The Event 1.8: The "Republican" VP and the Anti-24

A direct down-to-Earth Event 1.8 tonight - no aliens or EBEs or possible time travelers or whatever they are - just humans against humans, sharp shades of 24, though, come to think of it, we can't be sure what the head bad-guy (Dempsey) played by Hal Holbrook really is.

But we can be sure what the Vice President is.  He's a human traitor, who set up the assassination attempt on the President.   The VP is Dempsey's pawn.  Dempsey appeals to him to reach across the aisle, and join Martinez, in the first bipartisan ticket in history.  Which won.

Ok, the word "Republican" was never used, and I don't recall anyone saying that President Martinez is a Democrat.   But given that Martinez started the season wanting to release the EBEs, given that Blair Underwood is playing the President as tough but not always jumping to take the military option - well, the conclusion that we're looking at Obama and a Republican who did not get the nomination of his party in the last election, but instead went on to run and win on bi-partisan ticket, seems pretty well taken.   Does make The Event an anti-24, since 24 was regarded by some (not me) as being a pro-Republican show?  

To be clear,  VP Jarvis not so much an evil man as a weak man, whose family would be in jeopardy if he didn't do Dempsey's bidding.  But as Martinez rightly tells Jarvis in their confrontation - so to protect your family you would kill me, my family, not to mention the 200 people on the plane?  Apparently so.   And Dempsey got the same results from Leila's father.

So the question remains: who is this Dempsey?  At very least, a big "Republican" contributor, a political wheeler and dealer, and also someone who commands a pretty big private and deadly security force.   We've come upon such villains in 24, but not with possible alien/time traveler connections, which is why I think The Event is weaving a story worth watching.

See also The Event Debuts on NBC ... The Event 1.2: Aliens! ... The Event 1.4: 24 Back in Action! ... The Event 1.6: Not Only Aliens, Immortals! ... The Event 1.8: The Portal and its Implications

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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

The Event Debuts on NBC

The Event on NBC looks like a keeper.

The new series starts off with a complex plot - ala 24 - of bad guys, terrorists, whatever intent on taking out the President (always good to see Blair Underwood back on the screen).   The apparent bearer of a bomb (or whatever) on to a plane turns to be a good guy, whose almost fiance is presumably kidnapped by the real bad guys.   Sean Walker finds himself caught up in a sleight-of-hand of his reality worthy of Hitchcock.

And that's the least of it.  His fiance's (Leila's) mother is killed before her father's eyes, and their younger daughter is kidnapped to boot.   And it turns out the father is piloting the plane, with an eye towards crashing it into where the President and his family and his advisors are all in attendance.   He's apparently a good guy, too, though, and is doing this because the real bad guys have his younger daughter - and I guess Leila, too - and are threatening to kill them.

Now this would be a series worth watching with just the above as a plot.   But the payoff at the end of the premiere episode pulls us into something much more.  For just as the plane nears its executive target, it's sucked into something that looks like it came out of The Philadelphia Experiment, and disappears into thin air.

Sophia (Laura Innes - Kerry on ER!) tells the President: "they saved us".   Who are the "they"?  Sophia explains that there are "some things I haven't told you".

What we do know that is that Sophia is part of some group which is being held in Alaska, and the President wants to free them (contrary to the strong advice of his advisors, including Blake, played by Zeljko Ivanek, who is once again playing a hard-assed a-hole).

And we're off to a brand new series, riveting, complex, frothy, more reminiscent, actually, of FlashForward than Lost, and a good dose of 24, too, as I mentioned above.  Hey, if it stays away from purgatory as an ending,  The Event could end up better than Lost in the end.


5-min podcast review of The Event

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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

In Treatment 8: A Princely Performance

Week 8 of In Treatment on HBO was it most powerful so far. (I may have said that before - but it's true.)

Although Alex's death was no real surprise - I saw it coming last week - I have to admit it brought tears to my eyes. And the funeral scenes were just what the series needed. Paul and we get to see people for the names he and Alex had been discussing ... we meet Alex's wife, children, gay friends, and, of course, Alex's father. Laura's presence was also just right, and I thought she and Paul looked more comfortable together than any time before. Paul also seemed more human and real - a therapist grappling with his own feelings about his patient's death, but, in the end, just a human being, grieving like any of us for the loss of someone he cared about.

