Vikings 4.20: Ends and Starts

A good end to a good not great second part of the fourth season of Vikings, with pieces well in place for the next.

The most surprising development was Ivar killing Sigurd - more than surprising, shocking, actually, and not because we didn't know that Ivar had the temper to do that.  But killing a brother is something we haven't previously seen on Vikings, including, especially, Ragnar and Rollo, and it;s bound to shake up everything.   Will Bjorn still sail south?  How will the other brothers come to terms with this?  Anything is possible next season, which is good for the series.  That was the best part of the season finale.

Ecbert's conning the Vikings was ok, but it was both too little and too much.   I wouldn't have minded seeing Ecbert somehow survive, or, if not, see his attempt to fool the Vikings dramatically fail.  I guess this is supposed to symbolize why the Vikings actually didn't permanently take over any part of England in our real history, so in Ecbert's end we have the narrative constrained by real history once again.

Helga's death was sad but predictable - there was no other reason that she would have accompanied Floki on this expedition with her captive child.   Floki's response was also to be expected.  But it was good seeing him walk off in the mist.   Perhaps we'll see him again.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers' character was good to see and promises to be compelling.  And it's only appropriate that someone who did so well in Michael Hirst's earlier great series, The Tudors, comes back on Hirst's currently excellent Vikings.  But I would have liked to see a little more development and build-up of Meyers' lusty warrior-priest, rather than just dropping him in unconnected at the end.

He will be a good, radically different successor to Ecbert, not as king, but as adversary of Ragnar's sons, and I'm looking forward to more.


See also Vikings 4.1: I'll Still Take Paris ... Vikings 4.2: Sacred Texts ...Vikings 4.4: Speaking the Language ... Vikings 4.5: Knives ... Vikings 4.8: Ships Up Cliff ... Vikings 4.10: "God Bless Paris" ... Vikings 4.11: Ragnar's Sons ... Vikings 4.12: Two Expeditions ... Vikings 4.13: Family ... Vikings 4.14: Penultimate Ragnar? ... Vikings 4.15: Close of an Era ... Vikings 1.16: Musselman ... Vikings 1.17: Ivar's Wheels ... Vikings 1.18: The Beginning of Revenge ... Vikings 4.19: On the Verge of History

And see also Vikings 3.1. Fighting and Farming ... Vikings 3.2: Leonard Nimoy ...Vikings 3.3: We'll Always Have Paris ... Vikings 3.4: They Call Me the Wanderer ... Vikings 3.5: Massacre ... Vikings 3.6: Athelstan and Floki ...Vikings 3.7: At the Gates ... Vikings 3.8: Battle for Paris ... Vikings 3.9: The Conquered ... Vikings Season 3 Finale: Normandy

And see also Vikings 2.1-2: Upping the Ante of Conquest ... Vikings 2.4: Wise King ... Vikings 2.5: Caught in the Middle ... Vikings 2.6: The Guardians ...Vikings 2.7: Volatile Mix ... Vikings 2.8: Great Post-Apocalyptic Narrative ... Vikings Season 2 Finale: Satisfying, Surprising, Superb

And see also Vikings ... Vikings 1.2: Lindisfarne ... Vikings 1.3: The Priest ... Vikings 1.4:  Twist and Testudo ... Vikings 1.5: Freud and Family ... Vikings 1.7: Religion and Battle ... Vikings 1.8: Sacrifice
... Vikings Season 1 Finale: Below the Ash

 
historical science fiction - a little further back in time

Marco Polo: Evocative History

I just finished watching the remarkable television tableau that is Marco Polo.  It was said by some to be Netflix's answer to Game of Thrones, but it's really nothing like that high fantasy of knight and dragon, because Marco Polo is about a real man who lived in and changed history.   In that sense, it's more like Rome, but not so much like that HBO masterpiece either, peopled as it was by not one but many real characters from history, whom we know pretty well, ranging from Julius Caesar to Cicero to Antony and Cleopatra.  Maybe The Vikings would be the closest fit, a history with hardly anyone we know.  But in truth Marco Polo not only has a story but a feel and presentation all its wondrous own.

The action after the beginning of the first episode all takes place in China, though the Europe of 1273 and The Silk Road that connected them are in everyone's thoughts and speech.   Marco Polo, who in our real history was a pathbreaking merchant who spent much time in the court of Kubla Khan, bringing marvels of the Orient back to Italy, is here much more than that, almost a Leonardo in his understanding of science and invention, and a poet with words as well.  This painting with words is what first gets him into Kubla's good graces, but Marco's facility for machines of war proves crucial in the battles the Mongols are fighting with the Song Dynasty (which I grew up seeing rendered as the Sung Dynasty).

The Chancellor of the Song is a brilliant adversary, who has beaten and may still be able to beat the Mongols.   On his side is an impenetrable wall and a secret new weapon, gunpowder.   What Kubla has is lethally good Mongol cavalry - who conquered more of the world than Alexander the Great or the Romans - and Marco.   Unless you know your history better than I do, you won't know who wins what battle until you see it on the screen.   (The winning weapon in the decisive battle is entirely true to recorded history.)

The personal duels are also excellent.  My favorite involved a blind monk, who is not only Marco's tutor in arms, but better than just about every fighter with sight, including more than one at the same time.   The ballet of Far Eastern interpersonal combat is excellent and a sight to behold.

Women play a major role in this story, with Kubla's wife smarter than he, and younger women not only good in bed but better in combat than many a man.   The cinematography is outstanding - looking like paintings I've seen in books and museums come to life - and the music is haunting, too, representing, I assume, real traditional Mongol music.

If I had to compare Marco Polo to other real historical drama on television, I'd say it's better than The Borgias, about as good as The Tudors and The Vikings, but not as good as Rome.  But that's high praise indeed in my book, and I highly recommend Marco Polo.

