Timeless 2.2: The Nod

Timeless has always had a good sense humor about time travel, and it comes through tonight in episode 2.2 with ... "the nod".

That's "A Subtle Lowering of the Head You Give to Another Black Person in an Overwhelmingly White Place" - see Medium - and that's what Rufus does to Wendell Scott (a real African-American stock car driver) in overwhelmingly white south of the Mason Dixon America in the 1950s.  Hey, that's the second week in a row in which Rufus had a key line or move - last week it was his description of the Rittenhouse Manifesto as like "Mein Kampf, by Philip K. Dick" - and tonight it turns out that the nod is not only funny but Rufus may have been the one to implant it in our culture.  Just think about it: had it not been for tonight's episode of Timeless, there may not have been an episode #3 of Black-ish in 2014 with a literal nod that title.

It's enough to give Lucy a headache, but I like it, and that's because she's actually time traveling on television and I'm just writing about it.  And tonight's episode had some other good ingredients, including Flynn reluctantly helping and Jiya seeing the future (which will no doubt figure in some very important way later this season) and Connor moving towards ... I don't quite know what.

But on that point, it almost seems as if Connor might be headed towards some villainy, given his frustrations.  That would be an interesting plot development, given his superior knowledge of time travel.  We'll have to see.

Meanwhile, Emma continues to be a stand-out despicable character - as Annie Wersching is in every role she plays (that is, stand-out) - ever ready to kill, seemingly beyond redemption, and always ready with a sarcastic cut for anyone around her, whatever side they may be on.

Looking forward to next week, and seeing if Rufus still has the best line.

See also Timeless 2.1: "Mein Kampf, by Philip K. Dick"

And see also Timeless 1.1: Threading the Needle ... Timeless 1.2: Small Change, Big Payoffs ... Timeless 1.3: Judith Campbell ... Timeless 1.4: Skyfall and Weapon of Choice ... Timeless 1.5: and Quantum Leap ... Timeless 1.6: Watergate and Rittenhouse ... Timeless 1.7: Stranded! ... Timeless 1.8: Time and Space ... Timeless 1.9: The Kiss and The Key ... Timeless 1.10: The End in the Middle ... Timeless 1.11: Edison, Ford, Morgan, Houdini, and Holmes (No, Not Sherlock)! ... Timeless 1.12: Incandescent West ... Timeless 1.13: Meeting, Mating, and Predictability ... Timeless 1.14: Paris in the 20s ... Timeless 1.15: Touched! .... Timeless 1.16: A Real Grandfather Paradox Story

-> and see also (evidence of original reality):  Time After Time, Timeless, and Frequency Now in the Dustbin of History (and the altered reality): NBC Reverses Decision and Renews Timeless: Lessons for Time Travel

Timeless 1.12: Incandescent West

Timeless keeps getting better every time, and as I've been saying with almost every review of the past few episodes of this series, episode 1.12 was the best episode so far.

Here's why -

1. An excellent Flynn episode, in which he not only interacts with Jesse James - whose life he saves - but with Emma.  Who's Emma?  Well, she's not only played by 24's Annie Wersching - always up for a gritty, attractive performance on screen - but she's the very first time traveler, who has been hiding out in the past for a decade.  This alliance promises some good times ahead.

2. Not only does Jesse James play a big role in this episode, but so does the Lone Ranger and Tonto - and the Lone Ranger is African-American, much to Rufus's delight, and played by Colman Domingo of Fear The Walking Dead.  For that matter, Tonto is played by Zahn McClarnon of Longmire (and I just saw him on Frontier).   Timeless has had some strong guest starring power all along, but episode 1.12 was a special event.

3. Lucy puts in one of her best roles - actually, it all happens in one scene, but this was something new and important for the show.   She shoots Jesse James in the back, for the sake of saving history. Of course, Flynn's actions already changed our history - the Ford Bros no longer did the cowardly deed - but at least Lucy kills Jesse, and in much the same way as in our original history.

4.  Wyatt's philosophy is it's right to kill bad people who kill good people. That has never been Lucy's philosophy, but tonight her values and Wyatt's coincide.  Clearly they won't in the coming attractions for next week's episode, when Wyatt will try to save his wife which in some big way may change history as Lucy and we know it.

