Black Doves: Snow White Thriller

There hasn't been a James Bond movie since 2021, but the Brits are serving up some top-notch thriller TV series in the closing months of 2024, with a second season of The Diplomat, the first season of The Day of the Jackal (which I'll review after it concludes in the weeks ahead), and the first season of Black Doves, a six-episode Netflix mini-series which I just finished watching and I'm going to review right here.

First let me say that the review will be spoiler free, hence no usual warning, and I said first season for The Day of the Jackal and Black Doves because both have been renewed for second seasons.

Joe Barton is the creator of Black Doves.  I first encountered his work in the 16-episode Lazarus Project (2020-2023) which was mostly the best time-travel narrative I've ever seen on any screen, so I wasn't surprised that Black Doves is a uniquely memorable thriller.  It takes place during the Christmas season in current London and manages to inject life-and-death into nearly every scene of snowflakes and jingling bells.  And though it has no time travel, it plays off events and people meeting ten years ago in recollections that seamlessly slide in and out of hugs and bullets in 2024.

The Black Doves are an independent spy organization that thinks itself superior to MI-6, the CIA, and any government organization, and probably are.  The highest person we meet in the organization is Mrs. Reed, played by Sarah Lancashire, whom I can't help thinking is on sabbatical as the British Police Sergeant she played so well for so many years on Happy Valley.  Keira Knightley plays Black Dove Helen Webb, happily married to the British Defence Secretary, with two adorable kids, but fully capable of loving someone else passionately at the same time, and adeptly deadly with a gun or a knife.  The other big star, Ben Whishaw (Q in the Daniel Craig Bonds), plays Sam, a flat-out but sensitive assassin, with a long-standing friendship and professional relationship with Helen, called in to help with the dangerously escalating situation at hand.

How's that for no spoilers, right?  But I will say that the twisty plot has lots of surprises, lots of lethal action, leavened with the sarcastic humor we've come to expect and enjoy in these kinds of British thrillers.  I'll 100% be back with a review of the second season, whenever it's up, and kudos to Netflix for putting the first season all up at once just a few days ago.

The Lazarus Project 2.5: The Status of Dr. Gray

The Lazarus Project 2.5 was all about Dr. Gray.  And she indeed deserves at least one episode of focus, being such a crucial character.

[Spoilers ahead .... ]

We already know she's building an old-fashioned H. G. Wellsian time machine.  And Wes wants to kill her before the machine becomes fully operational.  She sends Janet and Ross back to do the job.  But there's a lot more to this than meets the eye.

First, Robin seems to be a Gray supporter.  Good, Wes is clearly the villain in this second season, and Robin is the only one who can have at least some control over her.

Next, there are, of course, two versions of Janet in play here. The younger one who's sent back with Ross to kill Kitty Gray, and does.  And the older one who comes to know and respect and really care about Gray.  This older Janet knows that stopping her younger self from killing Gray will upset too many apple carts, but it's unclear if she can bring herself to stopping her younger self from doing the deed.  And we never find out what the older Janet would have done, because Wes sends the younger Janet back to kill Gray earlier than she was killed in the original reality (if it makes senses in this kind of time travel story to talk about an original reality).

I will say, again, that I think Gray (played by Zoe Telford) is a wonderful character.   Especially because, as we find out in this episode, her motive in inventing a time machine is true love.

See you back here next week with another review.

See also The Lazarus Project season 2.1: Shades of Gray ... 2.2: Shag in the Alley ... 2.3: The Plane Outside the Loop ... 2.4: 2018

And see also The Lazarus Project season 1: Time Travel Done Superbly Right

=====

my latest novel (with a touch of time travel)

“Paul Levinson’s It’s Real Life is an incredibly unique and captivating peek behind rock and roll’s mysterious curtain. The idea that the story delves into an alternate world adds to its page-turning intrigue. Highly recommended!” 
-– Steven Manchester, #1 bestselling author, The Menu


"Paul Levinson's It's Real Life is a page-turning exploration into that multiverse known as rock and roll. But it is much more than a marvelous adventure narrated by a master storyteller...it is also an exquisite meditation on the very nature of alternate history." 
-- Jack Dann, The Fiction Writer's Guide to Alternate History


get It's Real Life in paperback, hardcover, or on Kindle here

The Lazarus Project 2.4: 2018

An excellent little pocket of an episode 2.4 of The Lazarus Project, in which just about everything takes  place in

[Spoilers ahead ,,, ]

2018.  Even though our band of heroes were trying to get back to 2012 to meet Dr. Kitty Gray, the inventor of the true time machine.

