MobLand: The Godfather of Streaming Television

Just saw the finale of what will almost certainly be the first season of a tour-de-force series about warring crime families on the other side of the pond, i.e., the UK.  MobLand has everything -- a powerful, unpredictable story bristling with what The Godfather and its sequels did so well in movies.  That would be a potent, explosive blend of violence and family dynamics that can make your head spin.

Here I'll talk about two ingredients that brought this kick-in-the-solar-plexus across: the music and the acting,

First, MobLand has one of the best theme songs I've heard in years:  "Starburster" by Fontaines D.C.  I mean, I'm no expert in hip hop, but I know "Starburster" has powerful elements of it, and the recording suits the story to be told in every episode to a tee, as well as being instantly unforgettable mind candy. 

And that's just for literally starters.  In the finale alone, we get major songs by Johnny Cash (sung twice) and The Rolling Stones.  Like in The Godfather trilogy, Goodfellas, and all immediately classic crime family dramas, the music of MobLand is at once avant garde and classic.  

Now let's get to the acting.  Pierce Brosnan gave an astonishing performance as Conrad Harrington, the anti-hero crime boss whose gang is at the center of the action.  This man played two characters who were suave to the max -- Remington Steele and James Bond -- and in MobLand he trashes those icons and goes vehemently in the opposite direction, cursing and screaming and giving loud and withering vent to his anger and his other moods with the best of 'em.   Meanwhile,  Helen Mirren, a world-class actress, is every bit as vicious and violent in her role as Maeve Harrington, Conrad's wife..  Neither of them are youngsters, but I wouldn't want to meet either of them in a dark alley.  Or a lit one, either, for that matter.

And alongside these veritable criminal forces of nature -- Emmy-worthy spectacular -- we have Tom Hardy's portrayal of Harry, the Harringtons fixer (a lot of "Har"s in that sentence).  He's calm, contemplative but deadly when he needs to be.  Like Brosnan and Mirren, Hardy is a world-class actor, great in just about everything he does, but yet to establish himself in a role as luminary as James Bond, Vito Corleone, or Michael Corleone.  But his performance in MobLand could move Hardy into Al Pacino territory.

The lesser-known actors in MobLand were excellent, too.  Paddy Considine (House of the Dragon) as one of Conrad and Maeve's sons, gives a heart-rending performance, as does Joanne Froggatt (Downton Abbey), for different reasons, as Harry's wife.   The truth is, there's not a weak performance in this powerhouse of a series.

Hey, I managed to review MobLand without even a hint of a spoiler.  I'm going to listen to some more Fontaines DC music now.

For All Mankind 4.10: Earth vs. Mars

An outstanding Season 4 finale for an outstanding season of For All Mankind, firing on all kinds of deep cylinders.

First, it was great to hear The Rolling Stones' "Out of Time," with Mick Jagger sounding, I don't know, a little like Dev, or is that just me?

[And there may be spoilers ahead ... ]

And here are the high points for me:

1. Aleida hugging Margot as the FBI are taking her away, after Aleida has put in the code that Margot suggested, steering the Goldilocks asteroid into Mars orbit.  I agreed completely with Margot's reasoning, and I'm only sad that it took Sergei's murder to move Margot towards that position.

2.  Still on Margot: will she be more vulnerable to Soviet assassins in US prison than was Sergei not in prison in the US?  I don't know -- maybe, maybe not. I certainly think her chances of lasting long on her own wouldn't be too good.

3. Speaking of lasting long, is Irina on her way to getting the same treatment as Sergei, as she walks into that Putin-like leader Korzhenko's office in Moscow?  Also I don't know.  But it doesn't look good for her, and that's fine with me (though the actress Svetlana Efremova has been doing a fine job).

4. I'm really glad Poole survived.  I mean, she's not going back to Mars or anywhere off Earth any time soon, but she's a great character, and I'll be happy to see her in cameos or whatever in future seasons.

5. Kim is reunited with his wife, who comes to Mars!  This is about as close as you get to a happy ending in For All Mankind, in any season.  (I wasn't quite clear who those other people were, though, who Kim doesn't look too happy about.  Military from North Korea?)

6. And, last but certainly not least, Mars with the resources of Goldilocks can become a real player in the solar system.

