For All Mankind 2.5: Johnny and the Wrath of Kahn

Another good episode of For All Mankind tonight -- 2.5 -- with lots of time in Jamestown on the Moon, which is always one of my favorite places for this series.

And the touches of our reality which made it through to this alternate reality were also enjoyable to see. I especially liked Johnny's interviews with Tracy on the Moon, and Ed's mention of The Wrath of Kahn as a movie option.  Good to see the Star Trek franchise thriving in this alternate history.

The scenes and stories back on Earth were, as usual, the least interesting for me.  Gordo's condition is getting boring already.   Likewise Ed's interactions with his family, and, for that matter, even Molly being tough at NASA.  We've seen all of this, in slightly different configurations, many times in this series. It was good to see Ellen with her true love, though.  She remains one of the most interesting, i.e., unpredictable, characters in the ensemble.

Back to Jamestown. Tracy's rough time there makes sense and was good to see played out.  The scene between her and the commander of the base was fresh, as was the arrival of the military unit.  As of now in this season's narrative, at the end of episode 5, the best scenes are the build-up for some big stories ahead.   These would be US and Soviet relations -- on space and on Earth -- and the Pathfinder mission to Mars.  I'm looking forward to seeing those happen.   In the meantime, the best thing about this second season, as I mentioned last week, is the feeling it conveys that what we're seeing on the screen is more than an alternate reality, and in some real sense actually happened, too.  Kudos to the series for creating and stirring that excellent impression.

See also For All Mankind, Season 1 and Episode 2.1: Alternate Space Race Reality ... For All Mankind 2.2: The Peanut Butter Sandwich ... For All Mankind 2.3: "Guns to the Moon" ... For All Mankind 2.4: Close to Reality

*** Note added 27 October 2023:  Check out my review of Jack Dann's new book, The Fiction Writer's Guide to Alternate History

Joker: Fantasy and Canon

Checking in with a late review of Joker (2019), which the wife and I saw on HBO last night.

Let me stipulate several things:

• Joaquin Phoenix was brilliant, inspired, incandescent, whatever superlatives you can find, in the title role.  He eminently deserved the Oscar he won for that.
• I know a middling amount of Batman canon, but am no expert.
• I thought the movie held together very well as movie, which means I disagree with, for example, the inanely critical review in the New York Times, as I often do.

I do have question about the ending, though.  And the fact that I have questions makes me think that maybe the movie would have been better ending before this ending.

Arthur Fleck, having actualized his impulses and become the Joker, is seen talking to his state-appointed shrink or social worker, but in a less dingy setting than at the beginning of the movie.  One explanation of this scene, which I'd like to think is correct, is that Fleck, after escaping the cops in what I was wish was the closing scene, is nonetheless apprehended at some time in the future, and is now in some kind of penitentiary serving a life sentence for his crimes (or is he maybe on death row?).

But there's an alternate explanation (which my wife wondered about, and now I'm thinking about it too).  We already saw, in the movie, that Fleck imagined making love and all the good things he did with his neighbor down the hall, Sophie.  This establishes that Fleck's fantasies played a major part in the narrative we see on the screen.  Is it possible that everything else we saw in the movie - Fleck's killing of De Niro's Murray Franklin (who, to me, is just as much Joe Franklin - believe it or not, I was once on his show, talking about my album, Twice Upon A Rhyme - as Murray is Johnny Carson), etc - were also just in Fleck's mind?   Or, at least more of the major sequences than just Sophie as girlfriend?

In at least one Batman movie, if memory serves, the Joker kills Bruce Wayne's parents.  In Joker, one of the myriad angry people with a clown face does the deed.   This suggests that Fleck did not make all of this up - another clown killing Bruce Wayne's parents is consistent with the historical Batman canon of his parents being killed.

In any case, I rate this movie as maybe a masterpiece, and, the more I think about it, the more I think that's right.

Stephen Colbert in His CBS Debut Reminiscent of Dick Cavett and Jack Paar

I don't usually review late-night talk shows - actually, never have - but there's a first time for everything, and I thought Stephen Colbert's debut on CBS Late Show last night was a good time to begin.

In a phrase, I thought Colbert, divested of his incisive and hilarious conservative caricature from his previous show, was just as brilliant last night, and as funny and politically relevant in his own persona (assuming that's what we saw last night).

The interview with Jeb Bush was probably the highlight of the hour.   Colbert peppered Jeb with hard-hitting questions, and managed to be funny at the same time.  The last late-night host who had this kind of intellectual gravitas wrapped in a smile was Dick Cavett, and before him, Jack Paar.

It's not that everyone from Carson through Letterman and even Fallon right now weren't and aren't sharp as tacks intellectually.  It's just that Colbert last night mixed it with a perfect lightness, a quickness, that we haven't seen on late-night television for a while.

It was a good session for Jeb, too, who seemed a little nervous at first, but came back with a series of good and good-humored responses.   It will be interesting to see if this gives him a lift in the polls, and how he compares with Donald Trump, who will be on Colbert's show later this week.

There was also a winning meta quality weaved into the show, with George Clooney and Colbert talking about and showing clips from a non-existent movie, and Colbert having two interactions with Jimmy Fallon.    That would have been unimaginable in Cavett's or Paar's time - and, for that matter, in Carson's or even Letterman's (unless I missed it in Letterman) - but Colbert, if this first show is an indication, represents a nice step forward in late-night television, even as he reclaims an intellectual terrain not seen since the 1960s.

Tom Snyder: Progenitor of Cable and YouTube

A note to mark the passing of Tom Snyder into the realm of the ultimate rerun. He died on July 29, at age 71.

Synder was of course best known for his work on NBC's Tomorrow show, from 1973-1982. Synder was brilliantly spoofed by Dan Akroyd on Saturday Night Live, did lots of work on radio, and even showed for a while on local TV news here in New York.

He was easy to laugh at, but, in his own way, was probably more important than Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley, and any of those classic network news guys. This was because Snyder showed, on The Tomorrow Show, that there was a powerful appetite for new news and cutting edge interviews in the middle of the night - or after Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show.

If that sounds familiar, or commonplace now, that's because you see it every night on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC - not to mention ABC's Nightline. All of that and more are the progeny of what Tom Snyder brought into being.

Indeed, by stretching the notion of the possible in television news and interviews, Synder not only set up our world for cable, but for YouTube, Obama Girl videos and all that makes our current news world so vibrant.

God speed, Tom. My wife and I saw you on the first Tomorrow show in 1973, and we'll all be poorer for your leaving.