And I'll be back here with a review to tell you how all that went down ...

See also Timeless 1.1: Threading the Needle ... Timeless 1.2: Small Change, Big Payoffs ... Timeless 1.3: Judith Campbell ... Timeless 1.4: Skyfall and Weapon of Choice ... Timeless 1.5: and Quantum Leap ... Timeless 1.6: Watergate and Rittenhouse ... Timeless 1.7: Stranded! ... Timeless 1.8: Time and Space ... Timeless 1.9: The Kiss and The Key ... Timeless 1.10: The End in the Middle ... Timeless 1.11: Edison, Ford, Morgan, Houdini, and Holmes (No, Not Sherlock)!

Bosch: First Half: Highly Recommended

I binge-watched the first half of Bosch on Amazon Prime Instant Video last night.  Herewith a brief, nonspoiler review.

The series is superb, and a worthy addition to streaming masterpieces such as House of Cards and Peaky Blinders on Netflix, and what The Man in the High Castle promises to be on Amazon.  These shows are spearheading a new revolution in television viewing, as far ahead of most cable today as cable was to network television when it first unveiled The Sopranos in the late 1990s.   The capacity to binge watch - available with cable usually only for series already aired, or after the DVD was released - has been coupled on Netflix and Amazon with a pace in the narrative that we've not quite seen before on the television screen.

All I'll say about the narrative of Bosch, at this point, is that it's a story that seems old for an instant - about a Dirty Harry kind of cop - which quickly pivots to originality, and surprises with twists and turns in every episode.   The writing is joyfully literate.  In the very first episode, a character asks, can you "humor us about the humerus bone"?   Bosch's love interest, a lawyer turned cop (itself a pretty original character) who wants to be a detective, is said by Bosch to have gone from "the briefcase to the billy club".   And there's a meta-quality that runs through the entire story - Bosch lives in a fancy apartment, with a great view, far above his pay grade, because he was paid a lot of money by Paramount for a movie about one of his cases.

The acting is outstanding. Annie Wersching - of 24 fame - plays Bosch's aforementioned love interest, and she's never been better.   Titus Welliver puts in the best performance of his career in the title role, and that's saying a lot, since he hit the note so well in his stint on Sons of Anarchy.  Jamie Hector from The Wire plays Bosch's partner, and Lance Reddick of Fringe as well as The Wire is on hand as the Deputy Chief aka Bosch's main boss.

It's tough, as I said, to get a fresh take on a police procedural, a genre as old on television as Dragnet in the first golden age of TV in the 1950s.  But Bosch - based on the novels by Michael Connelly, who co-created the series with Eric Overmyer (The Affair, Treme, and Boardwalk Empire are some of his credits) - has somehow managed to give us a police story we haven't seen before, and it's a riveting tale indeed.

See also Bosch: Second Half: As Fine as the First

                   another kind of police story 

#SFWApro

Intelligence 1.3: Edward Snowden and 24

A good Intelligence 1.3 last night, in which the targeted character is a woman who wants to defect to the Chinese and give them a hard drive with all kinds of US intelligence secrets.   Sound familiar?  Well, the character is transparently based on Edward Snowden, who went to China and wound up in Russia with a boatload of all kind of confidential information.

The Snowden story is still in hot dispute.  Some consider him a traitor, and would lock him up if not bring him up on treason charges if the U.S. ever got its hands on him.  Others consider him a hero, seeing as how he revealed that our NSA is spying on us, in some part illegally, as it amasses "meta-data" collecting the numbers and times of every phone call we make, etc.  Given that Daniel Ellsberg is correctly regarded as a hero for his release of the Pentagon Papers, which showed the lies upon which our involvement in the Vietnam War was predicated, I tend to put Snowden on the positive side of the ledger.

Not so in Intelligence 1.3, in which his surrogate character - played by Annie Wersching, aka Renee Walker of 24 - is at best portrayed as a confused woman, and subject to all the criticism leveled against Snowden, such as why didn't he stay and face the music in the U.S. (as did Ellsberg), and the irony of defecting to a country that has such low respect for freedom of expression.   (See my Fraudulent Hunt for Snowden for my views on that.)  But it was great to see Wersching back on television - she's had brief stints in the new Dallas and Revolution - and makes me wish she'd be in the new 24 due on TV in May, which she can't unless 24 pulls another Tony.