See you back here with reviews of Season 5, whenever it's up!

See also For All Mankind 4.1: Back in Business and Alternate Reality ... 4.2: The Fate of Gorbachev ... 4.3-4.4: The Soviet Union in the 21st Century, On Earth and Mars ... 4.5: Al Gore as President and AI ... 4.6: Aleida and Margot ... 4.7: Dev on Mars ... 4.8: Sergei and Margot ... 4.9: Progress

And see also For All Mankind 3.1: The Alternate Reality Progresses ... 3.2: D-Mail ... 3.3-3.4: The Race

And 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 ... For All Mankind 2.5: Johnny and the Wrath of Kahn ... For All Mankind 2.6: Couplings ... For All Mankind 2.7: Alternate History Surges ... For All Mankind 2.8: Really Lost in Translation ... For All Mankind 2.9: Relationships ... For All Mankind 2.10: Definitely Not the End

How Can You Mend a Broken Heart: Watch this Documentary, It'll Help.

For as long as I can remember, the Beatles have been my all-time favorite group, with the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys vying for second place.  The Bee Gees were in my top ten, for sure.  But several things in the past few weeks have brought them into vying for second place too, in my heart and mind.

How Can You Mend a Broken Heart, a documentary named after one of the Bee Gees' great songs (they have so many), which came out last year but my wife and I just saw last night, was one big reason.  It brought home what I already knew, that the Bee Gees, who had such wonderful recordings in the 1960s, like "Massachusetts" (more on that below) and "To Love Somebody" that I loved back then about as much as the Beatles, went on to have an even more successful disco career (with songs that I liked enough, but not as much as their original 60s work), and then went on to record and write all kind of other great songs in the 1980s (with a concert in Australia at the end of that decade that was just nonpareil -- here's a sample -- I gotta say, these two lines from "Heartbreaker" -- "This world may end.  Not you and I" -- are among the best expressions of trueest love in this universe).

The Beatles and the Beach Boys were effectively finished by the 1970s (on the Beach Boys, without Brian Wilson performing and writing new material, they just were a different group).  The Stones continued, but were never quite as good after the departure of Brian Jones.  They had some good songs into the early 1980s -- like "Start Me Up" -- but not as huge in their influence on our popular culture as the Bee Gees' disco phase, the epitome of which was probably in the Saturday Night Fever movie.  So on the basis of just that level of analysis, I now put the Bee Gees in a tie for second place along with the Stones and the Beach Boys.

The Bee Gees of course are known for their harmony.  There are few sounds in this world as appealing and comforting as Beatles' three-way harmony, but the Bee Gees not only came from the same city (so pronounce words the same way) but the same womb.  Their extraordinarily beautiful and tight harmony for all the world often sounds like one person singing three parts.  Three of the Beach Boys -- Brian, Carl, and Dennis Wilson -- were also brothers.  But the fantastical, whispy, soaring arrangements by Brian took the voices in directions other than the vibrating, magical sound of the Bee Gees.

And then there are the individual voices themselves.  I would say Robin has the best voice of every one of the members of the Beatles, Beach Boys, Rolling Stones, and Bee Gees.  Listen to him sing "Massachusetts," and tell me that voice literally does not only touch but massage your heart.

Which brings me to one other reason (I'm not going to tell you all of them) that I've come to hold the Bee Gees in even higher esteem.  Listen to this gem of a cover of "Massachusetts" by the Last Band on Earth, a father and his two young teenage kids (a girl and a boy).  Robin's voice and that song are so thoroughly penetrating of the soul, even this cover manages to capture and convey some that.

Back to the documentary, Barry says near the end that he'd rather have his brothers alive and with him, than all the great hits that they made.  I really wish Robin and Maurice were still with us, too.  But it’s also true that the music they made brings me joy every day.

Big Sky 1.1: Pretty Big Deal

 

My wife and I caught David Kelley's Big Sky.  He has a good thing currently going on The Undoing, check out my reviews.  Big Sky, based on the pilot, appears to be another good thing.  [Spoilers below.]

The story takes place in Montana, hence Big Sky.  It has a definite Twin Peaks vibe, replete with a scene in a diner (which shut down, due to Covid, a real Twin Peaks touch right there).  But so far, there's nothing other-worldly or interdimensional.  (I can't recall, was Twin Peaks already in that alternate zone in its first episode?)

