Tehran: Did the TV Series Trigger Trump To Do the Bombing?

In a feat of perfect timing, I finished watching the third season of Tehran the night before Trump announced the joint Israeli-US attack on Iran.   We know that Trump watches a lot of TV, and is very much influenced by it, choosing cabinet members based on their performances on cable news shows.  I wonder to what extent his ultimate decision to attack Iran was based on his viewing of the series named Tehran?

First, let me say that I saw all three seasons of the series in the past few weeks, and talked my wife into watching it, too.  It's an excellent series, which started out very well, and just got better and better. Apple TV+ and the Israeli TV broadcaster KAN 11 are part of the production team, and Tehran indeed has a lot of the flavor, power, and feel of Fauda, which is also an Israeli production.  It was also good to see Sasson Gabai back in action in Tehran, after his success in a very different kind of role in Shtisel.

The essence of Tehran is what kind of military back-up will Israel give its Mossad agents who are already widely embedded in Iran.  In the third season, in particular, we find agent Tamar Rabinyan (very well played by Niv Sultan) struggling to stop Iran from finally creating a nuclear weapon -- struggling to do this before Israel bombs the site, which would release damaging radiation (not as bad as a nuclear explosion, of course, but the "dirty" explosion would engender serious health risks).  All of this occurs as Iran is literally on the edge of developing nuclear weapons.

Was Trump watching this thrilling series, and that's what led him to make the decision to bomb Iran?  Well, the edge-of-your-seat season 3 finale of Tehran the series was aired on February 27, and the US started bombing Tehran the city on February 28.

Fauda 4: Very Much Alive and Wounded

Fauda is like no other military, espionage series I've ever seen, showing so many sides of a story in so much life and death and depth, in this case, Israelis, Palestinians, and other peoples in the area and further away.  Watching a season is an immersion in these cultures, and an exploration of complex personal relationships under pressure, interspersed with breakneck military battles and operations.

[And that's the most I'll say before I alert you to spoilers ahead.]

Fauda 4 opens up with Doron and other members of his team in various stages of wanting to retire.  This only progresses as the 12 episodes unfold.

The kidnapping of Gabi, and the plan of the Palestinian team that kidnapped him to launch missiles against Israel, are the main objects of our team's focus on stopping.   As in previous seasons, let's just say that they don't succeed as quickly and as entirely as they would like, if they succeed at all.  Again, this reflects Fauda's uncompromising mirror of reality, however painful that may be.

Lior Raz, star of the series as Doron, and co-creator with Avi Issacharoff, once again puts in a powerhouse performance, as does everyone else in Fauda 4, in all sides of the physical and psychological battles.  As Gabi points out to Doron, he has a tendency to start to fall in love with women who are good human beings, whether Arab or Israeli, because he has such a big heart.  This time, that's Maya (very well played by Lucy Ayoub), a Palestinian whose brother is behind Gabi's kidnapping, whose Israeli husband is in the Israeli military, and she herself is an Israeli cop -- this is what I mean about the personal relationships in Fauda being complex.  But not so complex as to get in the way of the riveting narrative, which will keep you glued to the screen (I haven't used that old metaphor in years, if ever).

The ending is about as wild as it gets.  Just about everyone on the team lying on the ground, badly wounded but alive -- and speaking of metaphors, that pretty much is the story of life that Fauda continues to tell: badly wounded but very much alive.  I'm very much looking forward to a season 5 and more.

See also Fauda: Beyond Homeland ... Fauda 2: Another Unforgettable Visit ... Fauda 3: Blood, Tears, Humanity

Hit and Run: Lior Raz and Silvercup

I've come to know Lior Raz as one of the creative powerhouses (along with  Avi Issacharoff) of three seasons and a fourth forthcoming of Fauda, about the best depiction I've ever seen of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, viewed through the eyes of an Israeli undercover unit, in which Raz plays Doron, and therein stars in the series as well.