But back to Intelligence - the game changer is the follow-though of an ominous flicker at the end of the first episode:  Mei Chen is at large, and her chip is a slightly improved over Gabriel's - since it's newer - which opens up a good plot facet.   In episode 1.3, the collective intelligence of our team, especially Gabriel's insight, is enough to get the better of Mei, but this will not necessarily be the case in the future.

Good continuing story, and I'm looking forward to more.

See also Intelligence Debuts ... Intelligence 1.2: Lightning Changes

#SFWApro

Revolution 1.15: Major Tom and More 24

Revolution 1.15 continues firing on all cylinders - and continues drawing on the fine female acting talent on 24.

Last week we met the President of the Georgia Republic - played by Leslie Hope aka Jack Bauer's late wife Teri on 24.  Tonight we meet Emma played by Annie Wersching - who played FBI agent Renee Walker, my favorite of Jack's love, who after finally getting an hour in bed with him suffers the same fate as Teri.   Wersching's having a good year on television, also showing up on the new Dallas.

I like her role on Revolution much better than on Dallas, but it seems Emma's ending up the same way as Renee on 24 - shot dead.   But here's the thing - I never fully believe characters are dead on television unless they're blown to bits, or get their head blown off, right in full review (see my review of tonight's season 1 finale of The Following).   And although Emma's clearly shot, and unconscious, and although Miles puts the blanket over her face as the wagon pulls away with her body, something about that scene makes me think she's still alive - something about the way she looked before the blanket was put over her face.  Not to mention that both Miles and Monroe love her, so the show would be crazy to throw her away.  Maybe I'm just sentimental - we'll see.

Meanwhile, out west in another new country on the other side of the Mississippi, Aaron runs into his missing wife.  Although the ending of that story isn't exactly happy, no one is killed, and it's nice to learn a little more about Aaron's personal life.

The big reveal at the end of the episode is Major Tom showing up in the President's office in the Georgia Republic.  This was predictable, based what happened with Tom back in Monroe, but it sets up an excellently tense and deadly situation among our major characters.   Charlie rightly holds Tom responsible for the deaths of not only her father but her brother, and, whatever the President of Georgia may want or say, or even Miles, Charlie will insist on killing Tom sooner or later.

Good Revolution on television ahead this season - and next season, too, since the show is deservedly being brought back for a second season.

See also Revolution: Preview Review  ... Revolution 1.2: Fast Changes ... Revolution 1.14: Nanites and Jack Bauer

NCIS 8.10: DiNozzo, Out and In

Imagine an NCIS with a serious, straight-laced, by the book DiNozzo - no practical jokes, no delighted eye for the ladies, and (most egregiously, in my view) no quick connection of a case at hand to a great scene in a movie.   Well, NCIS 8.10 gave us just such a draconian scenario, as DiNozzo turns over a new, mature leaf, and it wasn't much fun, right?

Well, not quite.  It was great fun seeing McGee try to finish DiNozzo's analyses of the case with a movie reference, Ziva being concerned about the new DiNozzo, and even Gibbs wondering what's going on.  It takes Ziva to snap DiNozzo out of it, telling him his quintessential essence is class clown, and the team loves him for it.   The episode ends with a reassuring DiNozzo prank.

The other good humor in this holiday season episode is Abby doing a great turkey dance - I'd like to see her on Dancing with the Stars - and the case was pretty good too, featuring Annie Wersching, last seen on 24.

Meanwhile, while all this good stuff was going on on entertainment television, the news in New York brought the report that the bodies of four women were found washed up or buried on the shore.   I couldn't help thinking - what would be the best investigative team on television to take over this case?   Criminal Minds would be the obvious, excellent choice.   But the bodies were on the shore, and that could mean some Navy involvement, so ... hey, I'll take Criminal Minds and NCIS both!

