Masters of Sex 4.3: Hugh Hefner and Sammy Davis, Jr.

Masters of Sex is back in good form in its 4th season, with an episode - 4.3 - that featured not only Hugh Hefner but Sammy Davis, Jr. in the intro.

Hugh Hefner and the scenes at his mansion have been the best parts of this new season so far.  First, the guy who plays him - John Gleeson Connolly - looks and sounds almost 100% like the Hef we remember.   But his role in this Masters of Sex story is great, encouraging Masters and Johnson to be a couple.   At this point, the coupling is professional.   But Hef and we know that there is much more in store - not to mention what we've seen with our own eyes in previous seasons - and Hugh Hefner is therefore playing the role of the matchmaker, the guardian angel, of what we and history know to be right.

Sammy Davis, Jr. has played no major or even minor role in the overall story so far, but he was a treat to see and hear in Sunday's episode, in an appearance made al the more enjoyable because Sammy was played by The Wire's inimitable Andre Royo.

Meanwhile, the overall rest of the story so far is appealing, and slowly gathering a full head of steam. Mad Men's Rich Sommer (whom I interviewed on my podcast years ago when Mad Men was young) was good to see as a husband with a problem in earlier episodes this season. But the most explosive development so far came from another couple and the wife on Sunday who wanted her husband to be a little more rough in their love-making.  He gives every indication that that's just not in him - until he erupts in violence that brings Masters and his assistant running into the room to stop the action.

The assistants threads - Masters and Johnson each have one, as per their agreement - has possibilities, but their being married, secretly at first, now revealed, is a bit contrived.   But that's ok, as long as the Masters and Johnson story progresses on its rocky road, which I'm eager to see.


See also Thomas Maier: Masters of Sex and Biography Come to Life ...Masters of Sex 3.1: Galley Slaves ... Masters of Sex 3.2: The Shah, the Baby, and the Book ... Masters of Sex 3.3: The Bookstore ... Masters of Sex 3.7: Going Ape ... Masters of Sex 3.9: Calling Hugh Hefner ... Masters of Sex Season 3 Finale: Cliffhanger

#SFWApro

Fringe 3.1: The Other Olivia

Fringe returned for its 3rd season on Fox last night with a just perfect gem of science fiction.

As you'll recall from the Season 2 finale, Walter and Peter have made it back to our universe with Olivia, but she's alt-Olivia, badder than ours, who's now embedded in our universe as per Walternate's (bad Walter's) plan.   In last night's story, we find out what Walternate has planned for our Olivia, now trapped in the alternate universe.

Walternate is having a med-tech deliver an injected treatment to Olivia, designed to replace her mind, memories, loyalties, etc with alt-Olivia's.   It has apparently not worked, and Olivia escapes.

She's determined to get back our universe, but that's not easy.  The portal used by Walter, Peter, and alt-Olivia has been amber-sealed.  The alt-Fringe unit, in which Charlie is still one of Olivia's partners, is in hot pursuit.   We get more delicious glimpses of the differences between ours and the alt-universe, in which President Obama appoints former Pres-JFK to head a commission (JFK had been UN Ambassador), daily flights go to the Moon, and Martin Luther King and Eldridge Cleaver worked together ("we had a dream").   As I mentioned in my reviews last season, it's in many ways a better universe than ours.   But Olivia, of course, does not want to stay there.    As long as she continues to be our Olivia, that is ...

In a fine, classic kind of science fiction twist, it turns out that Olivia's very attempts to get back to our universe have changed her into the alternate Olivia - given her the talents, memories, etc of alternate Olivia.   As the med-tech explains to Walternate at the end of the episode, the adrenalin pumping through Olivia as she made her escape pushed the treatment already in her blood stream past the blood brain barrier, where it could do its work of replacing our Olivia's mind with alt-Olivia's.   Our Olivia is now a sharp shooter like alt-Olivia, happy to hug her mother (who died when Olivia was a child in our reality), welcomed back in the fold by alt-Charlie, etc.  (See my novel, The Consciousness Plague, for more of what you can do with the blood brain barrier in science fiction.)

Only one person, other than Walternate and the med-tech, now knows something of the truth about our Olivia, trapped now not only by the alternative universe but by her own transformed mind in the alternate universe.   The cab driver, first forced by Olivia to drive her when she she still had her right mind, eventually helping her of his own accord, has seen the true Olivia.   He's played by Andre Royo, who brings the same power and sensitivity to the cab driver that he did as Bubs on The Wire.  It will be fun to see how he helps get our Olivia back to her senses and universe this season (or whenever, eventually).

Fringe has now set itself up for what could be a break-through season, just as last season's was in contrast to the first.  The differences between the same characters in the two universes - especially Walternate and Walter, and alternate-Olivia and Olivia - have been drawn in a way that calls for the unexpected.   Evil Walternate, after all, hates our universe because our Walter stole his Peter all those years ago.   Does this mean that there is some good in Walternate - some of our Walter - which could come through at a crucial moment?

I'll be watching ...