But what we do have is a sharp kidnap-sex-slave ring that's been going on for a while, with at least two out-of-the-blue surprises.  A truck-driver who seems an easy going guy (played by Brian Geraghty, who made a good impression on Chicago P. D.) tazes a prostitute (played by non-binary Jesse James Keitel) he picks up at a truck stop, and then two young women whose car broke down on the road in the woods.  And a state trooper (played by John Carroll Lynch, who has made a good impression on dozens of shows) plays a state trooper, who kills a private detective who is looking for the missing women.  One unexpected tazing (the other two were certain to happen as soon as the car broke down on the road) and one unexpected murder are a better-than-average quotient of surprises in a pilot, which usually have only one.

And it's a good thing that the victims were just kidnapped not killed.  They look to be at least a little more interesting-than-usual characters (played by Natalie Alyn Lind and Jade Pettyjohn, in addition to Keitel).  And the murder of the detective leaves the agency in the hands of two women investigators, played by Kylie Bunbury and Katheryn Winnick.  I haven't seen Bunbury before but Winnick was memorable in Bones and even more so in Vikings.

So it looks like we have some good ingredients in Big Sky, and I haven't even mentioned the music, also much better than average.  Hey, it's not too often, if at all, that you hear The Rolling Stones' "It's All Over Now" on a network television show.  See you back here next week,

 

The Rolling Stones at One World Together at Home

I just want to say that I thought The Rolling Stones' performance of "You Can't Always Get What You Want" tonight at the Global Citizen's One World Together at Home Concert in support of the WHO's COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund is one of the best things I've ever heard on television.  Come to think of it, at in-person concerts and on the Internet, too.

Mick Jagger somehow sounded at least as good as he did on the original recording in 1968, bringing the brilliant lyric and melody home with perfect power and style, while strumming a strong acoustic guitar.  Keith Richards put in some tasty acoustic guitar work as well, and a good lower harmony line in most of the choruses.  Ronnie Wood, who wasn't on the 1968 recording - Brian Jones played electric guitar for the Stones then - was outstanding on his electric guitar, both in terms of what he looked like and the music he produced.  And he threw in some good high harmony near the end.  Jagger and Richards each looked great in their own ways. too.

And speaking of looking great, Charlie Watts looked perfect, playing an armchair and three whatever they were in front of him, certainly not drums.  Yes, Watts was playing air drums like nobody's business, smiling into the camera, looking vaguely out of it as he always does, and that was one of the best parts of the Stones' performance.  I would have loved to have been the fly on the wall when that decision was made - Charlie Watts pretending to play drums.   Once upon a time, a vocalist lip-synching on a television performance was anathema to snooty critics.  Watts tonight in that one fell performance legitimized air-performing and air-singing - which is what lip-synching is - forever.

In a way, that's part of what all great public music performance is - it's never precisely how you play and sing, but the impression that the public gets of whatever kind of music you're making.  In Watts' case, he wasn't actually making any music, but it didn't matter at all, the Stones - including totally off-camera bass and keyboard - pulled it off.   Certainly filled my prescription.

And it was for a fabulously worthy cause, the most important cause of our lives right now.

Justin Hayward in Tarrytown

Mike Dawes, Justin Hayward, Julie Ragins

photo by Tina Vozick

Tina and I saw and heard Justin Hayward at Tarrytown Music Hall earlier this evening.  The concert, in one word, was splendid.   But here's more:

I often say that The Moody Blues, of which Hayward is still very much a member, is my fourth favorite rock group of all time, behind, in descending order, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and The Beach Boys.  To be clear about what I mean by that:  I think the best of The Moody Blues songs - let's say "Nights in White Satin," "Tuesday Afternoon," "Question," "Isn't Life Strange," "I'm Just a Singer (In a Rock 'n' Roll Band)," "Your Wildest Dreams," "I Know You're Out There Somewhere," to name just just a few, in no particular order, and there are more - are as good as the best songs by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and The Beach Boys.  But I put these groups higher, because they have a lot more best songs - in the case of The Beatles, a lot lot more.