But, of course, Paul's feelings as Alex's therapist are what drives the story, and these come into full play in Tuesday's episode, when Paul gets a visit from Alex's father, played brilliantly by Glynn Turman (Mayor Royce on The Wire). This episode, propelled by Turman's performance, was the best single episode in the series so far, as father and therapist both contend with their intersecting guilt over the likely suicide of a son and patient. Turman's performance as Alex Prince, Sr. is so good he actually looks like Alex - I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Turman is actually Blair Underwood's father, or the two are otherwise related. That's a testament to magnitude of Turman's rendition.

Skipping ahead to Paul's session on Friday with Gina, we find that Paul indeed thinks that Alex took his life. Paul is in this session without Kate. He engages in his customary needling of Gina ... and Gina responds with a hurricane of revelation about what makes her tick. She wants to help Paul, but won't tolerate his painting her into a corner that doesn't jibe with who really is, or thinks she is. When it's over, it's clear that Gina may be more the powerful, intelligent, and better therapist than Paul. This was easily the best episode with Gina (and also a sterling, powerhouse performance by Dianne Wiest), and also one of the best in the series. And the permission that Gina gives Paul to explore and decide upon his relationship with Laura was appropriate - Paul can't rely on Gina to tell him what not to do - and promises a good finale episode with Laura this coming week.

Meanwhile, back on Thursday, Jake shows up without Amy - a part of me thinks that's a plus - and also gave us his best session so far. We finally get to see the combination of talent and insecurity that moves Jake, and Paul does a good job of bringing that out.

And, saving the best for last, it was great to see the progress Paul is making with Sophie. At the end of Wednesday's episode, Sophie seems to finally be allowing herself to have a relationship with her mother. Paul's work with Sophie is always a pleasure to see. As I've mentioned here before, he is at his best with her, because he is not conflicted by sexual attraction and possible love (Laura), competition (Alex), and a marriage in trouble (Jake and Amy) and all too reminiscent of his own.

This coming week's finales should be excellent. HBO has made a real contribution to the English-language television by re-doing this wonderful Israeli show here.

See also In Treatment on HBO ... 2. Scalding ... 3. Triangle ... 4. Love and Death ... 6. Paul's Greatest Strength ... 6. Paul's Boat ... 7. Alex in the Sky with Diamonds ... In Treatment Concludes: For Now

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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... good reading if you're in a doctor's office...






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

In Treatment 7: Alex in the Sky with Diamonds

The most powerful session in Week 7 of HBO's In Treatment was with Alex.

I actually think of this as Part II of Alex's session in Week 6, in which he began to come to terms with his gay feelings, as well as fully realizing he needed help to sort out his life. In Week 7, Alex's session goes in the opposite direction - macho, in charge, knowing just what he wants to do - which is to get back in the sky and fly again. When his superiors contact Alex, and tell him they have a new assignment, he's all set to go.

Paul has already indicated that he thinks Alex may not yet be ready to return to the sky. Alex pleads with Paul - well, with Alex, it's a always as a much of a demand as a request - that Paul tell the military shrink that Alex is in good shape now. Paul clearly doesn't feel good about doing this - but it looks as if he will.

Blair Underwood once again gives a tour-de-force performance. And when the session ended, I had the feeling that we may not see Alex again - that he may die in the skies. I hope I'm wrong.

Sophie's session was also excellent, as always. She and we learn a lot more about her relationship with her father, and what went wrong back then. Paul continues to be at the top of his game with Sophie.

Monday was a holiday - Paul's kids were home from school, and Laura was nowhere to be seen. Paul's daughter Rosie confronts him about what's going on with Kate, and Paul confides in son Ian about his feelings for Laura. It was good seeing Paul with his kids - the different tableau was refreshing. But I found Paul's confession to Ian ... I don't know, implausible, not completely motivated.

Jake and Amy were, again, the weakest of the sessions. Their main value to the series, as I mentioned last week, is the contrast they provide to Paul and Kate's sessions with Gina.

Both marriages are clearly in trouble. With not that many weeks left in the series, I'm wondering which will survive - or maybe both, or neither....

The predictable answer would Jake and Amy's won't survive, and Paul and Kate's will - but I'm thinking the endings may be a little different...

See also In Treatment on HBO ... 2. Scalding ... 3. Triangle ... 4. Love and Death ... 6. Paul's Greatest Strength ... 6. Paul's Boat ... 8. A Princely Performance ... In Treatment Concludes: For Now

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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... good reading if you're in a doctor's office...






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

In Treatment 4: Love and Death

Love and death - libido and thanatos - the two primal urges that push and pull our lives - at least, according to Freud.

And they both play a primal role in Week 4 of the continuing, powerful In Treatment on HBO...