So of course I was going to see Hit and Run, a new series which debuted on Netflix, which also was co-created by Raz and Issacharoff, and also stars Raz.  This time he's an Israeli tour-guide, married to American ballet dancer, who is killed in a hit-and-run before the first episode is over.  Before the nine episodes of this first season are over, we see Raz's Segev as much in New York as in Tel Aviv, and a narrative seething with action and a cast who promise to become memorable in their first scene and usually do.

My favorites this time, in addition to Segev, are Tali (played by Moran Rosenblatt, also in Fauda), a resourceful, pregnant Israeli police detective who is Segev's staunchest ally in Tel Aviv, and Naomi (played by Sanaa Lathan, not in Fauda, but in The Affair), who's an investigative reporter with New York Magazine, was once in some kind of commando unit with Segev, and is now his staunchest ally in New York.

In addition to the non-stop action and complex fast-twisting plot, there's also more than a fair share of death meted out to all kinds of characters, which I consider a plus in this kind of series, because you begin to realize you never will know who will survive a given episode, because in fact you don't.  The scenery was also good.  As a life-long New Yorker, I was happy to see Silvercup Bakery -- or what was Silvercup Bakery -- in one of the many chases on the highway scenes.  Hey, the bread itself was white bread, probably the worst thing to give a kid, but it sure made a tasty sandwich.

Hit and Run was better than tasty, and I'd be stunned if there wasn't a second season, but I know less about the inner workings of television series than I do about bread, so who knows.  But I'll be back here as soon as I finish bingeing it, if there is a second season of Hit and Run, so see you back here.

getting an education about the workings of television from someone who knows

Fauda 3: Blood, Tears, Humanity

Fauda 3 was somewhat different from the first two seasons, which were superb.  The new season shows us far less success from Doron's team.  Missions go wrong, lives are lost.  Blood and tears are shed, which make for some very memorable scenes.  The setbacks make for a more surprising, more realistic narrative.  I think I like this third season even more than the first two.

The scale, in terms of the terror the team combats, the foes they face and the victims they endeavor to save, is more personal and focused.  Lior Raz, the co-creator and writer has created a narrative that starts off on the razor's edge and never leaves it.  When you run a course like that, you're bound to get hurt, badly.  Raz plays the team leader and lead character Doron, with his customary of blend of power, passion, and, when needed, subtlety.  When Hila, a fine-looking high-powered intelligence officer, walks in the room, all the guys around the table hoot and applaud.  Doron eventually manages a small smile.  Of course, he's the one who gets to sleep with her.  (Ok, I promise no more spoilers.)

Doron's Achilles's heel is that, in addition to being a great fighter and strategist, he fancies himself a good psychologist or understander of human nature.  He truly believes he can develop rapport with people who, if they knew who he was, would see him as their mortal enemy.  Late in the season, Doron and Steve have a conversation, in which they both acknowledge that their weakness is rushing into dangerous situations.   They certainly both do this.  But Doron's deeper weakness is that he thinks he can manage people and situations which are far more beyond his control than he realizes.  Most of things that go wrong for the team in this breathtaking season are due to one version or another of that problem.

As indicated in the Hila introduction scene, there's humor of all kinds in this third season, just as there was in the first two.  In at least one scene with Gabi, it likely was unintentional.  I'm pretty sure I saw the same exact scene, with a guy on double crutches in back of Gabi in a hospital corridor, twice.  But, hey, you gotta save an expense whenever you can in a production these days.

The acting, as always, was outstanding. In addition to Raz as Doron, Doron Ben-David as Steve, Itzik Cohen as Gabi, Ala Dakka as Bashar, Khalifa Natour as Jihad, Boaz Konforty as Avichay, Yaakov Zada Daniel as Eli, Marina Maximilian Blumin as Hila, and Reef Neeman as Yaara were all excellent.   Fauda continues to be one of my favorite series, combining the flash danger of 24 with the kind of depth and humanity you don't see in many places on the screen.

