Lie to Me 2.13: The Whole Truth and Rep Joe Wilson

And here I am back with a review of Lie to Me 2.13, which was just on Fox.  A fine show-

But first, I just gotta say, where else can you see a real shot of President Obama, worked into the story line?   Only on Lie to Me, which always cuts to a few shots of real people - it's one of the show's signatures.   So tonight we get Obama's cool response to the Republican boor who screamed out "you lie" (that would Rep. Joe Wilson) as the President addressed Congress and the nation about health care this past September.   And Gillian explaining the meaning of Obama's response to the son of a presumed murder victim...

Which brings us to the story.   A gorgeous woman - Clara, played by Melissa George, who had a similar role in the first season on In Treatment - is accused of murdering her husband, twice her age (her character wasn't accused of murder in In Treatment, but she did her best to seduce the psychologist).  Cal's ex-wife Zoe (Jennifer Beals from The L Word) is defending Clara.   Before the episode is over, there'll be some good attractions between Cal and Zoe (as always), Cal and Clara (of course), and there's always a little something between Cal and Gillian.

Bruce Weitz - who's looking far more distinguished now than he ever did on Hill Street Blues - also plays a role as the deceased's best friend, and Diane Baker is the judge (Raising the Bar should've worked her in).   And Cal's at his best in seeing the truth, going with the side of truth, and ending up in bed with ...

Well, see the show.   I'm going to watch a little news, and see if I can spot any shots of famous people that may show up on Lie to Me someday...



5-min podcast review of Lie to Me

See also my reviews of Lie to Me and Bill O'Reilly, Saddam Hussein, and Ben Reynolds in Lie to Me 2.6 and Lie to Me 2.7: The Redeeming of Loker and Lie to Me 2.8 in Afghanistan and Viva Lightman and Las Vegas in Lie to Me 2.9 ... Lie to Me 2.11: Double Feature ... Lie to Me 2.12:  The One Prevarication

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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

Drunk FlashForwarding in 1.5

Well, the Yankees lost tonight, after coming back and gaining the lead, and that was frustrating, but FlashForward 1.5 came on strong after a talky middle and posted one of its best endings since the premiere, and that was good to see indeed.

The crux of this episode is the reliability of Mark's flashforward vision. Why does he recall only a part of the 2 minutes and 17 seconds, when others seem to recall the full course of their flashforward? The answer is that Mark, off booze for seven years, was drunk in his flashforward.

Courtney Vance puts in his best performance so far as Mark's boss Stan Wedeck. He at first is furious that he's risking his career on a drunk flashforward, but he doesn't pull back the investigation, and in fact just tells Mark to keep his mouth shut as Stan takes the project funding he has pressured the President to provide.

There's a sharp 24-ish flavor to this (likely from Brannon Braga), as we see a President wheeling and dealing with dangerous political adversaries, and a Chinese team of assassins who almost take out Mark, Demetri, Vreede, and Stan, and in a parallel attack badly wound Janis. She looks as if she could be dying in the street - but given the truth of the flashforwards so far, someone is bound to come and save her.

She has a provocative story, too - a lesbian lover, Numb3r's Amita (Navi Rawat), in Washington, DC. It looks as if not only Heroes but FlashForward is picking up on The L Word this year, which risks making this theme a little trite, especially when brought in out of left field. But in Janis's case, it has the benefit of making the pregnancy she saw in her flashforward even more interesting.

Janis also discovers some strange towers in the area of the 1990s blackout ... Lloyd Simcoe will likely know more about ...



6-min podcast review of FlashForward

See also FlashForward Debuts and Oceanic Airlines as a Portal Between FlashForward and Lost and 1.2: Proofs and Defiance of Inevitability and 1.3: Conficting Visions and Futures and 1.4: FlashForward Meets Shaft and House

Listen to 40-minute interview with Robert J. Sawyer

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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...





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

Heroes Meets The L Word in 4.5

An excellent episode 4.5 of Heroes last night - in fact, the best episode of the new season - in which we get some good progress on Claire's story...

Turns out that Claire's roommate Gretchen (Californication's Madeline Zima) is the not the source of Claire's worst problems. Gretchen didn't kill Claire's original room mate, nor is she trying to keep Claire from making friends at school, nor is she stalking Claire for any reason other than -

Gretchen has a crush on Claire, and gives her a pretty deep kiss, which Claire - surprised but certainly not repelled - permits. Raises some interesting possibilities, and it's good to see that Madeline Zima is being true to her frisky Californication history.