But The Moody Blues are up there, though not everyone agrees.  In 1992, after Tina and I saw The Moody Blues "Red Rocks" Concert on PBS, I queried Rolling Stone if they'd be interested in an assessment of The Moody Blues by me.  I received a snooty reply to the effect that no one was interested in The Moody Blues any more.  (Memo to young writers: That's why I decided to never again query an editor about a potential article.  My philosophy had usually been, before then, to write the article or story first, then shop it around. After 1992, my philosophy has always been that.)

But back The Moody Blues, Justin Hayward was always their stand-out member - being their best songwriter, singer, and guitarist all in one.   Of their songs I listed above, only two of them - "Isn't Life Strange" and "I'm Just A Singer" - were written by another group member, John Lodge.  Hayward has an ear for watercolor detail and an exquisite voice to match.  And he brought of all that to Tarrytown earlier tonight.

He indeed sang all of his songs listed above, and a fair number of new ones.  These were wonderful, too.  You can always tell what a performer is made of when you like his or her songs you never heard before.  I especially liked, among tonight's new ones, "In Your Blue Eyes" and "Western Sky" from Hayward's most recent Spirits of The Western Sky album.

He was joined tonight by Mike Dawes - a young maestro guitarist - and Julie Ragins on keyboards and fine backing vocals.   I suppose I would have rather been at a full Moody Blues concert, but not by an overwhelming margin.  That's because Justin Hayward captures the best of The Moody Blues, and a little something more, with a personal, honest, and charming repartee between numbers.

The Rolling Stones - Never Over

I'm in a musical mood today - see my review from an hour ago of The Blue Dahlia's new La Tradition Américaine album - and I wanted to say something about The Rolling Stones. Yesterday was Mick Jagger's 75th birthday (jeez, he's just four year older than me), and I've been listening to and watching a lot of their videos on YouTube.  Especially this one, definitely one of my favorites, because it most typifies what I've always loved about The Stones:



The sheer energy of these guys - look at how they move - was always one-of-a-kind.  In this song, add to that Mick's especially good strutting, Keith's rhythm (with his feet - he's playing lead guitar), and the great angry delivery of Brian Jones.  Even stoic Bill Wyman manages something close to a smile, and Charlie Watts was, well, Charlie Watts.   (This video probably benefits from an overdub of the song that was better than the sound at the live performance, but that doesn't matter.)

I've always considered The Stones second only to The Beatles - a long way below the Beatles, but a long way above every other band.  But over the past few days, and especially epitomized by this video, The Stones have moved a lot up for me.  They're still no threat to The Beatles, but they're much closer.

Rob Sheffield, in his superb Dreaming the Beatles, provides a good account of The Beatles and The Stones.  The two were woven together in all kinds of subtle and not-so-subtle ways.  Next time I hear Lennon's inimitable "I Dig A Pony" on The Beatles Sirius XM Radio Channel, I'm going to quietly chide him for his attack on The Stones as imitators. True, they did imitate and get inspired by a lot of The Beatles.  But The Rolling Stones had a passion and energy on stage, and some kind of bite to their music, that The Beatles never quite had.

Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles 13 of X: Beatles vs. Stones

Rob Sheffield's stand-out chapter on the Beatles vs the Stones in his Dreaming the Beatles is another example of the many candidates for flat-out best chapter in this great book, in this case because Sheffield demonstrates a mastery in discussing the Stones equal to what he does about the Beatles throughout his book.

Just to be clear, I don't agree with every point Sheffield makes or even explores in this book, but I agree with a lot more than I usually do in any book about anything. But to give you an example of one point in which I strongly disagree, Sheffield says in the chapter before the Stones that Magical Mystery Tour is a terrible album.  I agree it's not one of their best, but it's much closer to superb than it is to worthless.

I'm not even sure I hold the Rolling Stones in as high esteem as does Sheffield.  I usually think they're the second best rock group of all-time, but the Beach Boys for very different reasons aren't far behind. But I agree completely that the Beatles are better.

And I agree with and very much like Sheffield's analysis of the Stones vis-a-vis the Beatles, and how the Stones finally broke free of and beyond the competition with the Beatles with their "Jumpin Jack Flash".  I remember the time I first heard that masterpiece on the radio, and I thought immediately that the Stones had done something, at very least, different from what the Beatles had ever done.