See also Fauda: Beyond Homeland ... Fauda 2: Another Unforgettable Visit

Jack Ryan on Amazon Prime: Right Up There

You've got to give Amazon credit, doing a new, rebooted Jack Ryan series, starring John Krasinski in the title role, after the likes of Harrison Ford, Alex Baldwin, Ben Affleck had knocked the role out the ballpark - well, certainly Harrison Ford - in a series of riveting movies from 1984 through 1996.  Sort of like what Amazon attempted when it brought Philip K. Dick's alternate history masterpiece novel The Man in the High Castle to the streaming television series screen with little-known actors.   And with the same result: both succeeded splendidly.

I haven't read any of Tom Clancy's novels, which I think is actually good when judging a movie or a television series based on the novels, because it allows appreciation of the movie or TV series on its own terms.   And my wife and I, binge-watching the eight Jack Ryan episodes in just two nights, really enjoyed this first season of this classic American spy-action story.

The trapping are familiar and updated - ISIS in Syria, attacking a church in Paris, and before the end of these episodes, bringing the fight to the U. S. homeland, with an ebola virus and a dirty bomb designed to wreak havoc.   But although this new Jack Ryan is reminiscent of both Jack Bauer and Homeland, with some Doron from Fauda thrown in, it has a pace and a heart all its own.

Jack is determined to not only save the day but do the right thing - as in trying to come through for the people around him on his commitments - for not only his friends but relative innocents caught up in the struggle.  His immediate boss, James Greer, is played by Wendell Pierce, who gives the best performance of his long career since The Wire.  Abbie Cornish is good as Dr. Cathy Mueller, who we know in a subsequent story will become Cathy Ryan or Mrs. Jack Ryan (Jack, by the way, is a Dr., too - a PhD in economics).  Ali Suliman as Suleiman is scathing, sensitive, and memorable as the terrorist mastermind.

There's humor, surprises, interludes of non-stop action and deaths - expected and unexpected - in just about every episode.  I'm ready for the second season, which I'll review here as soon as it's up on Amazon.

Fauda 2: Another Unforgettable Visit

I just finished the second season of Fauda on Netflix.  It's every bit as good and even better than the first, which means a powerful mix of multi-level adversaries with subtle but significant differences and edge-of-your-seat battles in a portrait of an Israeli special forces team, this time mainly in Nablas, since 1995 under the Palestinian National Authority on the West Bank.

The most vividly rendered differences are among the Palestinians, which consist of at least three groups, those loyal to the Palestinian Authority, those loyal to Hamas, and those loyal to ISIS.   These groups certainly don't like one another, and in the case Hamas and ISIS, are more than willing to kill any of the other two who get in their way.  ISIS is the new and most dangerous ingredient in this simmering brew, ever on the verge of going deadly (though, ironically, the recent decline of ISIS in our real world may have made its depiction in Fauda 2 no longer completely valid).

The arch-enemy in Fauda 2 is connected to an enemy in Fauda 1, but I won't say anything more about El Makdessi in case you've not yet seen the first season.  Suffice to say he's brilliant, charismatic, and ruthless, very well played by Firas Nassar.  Walid, back from the first season and second-in-command at Hamas, is also a compelling character, hauntingly rendered by Shadi Mar'i.

The Israeli team begins much as it did in the first season, but there are sudden changes and near-changes throughout, so keep your eyes peeled.  Lior Raz (also one of the creators of the series) was powerful again in the lead role of Doron, and I also especially liked the sensitive performances of Itzik Cohen as Captain Gabi and Doron Ben-David as Steve. 

Other than El Makdessi, the most compelling new character is Anat Moreno (Mickey's niece), played by Moran Rosenblatt, who lights up every scene she's in.   Gali (Neta Garty) and Shirin (Laëtitia Eïdo) are back with memorable performances.