See also NCIS Back in Season 8 Action ... NCIS 8.2: Interns! ... NCIS 8.3: Tiff! ... NCIS 8.4: Gary Cooper not John Wayne ... NCIS 8.5: Dead DJ, DiNozzo Hoarse, and Baseball ... NCIS 8.6: The Written Woman ... NCIS 8.7: "James Bond Movie Directed by Fellini" ... NCIS 8.8: Ziva's Father 
... NCIS 8.9: Leon's Story

And see also NCIS  ... NCIS 7.16: Gibbs' Mother-in-Law Dilemma ... NCIS 7.17: Ducky's Ties ... NCIS 7.18: Bogus Treasure and Real Locker ... NCIS 7.21: NCIS Meets Laura ... NCIS Season 7 Finale: Retribution

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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 

24 Season 8 Hours 3 and 4: The Female Jack

Hours 3 and 4 of 24, Day (or Season) 8, were on tonight with a fine, heart pounding, surprising story.   The two hours actually told two very different, though interconnected, stories ...

In Hour 3:  Omar Hassan (played by Slumdog Millionaire's Anil Kapoor - he reminds me a little of Omar Sharif back in his Lawrence of Arabia days) does the right thing, and supports reporter Meredith Reed's (Jennifer Westfeldt) admission to Hastings that she and Hassan had been having an affair.  But Hastings still think she could be part of the assassination attempt, and is swayed by planted evidence on Meredith's computer.   Only Chloe thinks the evidence may have been planted, but Hastings won't listen to her, and the assassination plan proceeds...

Out in Queens, Jack's doing his best to track and stop the assassin, but he winds up with a gun in his hand and a dead cop and his wife - they were killed by the assassin, who is now taking the slain cop's place in the protection detail for Hassan at the UN.   A Vic Mackey wannabee (actually, Domenick Lombardozzi - Herc  - from The Wire, a fine actor) and his partner played by Johnny Wu take Jack into custody.   Domenick beats Jack, certain that he's a cop killer.  Fortunately, Wu doesn't like this and is just convinced enough by Jack's story to call it in ... This allows Jack to get in touch with Cole at the U.N., and arrive there himself, just in time to -

Save Hassan.   As I say in my review of just about every episode, with 24 you never know...  But it's clear now that Cole is a major, valuable CTU agent, able to think and act almost as fast as Jack, and drive a wild car to stop an assassination with the best of 'em.

On to Hour 4:  There's almost always a bad guy behind the bad guy we've been dealing with on 24, and we soon meet that guy and his son (played by David Anders - Alias's Sark! and he just appeared in a reprise of Hiro's arch enemy in Heroes tonight).   There's weapons grade uranium involved, but Jack's still determined to get back to L.A. ... but hey, this is 24, as in 24 hours, so that's not gonna happen just yet.

But the real reason is the not the uranium but a radioactive relationship that didn't quite happen last year - between Renee (Annie Wersching) and Jack.  Here's my take on last year (Season 7): the two are attracted to each other, even love each other, should sleep with each other already.   Other elements:  Renee didn't approve of some of Jack's violent methods last year, but by the end of the year, well, maybe she had been transformed.

We find out just how much tonight.  She's called back from private security to help get to the Russian gang (the father and son) who are behind the uranium dealings.  Jack doesn't think she's ready to get back into the cross fires.   Hastings and Renee ignore his advice.   Jack won't be going to LA just yet.  He's going to go in with Renee.    She's not thrilled about having a babysitter, but, like I said, she feels something real for Jack so I'd say she's mostly glad he'll be with her.

So the two go out on the mission together.  And in Renee's very first interaction with a bad guy, she gets a little frustrated, and cuts his hand off!

This is the first time in the series that I can recall Jack partnered with a woman who has less patience with bad guys than he does.    Should be a riveting day for Jack and Renee and all else concerned.  (By the way, Chloe's better than ever.)


