization of good spies (Citadel) at war with an international organization of evil spies (Manticore), because if the bad guys capture you, your top-secret information can't be tortured out of you or otherwise taken.  And then we learn in the second episode that Citadel uploads and stores all the memories of their agents, and keeps them in vials which, when injected into their bodies, brings back the memories of the agent that were previously erased.  This makes lots of sense, too.

It also raises lots of questions, which may or may not be explored in the episodes ahead.  For example, if Agent X's memories are injected into Agent Y, or any other human being, will that recipient suddenly have Agent X's memories?  Or what happens if one person is injected with two or more sets of memories from other people?  Could there be a sage somewhere with a whole collection of memories from agents gone and still present?

But the story is just beginning, so we'll just have to see.  What we do know, by the end of the second episode, is that Mason Kane and Nadia Sinh's memories were at first erased, but only Nadia has recovered hers because, well, it looks like the vial with Mason's memories was damaged and some of the vital fluid leaked out when the bad guys attacked him and Bernard (see below), but who knows, which is to say, I don't really know, because maybe there's still enough of that fluid left in the vial for Mason to at some point recover his memories?  In other words, can just a droplet of memory be cultured to yield someone's full set of lost memories?

Which raises another question: is there any other way that lost memories can be recovered?  Mason and Sinh both seem to have bits in their heads of who they were, which come to them in brief flashes and dreams (which I assume are longer than the flashes, who knows).  And while we're at it, can memories in vials or otherwise be copied of cloned, so that we could actually have two Masons and two Nadias running around?  And/or, can memories be edited, so that only some of the memories can be edited?  And depending on how advanced this memory tech is, could new memories be created in the storage unit, so that when they were injected into the person, they had memories they didn't have in the first place?

Bernard (always good to see Stanley Tucci on the screen), who was in charge of Mason and Nadia before they lost their memories, and apparently still is, would likely know the answers to at least some of these questions.  But he has been wounded and captured by Manticore.  And, also, I'm not clear if he is the ultimate head of Citadel, or just Mason and Nadia's superior.

Anyway, lots to discover in this high octane, fast-moving futuristic spy series, and I'm all in, even if, as you may no doubt already know, I'm grumbling that it's being doled out to us on a less than bingeable basis.

***

If you like science fiction about memory on the screen, check out Remembrance, Rememory, and Mnemophrenia.

The Diplomat: West Wing Meets Bond

My wife and I just binged the first season of The Diplomat and loved it.

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

To begin with, it seemed like for most of the first episode -- in fact, until to the very end of that episode -- we were watching an updated, 2023-rendition of West Wing, on a more global scale.  Which would have been very welcome. But the news at the end of this first episode made The Diplomat much more than that.  Almost a James Bond, without the central character being an MI6 agent with a license to kill.   So think The West Wing in politics, and Bond in terms of intrigue bringing the world to the edge of nuclear war, and that's even more welcome than just an updated West Wing.  More welcome, that is, as fiction on the screen, not of course as reality.

Speaking of which, I'd say The Diplomat is the best treatment of world politics in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine I've so far seen on the fiction screen.  The attribution of the attack on the British ship to the Russians instantly moves the whole rest of the story into the dilemma of what can be done to punish the Russians, given that Putin has already threatened, many times, to unleash his nukes on Russia's enemies in our off-screen world.

And then there are the twists, the biggest being the one near very end of final episode of this season, that the attack on the British ship was ordered by the British PM, apparently as way of enabling him to be a Churchill of our time, and show Britain and the world how his country deals with deadly aggressors.  I didn't see that coming -- not at all -- and yet it all makes sense in retrospect.

Before I get, though, to the big question, let me say that the acting was superb, on every level.  Keri Russell as the diplomat, Kate Wyler, US Ambassador to the UK, was outstanding, delivering her lines, her facial expressions, and body language with sheet perfection, exceeding her previous peak performance in The Americans.  And Rufus Sewell as her husband Hal was equally outstanding, though I wouldn't say he exceeded his performance in The Man in the High Castle, because that was in a class of its own.  So what I will say is his Hal in The Diplomat is his best performance, other than as a character added to the TV adaption of a science fiction novel that almost single handedly defined a genre.  And in The Diplomat,  Russell and Sewell, individually but especially together, were a pleasure to see.  And the same for everyone else.

Meanwhile, plotwise, I'm still not 100% convinced that their marriage wasn't working out, even though Kate explained that to Hal and us at least a dozen times.  But maybe that's the point -- that Kate feels the need to say -- most of the time -- that they can't make it as a couple, because she knows how deeply she loves him, and still hasn't really convinced herself that the two need to split.

And let's get to the very ending:  a car bomb in London that may have killed Hal, Stuart (Kate's second in command in the US Embassy), and Ronnie.  There are tears in Kate's eyes when she gets the news in Paris.  This means that at very least all three did not escape unscathed.  If I had to bet, I'd say Ronnie was killed and Hal and Stuart survived, both headed to the hospital.  All three dying would dramatically change the basis of the story -- and that would be more true of Hal dying than Stuart dying, so, of the three, I'd say Hal is the most likely survive.  But I'd put my money on seeing Stuart next season, too.

I also have no idea if a decision has even been made as to who will be returning in Season 2.  All I can tell you for sure is that my wife and I will be watching Season 2 of The Diplomat that day that it comes up on Netflix.

'It's Real Life' on Captain Phil's Planet

Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 349, in which I visit Captain Phil's Planet on WUSB Radio (Stony Brook University) where he plays and we discuss the radio play "It's Real Life," adapted from my short story, narrated by Bobby Roberto, produced and streaming on Killerwatt.co Radio.

• listen to the radio play on Killerwatt.co, streaming free, where you'll find complete credits for the performances and production of the play, as well as an additional interview with me right after the radio play, and the three songs heard on the radio play 
• read my original short story (free) adapted into the radio play
• my interview with Anne Reburn, who sang "Real Love" in the radio play
• Anne Reburn's YouTube video of "Real Love" as performed in the radio play
• my interview with Spencer Hannabus, who sang "If I Traveled to the Past" in the radio play

 

Check out this episode!