1. Sophie shows up for her session, casts and neck brace off, and looking good. She makes a breakthrough, and begins talking about what she was thinking before and during her accident- but interrupts this to go to the bathroom (this is apparently a time out that patients take, to regroup their energies). But Sophie uses it to ... swallow a whole bunch of sleeping pills. She collapses on the floor of Paul's office, and is rushed to the hospital (we learn in a later episode that Paul talks the hospital docs out of committing her).

But - what is Paul doing stocking his bathroom medicine cabinet with sleeping pills - when he knows patients use that bathroom?

We find out the explanation on Friday, when Paul tells Gina that since he's sleeping on the couch, he put the pills in the medicine cabinet for his use.

So, love - not enough of it, between Paul and Kate - is the reason for Sophie's (second) near death. But the pills in the patients' bathroom are also an indication of how distracted Paul has become, because of another love ...

2. In Alex's incredible episode on Tuesday, we get all the details of Alex's time in bed with Laura, the day after we hear about the same from Laura. The two stories are of course different and similar. I have to say again that the acting in the whole series is superb - but Melissa George as Laura and Blair Underwood as Alex are in a class by themselves, top-notch movie-quality.

The kicker of this essentially two-part episode comes when Alex makes it clear to Paul that Alex may be falling in love with Laura...

This is probably just what Laura wants Paul to think - though, as we know already, and hear him say for the first time on Friday, Paul really needs no more inducement to love Laura - he's already there.

3. The best scene yet between Paul and Gina comes on Friday. She tells Paul she'll always be there for him as a therapist ... Paul now feels comfortable enough to utter the unthinkable - well not unthinkable, obviously, but unacceptable for a therapist - Paul loves Laura, his patient.

A wonderful, emotionally rich - and even satisfying - ending to a stormy week of In Treatment.

As always, I'm looking forward to more.

See also In Treatment on HBO ... 2. Scalding ... 3. Triangle ... 5. Paul's Greatest Strength ... 6. Paul's Boat ... 7. Alex in the Sky with Diamonds ... 8. A Princely Performance ... In Treatment Concludes: For Now

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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... good reading if you're in a doctor's office...






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

In Treatment 3: Triangle

Alex - brilliantly played by Blair Underwood (all of the acting is brilliant in this series) - was something of the outsider in the first two weeks of In Treatment on HBO. Unlike Laura, Sophie, Jake and Amy, he had no intersection with Paul's wife.

In week 3, Alex leapfrogs that intersection for something more profound and potentially disruptive to Paul: Alex is now sleeping with perfectly seductive Laura (Melissa George).

They meet when Alex shows up on the wrong day - Monday - and runs into Laura, who is leaving after a particularly aggravating session (actually, they all are, and that's part of the fun - Laura and Paul's, and ours).

I'm still not quite convinced by Alex's explanation that he lost track of the day, but maybe this is another indication that his well-ordered life is crumbling.

Even more important, this new affair yanks Paul around in multiple ways, like a puppet on half a dozen strings. He'll be jealous of Alex - because Paul clearly feels something for Laura - how can he continue to treat him? He'll be more likely to give in to Laura, the more jealous he becomes. And, of course, he's not likely to admit any of this - except, perhaps, maybe, to Gina.

And unlike Paul's sleeping with Laura, which he can forbid himself from doing, how can he forbid two patients from sleeping with each other? Much as he might dislike it, what can he do about it? Can he speak to Laura about it, and tell her he thinks she is not really attracted that much to Alex, she is just sleeping with him to make Paul jealous? Not an easy conversation at all - and another reason this is a great show.

The other event which caught my attention this week is Sophie's outright admission to Paul that she's sleeping with Sy. I think Paul believes her, and we see him in that last scene on Wednesday's show calling Sophie's mother ... But will he also call the authorities? Is he legally obligated? Do we know the age of legal consent in this state? Or will Paul's need to keep faith with Sophie, and her vulnerable state, take precedence? (Has he already compromised this faith by calling Sophie's mother?)

Difficult, fascinating questions ... complementing the new triangle and its questions ... and making for an irresistible series...


See also In Treatment on HBO ... 2. Scalding ... 4. Love and Death ... 5. Paul's Greatest Strength ... 6. Paul's Boat ... 7. Alex in the Sky with Diamonds ... 8. A Princely Performance ... In Treatment Concludes: For Now

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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... good reading if you're in a doctor's office...






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

In Treatment 2: Scalding

A scalding second week of In Treatment on HBO, with the talk and the action centering much more on Paul and his wife, powerfully played by Michelle Forbes.