See also Top Notch Return of Fringe Second Season ... Fringe 2.2 and The Mole People ... Fringe 2.3 and the Human Body as Bomb ... Fringe 2.4 Unfolds and Takes Wing ... Fringe 2.5: Peter in Alternate Reality and Wi-Fi for the Mind ... A Different Stripe of Fringe in 2.6 ... The Kid Who Changed Minds in Fringe 2.7 ... Fringe 2.8: The Eternal Bald Observers ... Fringe 2.9: Walter's Journey ... Fringe 2.10: Walter's Brain, Harry Potter, and Flowers for Algernon ...  New Fringe on Monday Night: In Alternate Universe? ... Fringe 2.12: Classic Science Fiction Chiante ... Fringe 2.13: "I Can't Let Peter Die Again" ... Fringe 2.14: Walter's Health, Books, and Father ... Fringe 2.15: I'll Take 'Manhatan' ... Fringe 2.16: Peter's Story ... Fringe 2.17: Will Olivia Tell Peter? ... Fringe 2.18: Strangeness on a Train ... Fringe 2.19: Two Plus Infinity ... Fringe the Noir Musical ... Fringe 2.21: Bring on the Alternates ... Fringe 2.22:  Tin Soldiers and Nixon Coming ... Fringe Season 2 Finale: The Switch

See also reviews of Season One Fringe Begins ... Fringe 2 and 3: The Anthology Tightrope ... 4: The Eternal Bald Observer ... 7: A Bullet Can Scramble a Dead Brain's Transmission ... 8. Heroic Walter and Apple Through Steel ... 9. Razor-Tipped Butterflies of the Mind ... 10. Shattered Pieces Come Together Through Space and Times ... 11. A Traitor, a Crimimal, and a Lunatic ... 12, 13, 14: Fringe and Teleportation ... 15: Fringe is Back with Feral Child, Pheromones, and Bald Men ... 17. Fringe in New York, with Oliva as Her Suspect ... 18. Heroes and Villains across Fringe ... Stephen King, Arthur C. Clarke, and Star Trek in Penultimate Fringe ... Fringe Alternate Reality Finale: Science Fiction At Its Best

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The Plot to Save Socrates


"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book 

Heroes 3: Hearts of Gold and the Debased

It was great seeing Andre Royo on Heroes tonight, as the vortex-making man with a real heart of gold. Indeed, what Vortex Man did on Heroes tonight may have been the most heroic act in the entire series so far (killing himself rather than letting HRG force him into killing Sylar, who had not done anything wrong as far as Vortex knows). And who better to play this role with just the right sensitivity than "Bubs" from The Wire. Royo also had a brief role in The Sarah Connor Chronicles last year (which wasn't on Fox tonight because of baseball). We could use more of him in any series.

Speaking of The Wire, Jamie Hector was also back on Heroes as his villainous character - but he's mild compared to some of the monstrosities we saw tonight, including an ugly who can make anyone - including a beautiful woman - into his puppet.

We also learned that some Heroes - at very least, Nathan and Tracy - got their powers via genetic instillation of the code which arose naturally in others. This, of course, is the very code that Hiro is trying to recover.

We see Hiro run his sword through Ando tonight - but there most be something more to that - and Mohinder is, alas, now in the category of monstrosities rather than just villains.

But more interesting of all - we meet Papa Petrelli, played by Robert Forster of Jackie Brown and other great fame. We're getting more subtlety and plot twists than just heroes and villains this season...

See also Heroes 3 Begins: Best Yet, Riddled with Time Travel and Paradox ... Sylar's Redemption and other Heroes and Villains Mergers ... Costa Nuclear ... Seeing the Future Trump Time Travel

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

more about The Plot to Save Socrates...





Read the first chapter of The Plot to Save Socrates .... FREE!

The Sarah Connor Chronicles 6

The sixth episode of The Sarah Connor Chronicles on Fox last night was the best yet, after the pilot...

Derrick Reese - Kyle's brother - becomes a central player, more in the apocalyptic future that he and his brother are trying to prevent, than on the table in our present on which Charley is desperately trying to save him. (Last week, Cameron pronounced Derrick's injuries incapable of repair.)

To the extent that Derrick is conscious on that table, he wants Cameron nowhere near him. They clearly have had some interaction in the future, and near the end of the episode we find what Derrick fears in Cameron: good Terminators sometimes go bad. Cameron says this to Derrick in the future ...

This may be one of the most important revelations in the series so far: is it true that Cameron is not 100% trustworthy? At very least, she seems to be lying at the end of this episode about a little something she is holding in her hand.

We also find out more about what Derrick's mission was: Killing Andy Good. At least, in part. Good tells Derrick in the future that he, Good, was responsible for Skynet. And in the last scenes of Episode 6, we see that it was indeed Derrick who killed poor Andy, after all. Apparently there's not that much difference between Derrick and Cameron - who wanted to kill Andy, too - after all. (And we also know that killing Andy Good doesn't do much good, does it?)

Derrick is part of a team of humans that John Connor has sent back to our present. I was delighted to see Andre Royo - Bubbles on The Wire - as one of the team. Way to go, Bubs! (Hey, The Wire crew is doing pretty well in the new golden age of science fiction in television - Lance Reddick has a role in Lost.)

Future John Connor sends back the team of four to our present - to "correct" everything, Derrick says. The four stand naked, shivering, in our Los Angeles, in awe of the skyscrapers that still stand proud...

Little do they know ... that, when it comes to time travel, errors are never easily corrected...


See also: The Sarah Connor Chronicles 1 and 2 ... 3 ... 4. A Robot Primer ... 5 ... 7 ... 8-9: Terminate with Puzzles, Surprises, and Soul

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

more about The Plot to Save Socrates...





Read the first chapter of The Plot to Save Socrates .... FREE!