Thinking back on Fauda 2, I feel the same way I felt after watching the first season: there's something indelibly real about it.  The Hebrew and Arabic dialog, the at-once over-the-top but nuanced and detailed portrayals, make you feel like you're really there, in the streets and indoors, in the action -- with the saving grace that you can't be literally hit by any of the bullets.   I'm much looking forward to another visit.

See also Fauda: Beyond Homeland

My List of the Top 10 Television Series of 2017

Continuing the tradition - just started two years ago - here is my Top 10 list for 2017,  from who knows how many series I've seen this past year on network television, cable, and streaming (Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Acorn):

Honorable mention (narrowly not making the list, for a variety of reasons):  On the list last year: Vikings was on my Top 10 list last year (that would be season 3).  Season 4 was excellent, but not quite as good in previous seasons.  (Season 5 has just begun, and I'm already liking it a little more than Season 4.) Returning in honorable mention: Chicago Fire is still superb, but still suffers from the limitations of network television.   Apples and oranges: Veep is still hilarious, but it's impossible to rank a comedy with dramas, so I put it here in honorable mentions. Same for the return of Curb Your Enthusiasm, which is in an hilarious class of its own. Closest runners-up: Twin Peaks: The Return (Showtime): sequels, especially broadcast years later, are always a difficult proposition, but Twin Peaks did this insanely well, literally;  Game of Thrones (Season 7) (HBO): best season so far, we finally got to see the dragons in action; Ozark (Netflix): an original, engrossing crime drama in an unlikely place; The Break (Netflix): top-notch Belgian noir, The Crown (Netflix): peerless drama of the first years of Queen Elizabeth II;  Mindhunter (Netflix) think Criminal Minds, unhindered by network mores

-> 17 December 2017 shoutout to Erased, a charming, very different kind of time travel series on Netflix, which I just saw last night.  It will definitely be on my Top 10 list next year.

-> 28 December 2017 I just finished streaming Travelers 2 - the first season was on my Top 10 list last year (2016) - Travelers 2 will surely be on my Top 10 list next year.

And now the Top 10:

10. 19-2 (final season, Acorn): back on the list from last year, one of the best cop shows ever on television; sorry to see it conclude

9. The Deuce (HBO): a gritty, in-your-face look at prostitution and the dawn of the porn industry in 1970s New York City, as only HBO can do it

8. Big Little Lies (HBO): sly, well-acted, delicious, brutal, and criminal

7. Four Seasons in Havana (Netflix): Cuban noir, based on four novels, about the exploits of detective with a secret life as a writer - you can't go wrong with this gem

6. Narcos (Season 3) (Netflix): 3rd year in a row on my Top 10 list, you can't beat the pace, the realism, and the sarcasm of the DEA-agent narrator

5. Dark (Netflix): there was a lot of time-travel on television in 2017 (12 Monkeys, Timeless, Time After Time, Somewhere Between, Outlander), but this German outing was the best, and wove at least half a dozen major paradoxes into the story

4. The Orville (Fox): the closest thing ever on television to the original Star Trek series, with some of The Next Generation on board with equivalent characters; and The Orville is often laugh-out-loud funny

3. Fauda (Netflix): a brilliant, riveting Mossad spy story, swat-team narrative, which treats Israelis and Arabs with almost equal sensitivity

2. Longmire (final season, 6) Netflix: this series just got better and better every every season, and saved the best for last with a truly satisfying story that tied up most of the loose ends

1. Sense8 (season 2) Netflix: telepathy is a relative rarity in science fiction, and Sense8 did it masterfully and memorably; destined to become a classic which will be watched for decades to come

See also My List of the Top Ten Television Series of 2015 and My List of the Top Ten Television Series of 2016

Homeland 6.3: Potentials

An ok Homeland 6.3 last night, with Quinn resurgent and Saul in Israel.

The Israeli part reminded me what a superb job Fauda does of showing the simmering tensions in that country.  Saul's conversation with his sister was interesting enough, but didn't really further our knowledge of Saul very much, and not much at all for the plot at hand.