6-min podcast review of 24

See also Season 8 reviews: Hours 1 and 2


And see also Season 7 reviews: Hours 1 and 2 ... Hours 3 and 4 ... Hour 5 ... Hour 6 ... Hour 7 ... Hour 8 ... Hour 9 ... Hour 10 ... Hours 11-12 ... Hour 13 ... Hour 14 ... Hour 15 ... Hour 16 ... Hour 17 ... Hour 18 ... Hour 19 ... Hour 20 ... Hour 21 ... Hour 22  ... Hours 23-24 

And see also Season 6 reviews: Hours 1 and 2 ... Hours 3 and 4 ... Hour 5 ... Hour 6 ... Hour 7 ... Hours 8 and 9 ... Hour 10 ... Hour 11 ... Hour 12 ... Hour 13 ... Hour 14 ... Hour 15 ... Hour 16 ... Hour 17 ... Hour 18... Hour 19 ... Hour 20 ... Hour 21 ... Hour 22 ... Hours 23-24

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24 Season 7: Hours 1 and 2, One of the Best Premieres Ever

One of the best 24 premieres in years - maybe the best - with Jack pulled out of a Senate hearing, looking into charges that he tortured suspects when he was working for CTU. And, in fact, CTU has been disbanded.

Renee Walker, FBI, and one of the best women ever on 24, is the agent who takes Jack away from the Senate. (I was half looking for Roland Burris standing outside, the scene was so good.) The bad guys have kidnapped a government computer whiz - in a smashing first scene - and he's been forced to put the finishing touches on a device that will allow the bad guys to break into traffic control, the power and water grids of the country, all of the things that could kill millions and bring the country to its knees. And - Tony Almeida is one of the bad guys in charge (and good to see Carlos Bernard back, even as a bad guy).

This had been well announced, and came as no surprise, but it was still very well played. And the question remains: Is Tony really bad? In tonight's two hours, he stops short of causing any death to innocent people - he does order the killing of a bad guy who was about to talk - and this leaves open the possibility that either Tony is not completely bad, or maybe he's working under some deep cover.

If so, Jack certainly doesn't know about this. There are some great scenes between Jack and Renee (Annie Wersching looks and sounds great in this role - she and Kiefer Sutherland are fine and powerful together), as Renee first makes Jack promise he won't resort to his usual tactics with suspects, but then encourages him, sort of, because she realizes that in life-and-death situations, you may need to do more, or, at least threaten to do more, than FBI rules allow.

The torture-issue thread was very carefully developed in the first two hours, as follows: (1) Renee makes it clear that she wants Jack to come to the interrogation because the target knows what Jack was capable of, so Jack's being there would convey the implicit threat of torture. (2) When the target refuses to talk, Jack asks Renee if he has permission to go further, saying it's her call, and she agrees - all of this in front of the target. (3) Jack puts a pen to the target's eye, and he agrees to talk. (4) Later, Renee asks Jack how far we he would proceeded with the pen, and Jack says you gave me permission. (5) But Renee says she was only play-acting, to jolt the subject into talking...

This will clearly be a continuing theme in the show, and a rejoinder to Keith Olbermann and others who are sure, with their eyes closed, that 24 glorifies torture. (Olbermann was wrong, in any case, to say 24 got its marching orders from the Bush administration. Torture on 24 was only used when terrorists were about to blow up a big city, and not for routine questioning of prisoners as per Bush.)

Larry Moss, Renee's boss, speaks for the FBI. He may have some feelings for Renee, and he certainly doesn't like Jack. I don't trust him. And I couldn't help noticing that he said "three" people had been killed by the sniper when Jack and Renee were questioning a suspect - when, in fact, only two were killed.

There's definitely a double agent at the FBI. We see at least one. And I wouldn't be shocked if Larry is another.

Meanwhile, in presumably other matters, the President's son - whom we saw in Redemption - has apparently committed suicide. But the President's husband - the "first gentlemen" - doesn't believe it, and there's almost no way he can't be right. It's not clear what President Allison Taylor thinks about this. She has her hands more than full with an imminent U.S. intervention in Sangala, where we saw Jack in Redemption.

This was a powerhouse premiere, with lots of nice of touches. When Jack leaves the Senate hearing, the Chair says he'll be due back at the hearing "tomorrow morning." My wife and I immediately noticed this. "Tomorrow" in 24 time, but next year in television season time. And, if tonight's two-hour pace is any indication, it will seem like just a handful of heart-pounding minutes.

See also: review of Redemption

And ... Season 7, Hours 3 and 4 ... Hour 5


6-min podcast review of 24 7 Hrs 1-2

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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

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