Michelle Forbes has had memorable roles on trend-setting television ranging from Star Trek to last year's Battlestar Galactica, and her performance as Kate is about as down-to-Earth as you can get and just as outstanding.

Kate figures in the Monday Laura episode - Paul doesn't want scintillating Laura to use the bathroom inside his home (the office bathroom needs plumbing) because he doesn't want Kate and Laura to meet. Sophie comes into the office out of the rain on Wednesday, holds her arms up, and asks Paul to help her undress (her arms are in casts). Paul wisely calls on Kate to help.

There's a clear tension between between Paul and Kate in every scene they inhabit. But it all comes to a head when Jake and Amy leave unexpectedly on Thursday (she's having a miscarriage), and Paul and Kate are alone in the office.

Kate tells him she's never felt in first place in his life. He barely reacts. She eventually tells him she's having an affair. He goes ballistic.

Although we saw Paul not being on top of his life last Friday at Gina's, the Thursday confrontation between Kate and Paul clearly moves him from hero to tragic hero, to perhaps even hero-villain in this unfolding story. Well, maybe villain is too strong a word, but Paul certainly seems less sympathetic a character after that scene.

Which is all to the good in this surprising, highly original series. Paul's conversation with Gina this past Friday moved the story along - Gina's one of my favorite characters, she has a real tenderness - and although Alex's story on Tuesday didn't intersect with Kate's, Blair Underwood was the best he's ever been on the screen.

For that matter, all the acting is superb - as is this series.

I'm looking forward to more next week.

See also In Treatment on HBO ... 3. Triangle ... 4. Love and Death ... 5. Paul's Greatest Strength ... 6. Paul's Boat ... 7. Alex in the Sky with Diamonds ... 8. A Princely Performance ... In Treatment Concludes: For Now

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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... good reading if you're in a doctor's office...






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

In Treatment on HBO

HBO premiered a brilliant original show last week - original in both structure and content. Anyone who thinks HBO is running out of steam as a pioneer in the cable form should take a look at In Treatment.

The show consists of a 30-minute segment every weekday evening. Psychotherapist Paul, played by the always memorable Gabriel Byrne, sees a different patient Monday through Thursday. And on the 5th day, Friday, he sees his own therapist, Gina (played by Dianne Wiest) and becomes a patient himself.

Don't confuse this with Tell Me You Love Me. The talk on In Treatment is much more intense and intelligent. In fact, it's so good, that all almost you get on In Treatment is talking, and that was more than enough to keep my wife and me hanging on almost every word.

Monday's patient thinks she's falling in love with Paul - erotic transference, as the shrinks call it. Laura's beautiful and smart - she's an anesthesiologist - and the real question is whether Paul is falling in love with her (we find out on Friday that all's not well with his wife). Laura's played by Melissa George - Vaughn's wife on Alias - and she won't be putting anyone to sleep - at least, not in the viewing audience.

Blair Underwood plays Tuesday's patient, Alex - I've been enjoying his performances since LA Law. Here he plays a Navy pilot with a complex story of guilt and power and possible attraction to his running partner, who is a gay man. Alex also has a heart attack, running, and nearly dies. Paul's patients clearly all live life to the hilt.

On Wednesday Paul sees a 16-year girl, Sophie, played by Mia Wasikowska. Mia, like Melissa and Blair, puts in a tour-de-force performance. Sophie, a gymnast, may or may not suicidal.

Josh Charles as Jake and Embeth Davidtz as Amy come to the doctor's office on Thursday, as a married couple in real distress. I suppose this is the least original of the four stories, and the most reminiscent of Tell Me You Love Me, but the acting is powerful and the story still captivating.

Four different stories having no real connection except their excellence as narratives and the excellence with which they are acted - and Paul as the psychotherapist they all see. And on Friday, Paul reverses his role, and Gabriel Byrne puts in just as powerful a performance as patient. There's a nice symmetry here as Paul as patient goes through many of same acts of his patients - wondering why he came to his therapist, threatening to leave, verbally attacking his therapist.

In Treatment looks a highly successful experiment in TV drama, that definitely bears more watching.

PS: Steve Levinson is the Executive Producer. He is, alas, no relation...

See also In Treatment 2: Scalding ...3. Triangle ... 4. Love and Death ... 5. Paul's Greatest Strength ... 6. Paul's Boat ... 7. Alex in the Sky with Diamonds ... 8. A Princely Performance ... In Treatment Concludes: For Now

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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... good reading if you're in a doctor's office...






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