My favorite delightful drama in the 2018 pocket are the two Georges and two Sarahs, one of each knowing what's going on, the other not, mixing and matching at the corner of true romance.  I've thought throughout both seasons of this series that their true love story and its time travel tributions would in and of itself have made for a compelling time travel television series.

As it is, The Lazarus Project has many other riveting stories to tell. Rebrov is an excellent character in any stage of his education about the complexities of time travel, and he pulls some significant triggers -- literally -- in episode 2.4. Of course, when time travel loops are involved, death isn't what it is in our off-screen world, in which as far as we know there is not a way to redo anything, certainly not life and death.

Since this second season is the final season, I can't help wondering who will live happily ever after at the end.  I'm hoping that George and Sarah, Rebrov and Janet (and Becky), and Archie and Zhang will go on to live and prosper, but that's probably too much to hope for.

See also The Lazarus Project season 2.1: Shades of Gray ... 2.2: Shag in the Alley ... 2.3: The Plane Outside the Loop

And see also The Lazarus Project season 1: Time Travel Done Superbly Right

=====

my latest novel (with a touch of time travel)

“Paul Levinson’s It’s Real Life is an incredibly unique and captivating peek behind rock and roll’s mysterious curtain. The idea that the story delves into an alternate world adds to its page-turning intrigue. Highly recommended!” 
-– Steven Manchester, #1 bestselling author, The Menu


"Paul Levinson's It's Real Life is a page-turning exploration into that multiverse known as rock and roll. But it is much more than a marvelous adventure narrated by a master storyteller...it is also an exquisite meditation on the very nature of alternate history." 
-- Jack Dann, The Fiction Writer's Guide to Alternate History


get It's Real Life in paperback, hardcover, or on Kindle here

The Lazarus Project 2.3: The Plane Outside the Loop

A really tight episode 2.3 of The Lazarus Project now up on TNT.

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

Let's start with the end.  A plane with most of our crew traveling back in time to 2012.  It -- of course -- encounters some extreme turbulence.  Will they survive?  Can they?

Well, let's put aside the point that it's highly unlikely that the series would kill off so many major characters in the third episode of the second season.

But, wait, why would it matter if so many players were killed in this plane?  Wouldn't the time loop give them another chance to get the flight right, as it does with everything else?

Here's where we get to the nitty gritty. The folks on the plane are time-travelling -- trying to time travel -- outside of the inevitable, infuriating, but life-saving loop.  So, if they're beyond the loop, and have already traveled a few years back in time, doesn't this mean that they're on their own?

The loop is really cool.  Over and over again, a character or characters make a wrong choice, die as a result, only to come back and get it right.  There was an excellent example of this in 2.3 when Archie and Zhang (a great couple) mistakenly think a finger is needed to open a digital lock, die as a result, but come back next time around with an eyeball, which works.

Time travel outside the loop has changed everything, and I'm looking forward to seeing how those characters on the plane outside the loop fare next week.

See also The Lazarus Project season 2.1: Shades of Gray ... 2.2: Shag in the Alley

And see also The Lazarus Project season 1: Time Travel Done Superbly Right

=====

my latest novel (with a touch of time travel)

“Paul Levinson’s It’s Real Life is an incredibly unique and captivating peek behind rock and roll’s mysterious curtain. The idea that the story delves into an alternate world adds to its page-turning intrigue. Highly recommended!” 
-– Steven Manchester, #1 bestselling author, The Menu


"Paul Levinson's It's Real Life is a page-turning exploration into that multiverse known as rock and roll. But it is much more than a marvelous adventure narrated by a master storyteller...it is also an exquisite meditation on the very nature of alternate history." 
-- Jack Dann, The Fiction Writer's Guide to Alternate History


get It's Real Life in paperback, hardcover, or on Kindle here

 

The Lazarus Project 2.2: Shag in the Alley

 [Spoilers ahead ... ]

That was my favorite part of The Lazarus Project 2.2, up on TNT in the USA this past Sunday -- Sarah grabbing George for an unexpected, quick shag in the alley.