But if not Gretchen, who is the potentially deadly adversary for Claire? A sorority girl, who is really working for Samuel's increasingly more nefarious carnival group.

Meanwhile, Peter's also finding romance, in a tender story with Emma, who sees colors for sounds, and at first has no interest in Peter. But he's picked up her power - an heroic kind of synaesthesia - and by the end of the episode, they're making nice music together. Just music for now.

And Sylar is slowly regaining his identity, after being apparently killed again, but recovering, because he does have Claire's powers. Will Sylar turn out a better person in his gradual self-reconstruction?

Not likely. On the other hand, Samuel's people may well be the worst threat.

See also Heroes Season 4 Premiere: Metaphysics, University, Carnival

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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...





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

The L Word Meets Agatha Christie

Just two more upcoming episodes of The L Word - this week and next, on Showtime - so I thought I'd check in with another update.

The central story line in this last season is who killed Jenny - found floating in the pool, in classic hot 1940s Hollywood style, in the first scene of the first episode this year. As the season has unfolded, it's becoming clear that just about everyone and their grandmother has a reason to hate and kill Jenny. She shoots her mouth off to Helena's new love, and may have ruined it for her. She steals Alice's treatment, and sells it as a script for half a million dollars - I'll get back to that in a minute.

But, first, when you have a murder, and everyone has a motive, I can't help thinking like Agatha Christie that everyone's the murderer. That would be a satisfying ending - much as I can't quite see Tina and Bette joining in on any killing (but it's not impossible). The other possibility is Jenny killed herself. If I had to bet, I'd put my money on that...

But speaking of money, and back to Alice, I can't buy that Alice didn't go even more ballistic when she found out that Jenny stole and made a cool half mil on Alice's idea. Why didn't she call a lawyer? For that matter, how come Tina, who's in the business, didn't get a little more upset and involved in this, too? The same for Bette. Everyone reacts, a little, but no one goes really crazy, and no one does anything to help Alice.

I'll be looking forward to see how this all plays out in the final two episodes - and will miss The L Word when it's over.

See also The L-Word Returns for Final, Saucy Season

The New Golden Age of Television Roars Back

Have you seen Heather Havrilesky's dyspeptic The year the small screen fell flat in Salon, subtitled "Lackluster pilots, slumping sophomore shows and the devolution of the serial drama. The golden age of TV suddenly looked tarnished in 2008."

Here's the picture she paints ...

2008 not only marked one of the worst years of TV in the last decade, but all of the momentum and promise of the past few years seemed to vanish in a haze of crappy, unoriginal new programming, lackluster sophomore shows, flaccid sitcoms and pointless cable comedies.

Some bloggers agree with this, at least in part. The Flaming Nose, for example, cites Dexter, Mad Men, and True Blood as exceptions to Havrilesky's screed, but calls it nonetheless "well reasoned".

But I don't know what picture, or screen, Havrilesky or the Flaming Nose have been looking at.

The past year - 2008 - brought us one of the best seasons of Lost, a cut-throat knock-down legal thriller in Damages, the best episodes ever shown of Law and Order: Criminal Intent, outstanding seasons indeed of Dexter and Brotherhood on Showtime, and The Wire, In Treatment, John Adams, and, yes, True Blood on HBO and Mad Men on AMC, to name just a few.

And here's what we have in store this and next month of 2009: the debuts of new seasons of 24 (January 10-11) and Lost (January 21) - among the top shows ever to have been on television - as well as Battlestar Galactica (January 16), Big Love (January 18), and Damages (January 7), plus the resumption of Fringe (January 20), Life on Mars (January 28), Heroes (February 2), and The Sarah Connor Chronicles (February 13). And, come to think of it, of The Unit (January 4), The Closer (January 26), and Bones (January 15) - none of which I've yet reviewed here on Infinite Regress (as I have all the others), because I've not yet thoroughly caught up with the earlier parts of the current season, because they're not yet on DVD, and I prefer watching these great shows on my television not computer screen.

And, while we're at it, there's also The L Word, which is coming back for its final season on January 18, and I reviewed the first four episodes of here last week. Another fine show.

So, is the new golden age of television - as I called it in an op-ed in Newsday in July 2006 - "tarnished"? Only if you're wearing some kind of rust-colored glasses...

The L Word Returns for Final Saucy Season: A Sneak Preview Review

I was fortunate to see the first four episodes of The L Word's final Season 6 - set to begin on January 18 - and thought I would give you this sneak preview review, which will be major spoiler free.

