The Time Traveler's Wife 1.6: Brutal Truths and a Ray of Hope

Well, I thought The Time Traveler's Wife finale on HBO Max was superb, even though ...

[Big spoilers ahead ... ]

It was the ugliest episode of the series.  Palpably brutal, with Henry's naked time traveling body hitting the floor so many times it was making my eyes sore, not to mention my soul.  And that was the least of it.  Far worse was:

1. Henry discovering that he's aging more quickly than normal, non-traveling people, and he'll be dying, what, when he's in his early 50s?  

2. He can't give Clare what she most wants, given his frequent absence even when he's alive: a child.  It seems every time he gets her pregnant, the embryo or fetus time travels and of course can't survive.

As a result, Henry has a vasectomy, because he can't bear to keep doing that her.  But in a happy ending -- at least a hopeful ending -- Clare encourages younger, "asshole" Henry to keep seeing her.  He has not yet had a vasectomy.

And there this wondrous, wild story ends?  As I've been saying, I hope not.  There are possibilities to explore.    Maybe Henry can figure out a way to extend his life.  Maybe he can connect with some genius gynecologist who can bring his and Clare's baby to term.

I don't know, I'm not a medical expert.  But I do know I much enjoyed the six episodes of this story, even though they had their flaws, and I'd be up any time for seeing more.

Great acting by Theo James and Rose Leslie in the title roles, and I thought Josh Stamberg was impressive in this episode as Henry's father.   Kudos to everyone who made this short season, and I look forward to seeing its continuation someday somewhere.

See also The Time Traveler's Wife 1.1: Off to a Fine, Funny, Complex Start ... 1.2: Fate ... 1.3: Lies and Love ... 1.4: Mercurial Stock ... 1.5 Hair

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The Time Traveler's Wife 1.3: Lies and Love

A powerful third episode of The Time Traveler's Wife on HBO last night, in which Henry and Clare both lie to each on crucial, life-shaking matters.

[Spoilers follow ... ]

Clare as a tweener and teenager repeatedly asks Henry on his many visits if they will be married in later life.  He repeatedly tells her no, and eventually shouts out the truth when the guy who raped the teenaged Clare demands to know why Henry is so upset about what happened to her.  Ironically, though that's not quite the word, Henry knows that the rapist burned Clare with cigarettes but not that he raped her, because Clare repeatedly told Henry that the guy had hurt but not raped her.

What are we to make of these mutual lies?  They are born of love, or at least good intentions.  Henry thinks knowing too much of her future will damage Clare.  And she thinks telling Henry the full extent of what happened to her might get Henry to really kill the rapist.  But you might not agree.  Some observer of human nature -- maybe Albert Schweitzer? -- once remarked that lying, whatever the lie, is a "treason of the soul," that always diminishes the liar.  On the other hand, Sissela Bok in her excellent 1978 book Lying evaluates various kinds of lies, and singles out "white lies" as sometimes justified and doing some good in this world.

The Time Traveler's Wife, like all excellent fiction, deserves credit for addressing such complex moral issues.  And this episode was especially well acted, not only by Rose Leslie as the 16-year old and older Clare, but Caitlin Shorey as the tweener and Everleigh McDonell as the younger Clare.  They join Theo James' Henry in a really effectively acted drama that doesn't miss a beat.

And I'll see you back here next week with my review of the next episode.

See also The Time Traveler's Wife 1.1: Off to a Fine, Funny, Complex Start ... 1.2: Fate

The Time Traveler's Wife 1.1: Off to a Fine, Funny, Complex Start

The Time Traveler's Wife debuted on HBO last night. Based on the 2003 novel by  Audrey Niffenegger which I haven't read, made into a movie in 2009 which I saw and really liked but didn't review (because I was too busy promoting the first edition of my then new book, New New Media), HBO's offering is a brand-new series.  I thought the first episode was excellent.

The set up: Henry is the time traveler, pulled into the past, sometimes the future, with nothing but his skin, not of his own volition, usually in the timeframe of his own lifetime.  He can meet earlier and later versions of himself, and often does.  Clare is the wife.  Henry, already a man, and already married to Clare, travels back in time and meets her as a girl (first time in her life she's seen him).  They love each other, but their lives together are certainly not easy.   I know some of what will happen in subsequent episodes because I saw the movie, as I said above, but this review will be spoiler-free.

There's probably more humor than heartbreak in this story, but I wouldn't call it a comedy, and it's a frothy mix of frivolity and potentially life-and-death situations and predicaments at hand.  Henry and Clare are both highly intelligent, which makes the challenges they encounter, together and separate, a lot of fun to see. Also, intellectually provocative.

The acting in the lead roles is great, just what you'd want in narrative like this.  Theo James, last seen and missed now as Sidney in Sanditon, is perfect as Henry, irreverent, fast thinking and fast acting, and pretty good in a fight.  Rose Leslie, who lit up the screen as Ygritte in Game of Thrones, ranges as required from spitfire to vulnerable, as good at strategizing as Henry, and at least as important a mover of events in the story as Henry.

So we're off to fine start with our central couple.  We'll meet other characters, of course, as well as seemingly insurmountable problems -- as befits the genre of time travel -- in the episodes ahead, and I'll be back here with reviews of each of them.

The Good Fight 1.1-2: Great Show!

CBS teased with the pilot of The Good Fight tonight - and just for good measure, put up the second episode on CBS All Access, its new streaming service, that you pay for like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu.  My wife and I saw both hours and loved them.

In case you've been on Pluto (it's indeed a planet) and didn't know, The Good Fight is a sequel series to The Good Wife, one of the best all-time lawyer series ever on television.  (How good?  Right up there with Perry Mason and Petrocelli.)  It was always current, brilliant, funny, and stylish.

The Good Fight, minus Alicia and Peter, has all of that.  It even manages to start with Diane watching, aghast, as Trump is inaugurated.   And it takes off from there, with Diane caught up in a Madoff scheme, Lucca on hand, and some great new characters such as Maia (played by Rose Leslie from Game of Thrones) and Robert (played by Delroy Lindo, who always puts in a commanding performance).

The mix, like The Good Wife, is high octane, but The Good Fight looks like it will have a charm all its own.   Diane-centered episodes were always especially welcome on The Good Wife, and we'll get more of that on The Good Fight.  (Christine Baranski is better than ever.)   Maia makes an appealing new-minted attorney, and the three - Diane, Lucca, and Maia - are a powerful triad of the bar, in both the courtroom and the office.

Will The Good Fight be enough get CBS All-Access flying, along with a new Star Trek series coming soon?  Tough call.  Cheapskates that we are, we don't like paying for anything, especially sequels of series we've come to know and admire for free.   But we're happily paying for Netflix and Amazon Prime now, so you never know.