It was fun to see -- even though it causes George more confusion -- because their love is the truest truth in this series. Sarah doesn't quite see that yet.  She has something going on with Cormac (I agree with George that that's a strange name, though how I would I know I'm not from the UK), and is paired with Michael, whom she can't stand.  But the way her face lit up before she started kissing George in the alley shows the way she really feels.

The Lazarus Project has all the explosive trappings of a hard science fiction story, which it most certainly is.  But for me, what makes the series really unique are the similarities it has to The Time Traveler's Wife and even Outlander, two patently non-scientific time travel love stories.  Romantic love is a key player in The Lazarus Project, as are parents and children.

And George figures in a key scene at the end of 2.2, in which Becky, last seen as a little girl put into a time machine sent back to 2012, presents herself to George as a young lady in the London underground in 2024.  When George asks her how she got so old so quickly, she tells him she's time traveled, "do the arithmetic".

If The Lazarus Project has any problem, it's that it probably has too many moving pieces to put together or even make complete sense of.  But that's time travel, "do the arithmetic," right?

See also The Lazarus Project season 2.1: Shades of Gray

And see also The Lazarus Project season 1: Time Travel Done Superbly Right

=====

my latest novel (with a touch of time travel)

“Paul Levinson’s It’s Real Life is an incredibly unique and captivating peek behind rock and roll’s mysterious curtain. The idea that the story delves into an alternate world adds to its page-turning intrigue. Highly recommended!” 
-– Steven Manchester, #1 bestselling author, The Menu


"Paul Levinson's It's Real Life is a page-turning exploration into that multiverse known as rock and roll. But it is much more than a marvelous adventure narrated by a master storyteller...it is also an exquisite meditation on the very nature of alternate history." 
-- Jack Dann, The Fiction Writer's Guide to Alternate History


get It's Real Life in paperback, hardcover, or on Kindle here

The Lazarus Project 2.1: Shades of Gray

When I saw and reviewed the first season of The Lazarus Project on TNT last November, I said it was "the best time-travel series I've ever seen on television, bar none." Having just seen the first episode of the second season on TNT last night, I feel exactly the same.

Time travel as a genre brought to the screen excels in protagonists going back in time and doing the same thing with suitable modifications over and over until they get it -- saving a life or taking a life -- over and over, again, until they get it right, or not.  George is the perfect character for this.  And  Paapa Essiedu's face shows just the right range emotion of someone going through this.

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

But George is on the outside of The Lazarus Project now, excluded from the group, and the from the gun-carrying elite, because, as he aptly put it, he put love before loyalty to the project and its all-important mission.  And this is especially hard on George, given that the recipient of his costly love, Sarah, has now taken his place with group.

The other big development in this episode is that a group headed by Dr. Kitty Gray, at first thought to be separate from Lazarus, has developed its own old-fashioned time machine.  Wes, understably worried about what this H. G. Wells inspired machine could do to Lazarus's struggle to save existence, wants someone to keep an eye on Kitty and her work.  All the more surprising, then, to see Wes in a photograph in the audience of a group taking in a lecture by Kitty.  Apparently Kitty and her time machine are not as separate from Lazarus as Wes would want us to believe.

A good set-up for the second season, the rest of which I'm eagerly awaiting!