So the Stones deserve credit, for, if nothing else, breaking free of the sway of the Beatles, which every band, especially those in England, had to be in the grip of, in one way or another, in those days and even now.  But one point I would also make about the Stones, which Sheffield didn't (at least, not yet), is that the Stones were able to survive the death of Brian Jones and be vibrant and path-breaking as a band which the Beatles could not in the case of John Lennon.  And that's not only because the Beatles had already split apart a decade before Lennon's murder, but because he was essential to the Beatles in a way that Jones never was to the Stones.  (An equivalent blow to the Stones would have been the death of Mick Jagger, or perhaps Keith Richards.)

Which means that part of how we now evaluate the Stones is due to their continuing on to this very day as a band.  In living on into the 21st-century - performing, writing, recording - the Stones thus took their considerable accomplishments in the 1960s and 70s to another whole, unique level.

But Sheffield's still right that the Beatles were and are better.

See also Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles 1 of X: The Love Affair ... 2 of X: The Heroine with a Thousand Faces ... 3 of X: Dear Beatles ... 4 of X: Paradox George ... 5 of X: The Power of Yeah ... 6 of X: The Case for Ringo ... 7 of X: Anatomy of a Ride ... 8 of X: Rubber Soul on July 4 ... 9 of X: Covers ... 10 of X: I. A. Richards ... 11 of X: Underrated Revolver ... 12 of X: Sgt. Pepper ....  14 of X: Unending 60s ... 15 of X: Voting for McCartney, Again ... 16 of X: "I'm A Loser" ... 17 of X: The Split ... 18 of X: "Absolute Elsewhere" ... ... 19 of X: (Unnecessary but Brilliant) Defense of McCartney ... 20 of X: "All Things Must Pass" ... 21 of X: Resistance ... 22: The 70s Till the End ... 23: Near the Science Fiction Shop ... 24 of 24: The Last Two

And here's "It's Real Life" -- free alternate history short story about The Beatles, made into a radio play and audiobook and winner of The Mary Shelley Award 2023

 
lots of Beatles in here

The Beach Boys in White Plains

I was driving by the Westchester County Center a couple of months ago, and saw the sign: "The Beach Boys, May 15".  The sign was simple and timeless and almost seemed unreal.  But its words were true, and so it was that my wife Tina and I were at County Center to see and hear the Beach Boys last night. I was 15 when I first heard The Beach Boys on the radio signing "Surfin' Safari" back in 1962.  I loved the song from the first time I heard it.  And here I was, 50 years later, on 15 May 2012, hearing The Beach Boys singing the same song and loving it even more.

I've always considered The Beach Boys easily one of top three groups in all of rock music.  Second only to The Beatles on most days, third after The Rolling Stones on some days maybe. The thing about the Beach Boys was their harmony - doo wop taken to symphonic, psychedelic heights, music of the spheres that no other group could produce.  The Beatles and The Stones usually had it over The Beach Boys on the lyrical front, but no one could touch their harmonies.

WFUV's Dennis Elsas of Fordham University introduced the group last night.  Pete Fornatale, a champion of their sound since the beginning, and also a Fordham dj, would no doubt have done those honors had he not left this world way too soon a few weeks ago.  Mike Love dedicated a song to Pete during the set - the newest Beach Boy song, "That's Why God Made the Radio," first heard on national radio just this last month.

Mike Love opened the concert with "Do It Again".  This was great opening choice.  As soon as Mike began singing I knew the evening would be remarkable.  And when The Beach Boys joined in with their effervescent popping harmonies, I knew the Beach Boys were truly back on that stage.

Dennis and Carl Wilson are no longer with us and The Beach Boys.  The group did two great numbers with each singing lead - from a recording - anyway last night.  Carl's rendition of "God Only Knows"  with the Beach Boys doing harmony right there on the stage last night was food for the soul.

So The Beach Boys last night consisted of Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, Bruce Johnston, and David Marks, and some great back up musicians and vocalists including John Cowsill of the Cowsills.