To begin with the biggest news, Showtime's advertisements for the finale season have been telling you that Jenny's dead, so you presumably know that already. We see Jenny's body, taken out of the pool in which she drowned, in the very first scene, as all our other favorite players react in the house. Now, television being what it is, I often point out that, unless you see a head blown to smithereens right in front of your eyes, the deceased may not really or permanently be that way. (Look, for example, about what 24 is apparently doing with Tony Almeida in its new season, also to debut in January.) So, although I promise I saw nothing that indicates Jenny may not be really dead, and she likely really is, I just wanted to mention the possibility that maybe she isn't....

The first four episodes, and I assume most or all of this season, go back three months before Jenny's death, and tell everyone's story leading up to her body in the pool. The one common theme is that just about everyone has a motive .... Everyone.

Freud is famous for saying that sex and death - libido and thanatos - are the primary factors in our deepest psychology, and there's certainly plenty of great sex in this new season of The L Word, always one of the attractions for me (yeah, heterosexual men enjoy seeing women make love). But babies also play an important role in the story this season - not only adopted, but one of the major characters is pregnant, and you might just be able to logically figure out who.

Some fine new characters and actresses are on the show this season. Lucy Lawless, of Battlestar Galactica fame, is the great-looking cop who is investigating Jenny's death, and Elizabeth Berkley - I thought she gave a powerful performance in Paul Verhoeven's 1995 Showgirls, I don't care what they say - is on the show as Bette's college roommate, and Bette still has some kind of feelings for her....

We're in for a real treat in the finale season of The L Word, saucier, sexier, smarter than ever, where the characters not only jump into bed at the drop of a hat, but fall in love and break each others' hearts like everyone did back in high school, and that's fun to see, too. And this year, The L Word even has a flavor of political urgency, as characters consider marriage against the outrageous reality of Proposition 8 in California...

See also (from reviews of Season 5): The L Word Concludes with Powerful Lessons

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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...





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

Californians Who Voted to Ban Gay Marriage Need to Examine Their Reasons - Obama Needs to Speak Out On This

Amidst the celebration of Tuesday's revolutionary election, the enemies of freedom snuck around the back when no one was looking and voted to ban gay marriage in California. Obama carried California by a massive 61% to 37% - but Proposition 8 and its ban on gay marriage also passed by a narrow margin, too.

It's not clear if Proposition 8 is even legal. As attorney Lisa Bloom explained to Anderson Cooper on CNN last night, such changes in the law have to be enacted by the legislature, not voted upon by the people.

But even more disturbing is the reason generally given against allowing gays to marry. Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council, put it forth again on CNN last night - gay marriage threatens the institution of heterosexual marriage, or marriage between a man and woman.

Now I'm wondering how exactly would that work? I've been a devoted heterosexual ever since I can remember, and happily married to my wife for more than thirty years. So what would happen if my wife and I lived in California prior to Tuesday's vote? I take my wife to dinner one night, and over a soft glass of wine, I take her hand, and say, "sorry, baby, it's been grand, but we can't be married any longer because we live in a state where gays can marry"?

Or maybe it's supposed to affect people in their formative years, before they get married. And that would work, how? A man and woman are madly in love, or wanting to get married because they're great together in bed, or they know they're soul mates, and they decide not to marry because gays can marry? B just doesn't follow A, by any stretch, in that scenario.

And the reason these hypothetical examples seem so absurd is that, in fact, gay marriage will have no ill effect on heterosexual marriage at all, and the people who are crusading to ban gay marriage - such as Tony Perkins - don't really believe that gay marriage poses any threat to heterosexual marriage. Their reason for wanting to ban marriage is that they just don't like it - it offends their sensibilities.

Now, in a free society, we are free to like or dislike anything we please. But we are not free to impose our dislikes on others, as long they are not forcing or obliging us to do something against our will. Consenting adults who are gay are nobody else's business, plain and simple. If you don't like it, don't watch The L Word, speak out against it all you like. But you have no right to tell other people whether or not they can marry.

The people of California need to reconsider their reasons for voting for Proposition 8.

But there is something else that must be said. During the election, I was frequently asked by Republicans if I agreed with every single position that Obama presented. I said, of course not, and usually cited Obama's dissing of television and video games as an example of his not fully recognizing the value of these media.