See also The Lazarus Project season 1: Time Travel Done Superbly Right

=====

my latest novel (with a touch of time travel) 

“Paul Levinson’s It’s Real Life is an incredibly unique and captivating peek behind rock and roll’s mysterious curtain. The idea that the story delves into an alternate world adds to its page-turning intrigue. Highly recommended!” 
-– Steven Manchester, #1 bestselling author, The Menu


"Paul Levinson's It's Real Life is a page-turning exploration into that multiverse known as rock and roll. But it is much more than a marvelous adventure narrated by a master storyteller...it is also an exquisite meditation on the very nature of alternate history." 
-- Jack Dann, The Fiction Writer's Guide to Alternate History


get It's Real Life in paperback, hardcover, or on Kindle here

Podcast Review of The Lazarus Project season 1

Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 363, in which I review The Lazarus Project, season 1, on TNT.

Read this review.

Check out this episode!

The Lazarus Project season 1: Time Travel Done Superbly Right

So, a friend in the UK -- James Harris -- who knows how much I enjoy time travel stories (as a reader, a viewer, a reviewer, and an author) recommended The Lazarus Project, and sent me a link to a trailer, for its second season.  I figured before I watched even a trailer for the second season, I might as well watch the first season, which I just did -- and thought it was brilliant -- and then discovered that although the second season debuted in the UK this month, it has not yet made it over to this side of the Atlantic.  Why TV series can't be released at the same time all around the world, I have no idea.  But rather than keep complaining about that, I thought I'd tell you why I not only think the first season of The Lazarus Project (which I binged on TNT) is brilliant, but the best time-travel series I've ever seen on television, bar none.

[And there may be some spoilers ahead, but I'll try to be as general as possible.]

First, the ambience was great, reminiscent of Utopia (the UK version), and its unique mix of gravity and humor, life-and-death situations leavened with nonchalance.  But its the story, and the attention it gives to consequences of time travel, that puts it on the very top.

Here's the set-up, which I'll enumerate to make as clear as possible:

1. There's a time travel process -- not a "machine" per se, but some kind of process, which isn't quite revealed -- that sets time back to 12 midnight, July 1, from whatever time the process is invoked in the subsequent year.  So, if the switch or whatever is flipped right now, our world would go back to 1 July 2023. And we and just about everyone in the world would be doing whatever we were doing on that midnight.

2. Just about everyone in the world has no idea that this, the reversal in time, is happening.  We have no idea we're going through this time a second, third, or who knows how many times.  But a very few people -- mutants -- are aware of this Groundhog syndrome, and a serum has been invented/discovered which opens up the awareness of a few other people to the repetitions in time.

3. Numbers 1 and 2 above are the basis of the Lazarus Project, which seeks to protect the world or least we humans in the world from extinction events.  And the head of the Lazarus Project -- at least as far as we know -- gives the order to invoke the time shift.  

4. But remembering the lost time is a heavy burden, which can become excruciating in all kinds of ways.  A baby born during a year that is later erased won't exist after the rollback.  Imagine how the parents who remember that year -- parents who are in the Lazarus Project -- would feel.   Or, if you lost any loved one during that year, you might well want the time set back as soon as possible, to give you a chance to do something to prevent that death.

5. But the problem is the Lazarus Project also has a principle of setting time back as infrequently as possible, and only to derail mass extinction events.  To give an example that's mentioned early in the narrative -- September 11, 2001 didn't qualify, as terrible as it was.  But COVID did, and the speed with which the vaccines were rolled out in our reality is cleverly explained as due to the Lazarus Project buying more time by literally setting time back, giving microbiologists as much time as they needed to come up with the vaccines.

But ok, I'm coming close to spoiler territory, so I'll just also tell you the acting and production were excellent, and creds to Joe Barton who wrote the narrative. I'll leave you with this recommendation: if you're a fan of time travel, see The Lazarus Project.  Not only will you not be disappointed, you'll be glued to the screen and thrilled.  And the good news is that if you want to see it again, you won't need some kind of switchback in time to do that.

=====

my latest novel (with a touch of time travel) -- to be published 8 February 2024

"Paul Levinson's It's Real Life is a page-turning exploration into that multiverse known as rock and roll. But it is much more than a marvelous adventure narrated by a master storyteller...it is also an exquisite meditation on the very nature of alternate history." 
-- Jack Dann, The Fiction Writer's Guide to Alternate History
get It's Real Life in paperback, hardcover, or on Kindle here