Brian's voice was amazing in the mid-range.   Jeff Foskett, one of the back-up vocalists but in fact standing right up front on the stage with guitar next to Brian on piano, did splendidly on all the high notes and patented Beach Boy falsettos.   The high points of the three hour concert were pretty much everything,  but among the special delights were Brian's lead and the group's exuberant harmonies on "Heroes and Villains" (a song whose lyrics by Van Dyke Parks equals the lyrical sophistication of The Beatles - "you're under arrest!" -  this performance including the "Bicycle Rider" segment), Al Jardine giving a fabulous lead rendition of "Help Me Rhonda" (brought the crowd to its feet singing the chorus),  David Marks' crackling sharp guitar work on every song (he was part of the group in the early 60s), the car song set ("Little Honda," "409," "Little Deuce Coupe," and "Shut Down,"  segueing right into one another), "Be True to Your School," and, like I said, there wasn't a weak performance in the concert, only great performances and even greater.



The crowd was in the aisles half a dozen times - including in the above video - singing and dancing, including nonstop for the last 4 or 5 songs.  My wife thought the average age of the audience was about 55 - there were little kids and octogenarians there for sure.

It's a strange, wondrous thing to hear music you've loved all of your life come to life again, right before your eyes and ears.   The Beach Boys touring group took the time to get the complex harmonies and musical licks just right - an impressive, even incredible, accomplishment for songs such as "Heroes and Villains" and "Good Vibrations," given the modular way (different sections of the songs in different recording sessions) the songs were first recorded back in the 1960s -  and the band performed with even more vitality than I've seen over the years on television and more recently YouTube.  I usually tell people that I feel like 17 on a good day and 19 on a not-so-good day.  The good vibrations last night - theremin and all - made me feel 15-22 again, and it all felt good.

See also this CNN article about The Beach Boys, in which I'm quoted.

Mad Men 5.3: Heinz Is On My Side

"Hei-i-inze is on my side," is the client Heinz's idea for an ad campaign, replete with The Rolling Stones, who sang "Time's On My Side," doing the jingle.  The Heinz guy's daughter loves The Stones, Megan's knows their music, and that's enough for Don to give it a shot - try to get The Stones, who will be performing in NYC, to do the spot.

Harry and Don go to the concert, get back stage, and it seems for a brief while that Harry has actually gotten The Rolling Stones on board.  Alas, it's The Trade Winds, a group I vaguely but likely you never heard of,  and Harry consoles himself with a whole bag of White Castles.  One of the better threads on this episode, but I was hoping we'd somehow get a look at someone playing the young Mick Jagger.

Otherwise, Mohawk Airlines is back with our firm, and Peggy is tasked with hiring a new copy writer.  Enter young Mike Ginsberg, who has the worst New York Jewish accent I ever heard.  (Actually, I'm sure I never heard an accent like that from a real person, and I've lived in New York all of my life.)  But Mike has a crazy spark - he irritates Peggy, doesn't antagonize Don, and gets the job.

The most serious story tonight is Betty's.  First, actress January Jones is pregnant, and has put on some weight.  Rather than have Betty pregnant, Mad Men decided to give her a tumor on the thyroid, which is causing her weight gain.  It could be malignant, and before she and Henry and Don learn that it's not,  we see some rare glimpses of humanity.  Betty's worried about what will happen to her kids, Henry is loving and supportive, and even Don can't quite do business as usual.   But when the good news arrives, and Don calls, Henry tells Don that Betty's ok but deliberately neglects to let Betty know that Don called.   Henry's not such a decent guy after all - at least when it comes to keeping Don out of Betty's life.

As I often find myself thinking, there's not a thoroughly or even mostly nice person  on Mad Men,  and that's part of the show's charm.

Here's The Rolling Stones' Time Is On My Side ...

See also Mad Men Season 5 Debut: It's Don's Party

And from Season 4: Mad Men 4.1: Chicken Kiev, Lethal Interview, Ham Fight ... 4.2: "Good Time, Bad Time?" "Yes." ... 4.3: Both Coasts ... 4.4: "The following program contains brief nudity ..."  4.5: Fake Out and Neurosis ... 4.6: Emmys, Clio, Blackout, Flashback  ... 4.7: 'No Credits on Commercials' ... 4.8: A Tale of Two Women ... 4.9: "Business of Sadists and Masochists" ... 4.10: Grim Tidings ... 4.11: "Look at that Punim" ... 4.12: No Smoking!  ... Mad Men Season 4 Finale: Don and -