Quinn in Brooklyn was better - better to see, and better that Quinn is coming back into action.  What he did to the guy who took advantage of his weakened condition was just and satisfying.  I hope it's just the beginning of Quinn in fuller service - to the cause and to Carrie.  Both certainly need it.

And Homeland needs it too.  So far, this season is almost nothing like the first season, which was such a powerhouse.  And even last season, with no Brody, managed to grab us by the collar.   This season has some potential, but so far it's yet to be realized.

The most significant potential is in the President-elect, who is different from our current President in just about every way.  Obviously, the script was written and put to screen long before we knew the results of our election.   So here, too, we can only hope that the President-elect, whenever she takes office in the story - assuming she does - will provide a bracing counterpoint to our own real political situation.

Potentials are very valuable - as long as they are, at least to some extent, fulfilled.

See also Homeland 6.1: Madam President-Elect ... Homeland 6.2: Parallel Program

And see also Homeland 5.1: Moving into the Age of Snowden ... Homeland 5.2: Who Wants to Kill Carrie ... Homeland 5.3: Carrie and Kerry ... Homeland 5.5: All Quinn ... Homeland 5.6: Saul Wises Up ... Homeland 5.7: Tough to Watch ... Homeland 5.9: Finally! ... Homeland 5.10: Homeland and Homeland ... Homeland 5.11: Allison as Primo Villain ... Homeland Season 5 Finale: RIPs

And see also Homeland 4.1-2: Carrie's State of Mind ... Homeland 4.3: Quinn and Carrie ... Homeland 4.4: Carrie's Counterpart ... Homeland 4.5: Righteous Seduction ... Homeland 4.6: The Biggest Reveal ... Homeland 4.7: The Manifestation ... Homeland 4.8: Saving Someone's Life ... Homeland 4.9: Hitchcock Would've Loved It ... Homeland 4.10: The List ... Homeland 4.12: Out of this Together

And see also Homeland 3.1: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 3.2: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 3.3: Two Prisons ... Homeland 3.4: Twist! ...Homeland 3.6: Further Down the Rabbit Hole ... Homeland 3.7: Revealing What We Already Knew ... Homeland 3.8: Signs of Life ...Homeland 3.9: Perfect Timing ... Homeland 3.10: Someone Has to Die ... Homeland 3.11: The Loyalist ... Homeland Season 3 Finale: Redemption and Betrayal

And see Homeland 2.1-2: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 2.3-5: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 2.6: What Brody Knows ... Homeland 2.7: Love Me Tinder ... Homeland 2.8: The Personal and the Professional ...Homeland Season 2 Finale: The Shocker and the Reality

And see also  Homeland on Showtime ... Homeland 1.8: Surprises ... Homeland Concludes First Season: Exceptional

#SFWApro 


  more espionage in New York City

No Second Chance: First Place Whodunnit

I'm continuing to feast on the international television and movies Netflix has been bringing us, ranging from Nordic Noir (Dicte and many more) to Cuban cop (Four Seasons in Havana) to Israeli undercover (Fauda).   France is well represented in this, too, with the superb Spiral, which I'll review after I've seen the 5th season on Netflix for free (cheapskate that I am), and Marseilles, which was quite good.

No Second Chance is another French winner, which arrived in France via New Jersey, where Harlan Coben, the American renowned mystery writer, lives and works.   Coben not only wrote No Second Chance, but has a nice cameo at the end, along with Dana Delaney, the only actor American audiences will recognize in this series.

The rest are French, and all excellent.  So is the narrative, which unlike a lot of high-octane kidnap stories, comes packaged with a first-class, whodunnit puzzler.  A father is shot to death, a mother shot and left for dead, and their six-month baby is kidnapped.   The mother, a medical doctor, recovers and sets out to find her baby.

But that won't happen until she or someone else solves the puzzle of what happened in the first place. Suffice to say it's not what it seems to be, as the main detective is just on edge of realizing.   There's a gap of time in the narrative - which was somewhat necessary for one of the crucial developments in the ending - but I think the story would have been even stronger and tighter without it.

