Chuck Todd interviews me about alternate histories
Showing posts with label Chris Bauer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chris Bauer. Show all posts

Thursday, July 16, 2026

Nemesis: Good to the Last Drop



My wife and I binged Nemesis -- eight episodes all up on Netflix -- and really enjoyed it.   The story is a life-and-death contest -- psychological, physical, strategic -- between two brilliant, driven men: LAPD Detective Isaiah Stiles and suave criminal mastermind Coltrane Wilder.   Stiles is convinced that Wilder, who has high-profile fronts in real estate and philanthropy, is behind and actively involved in all kinds of big crimes, including at least one that affected his family, but nobody including his police superiors believe him.

That's a good enough set-up for an edge-of-your-seat police series in itself, but both men are married to beautiful, highly intelligent women in complex relationships, and their families play an increasingly important role as the narrative unfolds.   Stiles's father and son, and Wilder's sister-in-law are major characters with elements of compelling stories that intersect with unforeseen consequences.  In addition, police of various positions and loyalties, and people in Wilder's gang with different levels of reliability, play crucial roles.

All of this rolls out with shoot-em-up action, including an excellent massive battle between good guys and bad guys, neither of which are entirely good or bad.  The acting was excellent.  No one other than Domenick Lombardozzi (Ray Donovan) (born on my birthday), Chris Bauer (For All Mankind), who both played senior LAPD people, and  were known to me, but all were memorable, especially Y'lan Noel as Wilder, Matthew Law as Stiles (a great example of name determinism), Mo Irvin as his father, Cleopatra Coleman as Wilder's wife (whom I just realized I saw and liked in a strange little time-travel movie In the Shadow of the Moon), and Gabrielle Dennis as Stiles' better half.

Hey, Nemesis was great summer fun, and would likely be just as good in winter.



Thursday, November 13, 2008

True Blood Calling on HBO

Here's a little confession - I watch a fair amount of television, including shows that I love, that I don't review on Infinite Regress or any of my other blogs. That's because, as much as I enjoy blogging, it's sometimes fun just to watch a show, take it in, and not discuss it with anyone except my family. But, sometimes, a show is so good, that I break down and write about it anyway ...

True Blood, now moving into the last few episodes of its first season on HBO, is such a show. I don't usually love or even like vampire stories - too much impossible, illogical fantasy for my tastes. But True Blood (created by Alan Ball of Six Feet Under fame) has taken the vampire story and put it into a very plausible, and therefore, for me, compelling science fiction scenario...

Japan has come up with "True Blood," a chemical concoction, close enough to real human blood, to satisfy a vampire's hunger. Of course, like all food with artificial ingredients, "True Blood" is not as good as the real thing, but it works. And this, in turn, means that vampires can come out of the shadows, and live among humans, because they're not hunting us anymore. But, to say the least, not all vampires and humans are happy about this...

Sookie Stackhouse has a power which, as far we know, has nothing to do with vampires. Ever since she was a little girl, she could read minds. Anna Paquin portrays Sookie, and she's beautiful, innocent, savvy, brave, irresistible. You can understand why any man - vampire or human - would want her, and lots do.

But Sookie mainly loves Bill Compton (well played by Stephen Moyer), a vampire since the end of the Civil War. Unlike most of his kind, he wants to live among humans, and he truly loves Sookie. He'd sacrifice his eternal life for her.

Vampires do live forever in True Blood - unless killed with a wooden stake through the heart, or burned when they sleep - but one of the little joys of True Blood is discovering what in our current vampire lore is not true, or myth, in the True Blood world. Garlic has no ill-effect on vampires, and probably the most interesting myth debunked in True Blood is that one bite can turn a human victim into a vampire. It takes much more...

Other interesting touches include the incredibly stimulating, psychedelic effect that real vampire blood - not "True Blood" - has on humans, which results in a coveted and dangerous drug trade in vampire blood. And portrayal of human prejudice against vampires, especially given that the story takes place in the American South, makes for some astute social commentary.

Add to that all kinds of strange powers lurking in the background, such as shape shifting, a stellar cast including The Wire's Chris Bauer, a perfect theme-song, "Bad Things" by Jace Everett, and you may well also find that True Blood is just your cup of ... well, let's just say, tea.

See also: Penultimate True Blood, Looking for Another Killer








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...

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Friday, November 7, 2008

Life on Mars #5 Meets the Wire in New York

"When you walk through the garden, you better watch your back ..." Hey, they could almost have played that superb Tom Waits "Way Down in the Hole" theme song from The Wire in last night's episode #5 of Life on Mars, which had two* Wire veterans on hand, Clarke Peters (Lt. Freamon on The Wire) and Chad Coleman ("Cutty" on The Wire). Even Whoopee Goldberg had a cameo. *(And an anonymous commentator just mentioned that Chris Bauer, Frank Sobotka from The Wire, played the priest in this episode of Life on Mars - so that makes three Wire people.)

Freamon and Cutty were among the best characters on The Wire. Both were customarily excellent in Life on Mars - in a show that couldn't have been aired at a better time, about the evolution of race relations in America - but Peters' character Bellow had by far the more significant role.

Bellows is Sam's mentor in 2008. Sam works with Bellows as a much younger detective in 1973. This is a great time-travel set up, with possibilities of seeing how Sam's relationship with the young Bellows shaped and/or changed their relationship in the future - classic time travel. But the ending - which I don't want to give away - never explored this.

There was a nice piece of surprise business with Lt. Hunt in 1973, who is turning out to be a pretty appealing character, after all. He increasingly is pulling back from the edge of being a psycho, out-of-control, violent cop - to reveal a human being with a reliable sense of right and wrong.

And what has been revealed about Sam? He's still firmly in a coma as far as I can see - and yet, and yet, the story is also playing with something more. Or, put otherwise, if Sam is just in a coma in 2008, it's a complex coma indeed.

See also Life on Mars Debuts in America ... Life on Mars 2nd Episode in America: Coma, Time Travel, Mars Rover ... Life on Mars Goes On in America: What Happens When a Time Traveler Runs Into His Earlier Self? ... Life on Mars #4: All in the Family ... Life on Mars #6 Meets Itself on Television ... Life on Mars #7: Is Annie Real, Or, Is Life on Mars a False Memory






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...

Get your own at Profile Pitstop.com



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