And from Season 3: Mad Men Back for 3 and 3.2: Carvel, Penn Station, and Diet Soda and 3.3: Gibbon, Blackface, and Eliot and 3.4: Caned Seats and a Multiple Choice about Sal's Patio Furniture and 3.5: Admiral TV, MLK, and a Baby Boy and 3.6: A Saving John Deere and 3.7: Brutal Edges ... August Flights in 3.8 ... Unlucky Strikes and To the Moon Don in 3.9 ... 3.10: The Faintest Ink, The Strongest Television ... Don's Day of Reckoning in Mad Men 3.11 ... Mad Men 3.12: The End of the World in Mad Men ... Mad Men Season 3 Finale: The End of the World

And from Season Two: Mad Men Returns with a Xerox and a Call Girl ... 2.2: The Advertising Devil and the Deep Blue Sea ... 2.3 Double-Barreled Power ... 2.4: Betty and Don's Son ... 2.5: Best Montage Since Hitchcock ... 2.6: Jackie, Marilyn, and Liberty Valance ... 2.7: Double Dons ... 2.8: Did Don Get What He Deserved? ... 2.9: Don and Roger ... 2.10: Between Ray Bradbury and Telstar ... 2.11: Welcome to the Hotel California ... 2.12 The Day the Earth Stood Still on Mad Men ... 2.13 Saving the Best for Last on Mad Men

And from Season One: Mad Men Debuts on AMC: Cigarette Companies and Nixon ... Mad Men 2: Smoke and Television ... Mad Men 3: Hot 1960 Kiss ... Mad Men 4 and 5: Double Mad Men ... Mad Men 6: The Medium is the Message! ... Mad Men 7: Revenge of the Mollusk ... Mad Men 8: Weed, Twist, Hobo ... Mad Man 9: Betty Grace Kelly ... Mad men 10: Life, Death, and Politics ... Mad Men 11: Heat! ... Mad Men 12: Admirable Don ... Mad 13: Double-Endings, Lascaux, and Holes

20-minute interview with Rich Sommer (Harry Crane) at Light On Light Through

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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

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Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...

 

Al Franken Sings the Rolling Stones

Gotta love this ... Here's Al Franken, back in the 1980s, doing a super fine Mick Jagger, singing "Under My Thumb" ... Tom Davis, Franken's Saturday Night Live partner, is on stage playing Keith Richards and his face and guitar, too...

Good to know there's that kind of talent coming to the US Senate. Kudos to the state of Minnesota.

All in the Family on Life on Mars #4: Sam Meets His Mother

Meeting your parent or grandparent when you're traveling in the past is an appealing feature of time travel - I've played with that in my Loose Ends saga and in the sequel to The Plot to Save Socrates - does your mother or grandfather recognize any of your future self, which of course is much older than the version of you that she or he knows, do you do anything in that family reunion that can change the course of the future ... These are the kinds of questions that make time travel so much fun.

Paul Simon's "Mother and Child Reunion" is one of the signature songs of Life of Mars (American style), Episode 4, titled "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadows?" The Stones and Paul Simon, and Sam runs into Jim Croce, too. Meanwhile, Sam's mother Rose Tyler is what later generations would happily say is a MILF (Jennifer Ferrin was fine in the role), and she's involved in some dangerous mob business that Sam needs to navigate her out of .... Nothing extraordinary here, though it was great to see comedian Robert Klein in a cameo as mob boss. Rose apparently doesn't see anything in adult Sam from 2008 that leads her to connect him with little boy Sam in 1973 - the closest she and we come is when she says that little Sam wants to be a cop when he grows up - and adult Sam doesn't seem to do anything that will change her and his life, except to keep her from getting killed. But this of course had to have happened, otherwise the adult Sam would have known at the outset that his mother had been killed. Flirting with the vortex of paradox...

In many ways more interesting is Sam's being drugged and slept with and photographed by one of Klein's molls, during which hallucinogenic state he not only sees this moll but Gretchen Mol's character Annie straddling him. I take this scene as, among other things, more evidence that Sam is actually in a coma from the car crash rather than time traveling.