But that's a small quibble about a compelling six-episode series,  crème de la crème for international and indeed all television.


silk noir

Four Seasons in Havana: Five Stars

As the new year gets underway, Netflix continues to revolutionize television in many ways, one of the most important being the way it makes available to American viewers (and viewers around the world) television series from other countries and cultures.  In the past months, I've reviewed outstanding examples from Israel (Fauda), France (Marseilles), and Nordic Noir narratives from Denmark and Iceland.   The stories are not only riveting, but when you watch them subtitled (not dubbed) in their original language, you get a chance to increase your international vocabulary over what you learned in high school and college when you weren't paying that much attention.

So I had high expectations when I started watching Four Seasons in Havana - four 90-minute detective stories, rendered in Spanish, made in Cuba and Spain, following the exploits of Lt. Conde - and they were not only met but exceeded. Conde (well played by Cuban actor Jorge Perugorría) is a philosophically minded, hard-bitten but full of heart, existential mid-level detective, wise-cracking one minute, challenging Cuban authority the next, doggedly pursuing the murderer, and always with an eye for a beautiful woman.  He usually succeeds in both quests, but not usually in a way that brings him any lasting satisfaction.

We've seen hard-boiled detectives like Conde - actually, I'd say he was medium-boiled - many times before, but what makes Four Season in Havana different and memorable is that it takes place in Havana.  As is well known, a lot of the culture of Cuba was frozen in the late 1950s, with American cars from that era carefully maintained for decades.  One of the best things Barack Obama did as President was finally lift the American embargo on Cuba, so that snapshot in time is likely to catch up to the present pretty quickly.  This means that Four Seasons in Havana gives us a fascinating glimpse of a Cuba that may soon be gone - and with it, not only antique cars, but old telephones, big desktop computers, more radio than television, and a love of music (such as Creedence Clearwater Revival) that, while still admired in America, has long been old hat.

So in addition to the crime stories being appealing in their own right, we get in Four Seasons in Havana the dividend of the next best thing to an actual visit to Havana, which I now hope more than ever to do myself one day.   Whether you feel that way or not, see the series.


silk noir

Fauda: Beyond Homeland

The new season of Homeland will debut next Sunday - here's my review of the first episode - but if you want to see a series that makes Homeland look like, well, not a walk in the park, but is better than Homeland in just about everything it does so well, then see Fauda.

It's posted one season so far - 12 episodes, each only a half an hour in length - from 2015 in Israel, and it's now streaming on Netflix, and those episodes pack more of a punch than anything similar I've seen on television.   It's the story of an Israeli special forces undercover team, battling terrorists in the Palestinian territory, with dialog in Hebrew and Arabic, and English subtitles.

There are all kinds of twists and turns in the plot, and I don't want to spoil any of that for you, so I'll focus on the other highlights.   Characters on both sides are complex, multi-faceted, and believable. Family life and love affairs play significant roles, with especially astute portrayal of children in both Israeli and Palestinian families.  There's room for humor, as when an agent on a crucial mission has all he can do not to kill a taxi driver droning on about why he gave up cigarettes (with a punchline of the cabbie bumming a smoke off the agent at the end). The hierarchies of political and operational command unfold with subtlety and power.

As is always the case with these kinds of dramas, which are as thoughtful as they are violent, the question is to what extent a tough undercover unit can oppose and extinguish a terrorist operation without becoming terrorists, or adopting some of the terrorists tactics, themselves.   With death literally at hand in just about every scene, the stakes couldn't be higher.

Lior Raz is both co-creator and plays a lead role, and his performance is superb.  So is every other performance in Fauda.   Strap yourself in for a six-hour ride that will open your eyes and give you new understanding of a conflict that so desperately needs resolution, yearned for by almost everyone, or indeed by everyone but in different ways.