But there's something else. Obama and every other major candidate for the Presidency this time around said they supported civil unions but not gay marriage - meaning, gays would be given all the rights of married couples, but they couldn't actually be married.

Enough is enough: Gays are entitled to be married just the same as any other human beings. Barack Obama has no control over what happens in California, but I call upon him to come out with a clear statement that gay people are entitled to be married.

Or, as Obama said in his victory speech on Tuesday night -

young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled, Americans who send a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states - we are and always will be the United States of America.

Mr. President-Elect, it's time to make good on this message and send it out not only to the world, but to the state of California.

The L Word Concludes This Season with Powerful Lessons

I really enjoyed this season of Showtime's The L Word, which concluded last night.

My favorite thread comes from the next to last show this season: Kit (always great to see Pam Grier in action) has murder on her mind - she can't abide vicious SheBar owner Dawn buying her Planet out from under her. Kit shows up with a loaded a gun. But before she can fire from behind the curtain, she gets a call from Bette (Jennifer Beals) - who is overwhelmed with crises at work, needs someone to pick up little Angelica, and Tina (Laurel Holloman), also deluged by crises at work, can't do it. The call snaps Kit out of her killing fugue. But she's not out of the woods just yet. She gets Angelica, brings her home, steps out the room and comes back in to see Angelica playing with Kit's loaded gun ...

This was one of those moments in which I really wasn't sure what would happen - what kind of lesson the producers wanted to give us.

I was relieved that it was a powerful lesson - with a happy ending. Kit gets the gun safely away from Angelica, and puts it just where it belongs - buried in the outside trash can. Everyone can breathe now. And, maybe because it all happened so suddenly, these scenes struck me as one among the best I've ever seen about the insanity of having guns around - especially with children nearby.

Shane (Kate Moennig) continues to be my favorite character. Her being with Nikki on the balcony in the finale - interrupted by Jenny (Mia Kirshner), who, as Shane well knows, is deeply in love with Nikki - makes perfect sense for Shane's character. Sex is usually irresistible to Shane, Nikki is irresistibly beautiful, and Shane's long relationship with Jenny is complicated. Shane has also just broken up with Molly, which makes Shane more volatile than usual. But ... one thing I don't quite see is why Shane let Molly's mother talk Shane out of the relationship. Given how long Shane had been yearning for Molly, and happy the two seemed to be together, not to mention Shane's rebellious nature ... (On the other hand, what do I know ... I'm just your average male viewer when it comes to The L Word.)

But I do know that this continues to be a superbly acted and rendered series. Beals, Holloman, Moening, and Kirshner and in fact just about everyone gave outstanding performances this year, and I look forward to more next year.

See also Looking In On The L Word

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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...





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

Looking In on The L Word...

Long before women were being wittily, hilariously, so coolly bedded almost round the clock by Hank Moody in Californication, they were being wittily, hilariously, coolly bedded around the clock by ... women, in The L Word, on Showtime.

Californication and Weeds are often cited (by me and others) as the spear carriers of Showtime's sweep into first place as the most innovative story telling network on cable, but this leap forward really started with The L Word, which debuted its 5th Season last Sunday.

The series has been and still is in a class by itself. It is more daring than HBO's Big Love - lesbian sex is more radical than polygamy. It explores more nuances in sexual relationships than HBO's Tell Me You Love Me. And The L Word of course has more women in positions of power and not in power than Weeds.

But The L Word feels most like Californication. Both shows take place in California, and both are intimately intertwined with writing, movie-making, and their travails, as well as sex.

My favorite characters in The L Word, however, are not in the movie or publishing business. Bette is a museum director who becomes dean of a school of design. Maybe my being a professor makes me naturally relate to her, but Jennifer Beals' performance is a perfect mix of primness and passion. She has been a pleasure to see on screen since Flashdance, and is only getting better.

Katherine Moennig is also superb as Shane in The L Word. She's usually up for sleeping with just about any woman, but brings a refreshing understanding of - or at least, an attempt to understand - the subtleties of every relationship she's in or wants into. Shane is a hairdresser, not an academic or a writer. But she thinks more than any other character on the series.

I've seen the first four episodes of the new season, and it's lots of fun, with serious themes including life in prison and the military woven in, and lots of other top-notch acting talent including Cybill Shepherd and Pam Grier, a plus in any scene they may appear.

Highly entertaining, thought provoking, and recommended, and I'll be back here with more reviews as this bright new season of The L Word progresses.

See also The L Word Concludes This Season with Powerful Lessons

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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...





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