But, of course, that may be just what the story wants us to believe. Which, again, raises a question: what ultimate difference does it make to the story if Sam is unconscious in 2008 and dreaming he is in 1973, or time traveling? Back in 1973, it makes no difference. But it would in 2008. For example, if Sam gets back to 2008, what would happen if he met someone he knew as a time-traveling adult back in 1973? Like his mother, is she's still alive... That would be a mother and child reunion squared.

I hope we see some more of Sam in 2008, sooner or later, to shed some light from yonder dimensions on this question.

See also Life on Mars Debuts in America ... Life on Mars 2nd Episode in America: Coma, Time Travel, Mars Rover ... Life on Mars Goes On in America: What Happens When a Time Traveler Runs Into His Earlier Self? ... Life on Mars #5 Meets the Wire ... Life on Mars #6 Meets Itself on Television ... Life on Mars #7: Is Annie Real, Or, Is Life on Mars a False Memory

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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...





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Life On Mars Debuts in America

Fine start of Life on Mars on ABC tonight, and you know that I'm going to review this American version of the British series here on Infinite Regress, since I watch everything I can get my hands on regarding time travel, including Journeyman, relevant episodes of Lost and Heroes, and Deja Vu, too.

Here's the story: Det. Sam Tyler is after a kidnapping killer in 2008, who apparently has just grabbed his girlfiend and colleague crime fighter Maya. He steps out of his car with David Bowie's "Life of Mars" playing on his iPod- and gets hit straight on by a car. He wakes up with David Bowie still singing the same song, but now off cassette tape- because Sam is back, in the exact same place, in 1973. David Bowie has thus given this series a perfect acoustic segue along with a memorable name.

As is the case with Journeyman and Quantum Leap (3 series, featuring 2 Sams and a Dan), neither Tyler nor we can be sure at first if he is really in the past, or just dreaming in a coma. In Journeyman and Quantum Leap, that question is resolved by the end of the first episode - the time traveler is really time traveling. Further, we even pretty quickly learn why: to correct some bad event in the past. What we never learn in those two series is who is calling shots - who or what is making the time traveler travel?

Life on Mars provides even fewer resolutions in this first episode. There is a hint that maybe Sam's purpose in the past is to learn and/or do something that can help save Maya in 2008. Possibly, Sam has already done a little in that direction, by talking to the kidnapper as a boy in 1973 at the end of this episode.

But unlike Journeyman and Quantum Leap, Life on Mars will be one continuing, over-arching story, with Sam from 2008 back in 1973. I'm glad to see this, since I thought both Journeyman and Quantum Leap gave too much attention to specific episode story lines, and not enough to the backbone of the plot (Journeyman improved greatly in this respect near the end).

Most of the 1973 touches are authentic and excellent. The music is outstanding - in addition to Bowie, it was great hear the Stones "Out of Time". So was a bit with Cannon - the great Quinn Martin detective - on television in 1973. And the misunderstanding of Sam's saying "cell phone" as his wanting to "sell" something was nice.

The NYPD detectives in 1973, though, are a little bogus in their roughing up of suspects and disregard of their Miranda rights. Miranda v. Arizona was decided by the Supreme Court in 1966. I know, it's tough to get every little historical detail right, but Mad Men has set a pretty high standard, and the culture of 1973 cops is pretty central to this new series.

But Life on Mars gets credit for having the courage to use the Twin Towers as a 1973 backdrop. And the shout-out to Fordham University - Sam's likely romantic interest in 1973, Annie, got a degree at Fordham in psychology - certainly makes me and my students happy.

Looking forward to more time in the past- next week.

See also Life on Mars 2nd Episode in America: Coma, Time Travel, Mars Rover ... Life on Mars Goes On in America: What Happens When a Time Traveler Runs Into His Earlier Self? ... Life on Mars #4: All in the Family ... Life on Mars #5 Meets the Wire ... Life on Mars #6 Meets Itself on Television ... Life on Mars #7: Is Annie Real, Or, Is Life on Mars a False Memory

=== But I just came back - don't say I never give you anything - to post this great video of the Stones' "Out of Time" ... whew, "You're obsolete, my baby, my poor old-fashioned baby..." the original, ragged, Rolling Stone 1966 album performance...



And here, courtesy of ABC TV, is entire premier episode of Life on Mars, for your viewing pleasure...

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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!