Peaky Blinders: Peak Television

Thought I'd check in with a review of Peaky Blinders, two seasons in with a BBC production, available in the United States on Netflix, and telling the story of a gang in Birmingham, England, same name as the show, a few years after World War I.

Like most historical dramas, Peaky Blinders on television takes a few liberties with real history, in this case, the main time of the real Peaky Blinders heyday, which was late 19th century and early 20th century.  Also, the sewing of razor blades into caps, so the caps when taken off the head could be used as weapons, may well be apocryphal - at very least, as the source of the Peaky Blinders' name.

But the series is so good, who cares  about perfect history?   From the moment the first scene opens, you're struck by a cinematography that's often breathtaking.  And the characters, story lines, and acting fit right into this high and clearly defined frame.

Cillian Murphy is superb as Tommy Shelby, the Peaky Blinders' leader, even though he's younger than his brother Arthur, deeply flawed and also powerfully played by Paul Anderson.   A young Winston Churchill is also a character, veteran Sam Neill of Jurassic Park plays the head cop bent on taming the gang.   Helen McCrory (Harry Potter) plays Tommy's aunt, who in her own way is at least partially in charge of the Peaky Blinders, and Annabelle Wallis (The Tudors) plays Grace, a major player and love interest of more than one character.

As is the case with many mobster television series, Tommy has his hands full fighting both the law and rival gangs, and enforcing loyalty in his own ranks.   But he does this with a patented mix of intelligence and violence, more or less carefully applied, and given this dancing on the edge, and the less than completely blind fidelity to history, you never know what's going to happen - well, you know that Winston Churchill won't be killed, but that's about it.

Peaky Blinders is reminiscent, in some ways, of Boardwalk Empire on the one hand, because they both take place in the 1920s, and The Black Donnellys on the other, which told the story of an Irish gang family in contemporary Hell's Kitchen in New York City.  But Peaky Blinders has a story and feel and compelling ethnic and proletariate depictions all its own, and I highly recommend it.

 
deeper history

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Turn Premiere: Good Historical Drama in Revolutionary New York

Hey, the first episode of Turn on Sunday night on AMC was quite good.   Here's what I most liked about it -

It's fun and interesting to see a series set in our Revolutionary War era.  You don't often see a drama series in this time period - in fact, I can't really think of any (I don't think of Sleepy Hollow historical drama) - and even movies set in this era are few and far between.   But it's certainly a crucially important era in American, British, and for that matter world history.   

There have been superb docu-dramas set in the Revolutionary War and a little beyond - like the John Adams series, and the Adams Chronicles before it - but docu-dramas are something very different from historical dramas, like Rome, Vikings, The Tudors, and Black Sails.   Turn, based on its debut episode, looks like it has good chance to join those winning shows.

There's excellent character development in Turn, even at this early point in the narrative.  Abe Woodhull is a suitably conflicted, messily recruited spy.  And his personal life is no less complex - he's married and a father, but also loves another woman.  Anna at very least is Abe's first love, but she may well be his true love.  Abe also has problems with his father, who is his champion but in some ways his worst enemy, being thoroughly loyal to the British in all matters other than his son, at least as far as we can tell (I say this because of the great twist in Zorro in which the father joins the son in opposing the military.) And Abe's friends are an appealing combination of people who in their own ways offer a variety of opposition to the British.  This includes Anna, who married Abe's best or least very good friend.  We'll likely soon meet some friends, though - or at least one - who are not only British sympathizers but the British spy.

The British are mostly villains, though there may be lurking in their leadership someone with a little more understanding of the way history is beginning to turn.  Captain Simcoe epitomizes the attitude of even some of the British officers, restrained by the thinest veneer of gentlemanly conduct from rape, and not all from savagely beating a colonist who crosses them in any way.  It's especially shocking and instructive to see the Brits treating American colonists the way we later treated conquered people like Native Americans.

And a particular plus for me is the location of the show - New York City and its environs, especially Long Island, with sojourns to New Jersey and Connecticut.   I'm looking forward to more.

 
a little earlier history in ... The Plot to Save Socrates

Vikings

Vikings debuted on the History Channel on Sunday.  It's the new series by Michael Hirst, who did such a fine job with The Tudors.  Indeed, The Tudors set the mark for historical accuracy - as far as use of  technologies like the printing press - and I consider it second only to Rome as far as historical drama on television.

It's a little too soon to tell where Vikings will rank, after just one episode, but the series is off to a good start.  The central theme is the breakthrough of the Vikings from a relatively local force that plundered east at the end of the 8th century AD to the first in-effect world power, with ships that went west and all the way to North America.  I've long been fascinated by this accomplishment, how and why it succeeded and ultimately failed, and Vikings looks like it's up to the task of telling us more about it.

To get across the "open ocean," as the Atlantic was referred to by the Vikings, suitable ships had to be constructed.   Floki, a slightly cracked genius of a ship builder, is doing the job.   Such a voyage will also require support of a Viking leader, or be much more difficult.  Haraldson - played by Gabriel Byrne - is vicious, jealous, arbitrary in his rulings, and not game.  This is good foundation for a high-tension story.

Most of all, a trip across the ocean, or even to just England and France and the west, will require someone at the helm, a Viking able to get the voyage going in face of all the inertia and outright opposition.  Ragnar - a "real" person in history, insofar as he is a major hero in the Norse sagas - is such a man, and is the protagonist of this narrative.   He has a beautiful wife, a powerful younger brother who covets Ragnar's wife and needs to be convinced about the voyage, and an implacable vision of his future and his place in the west.

Ragnar's wife Lagertha (played by Katheryn Winnick from Bones!) is not only beautiful but powerful in her own right.  She not only rules the home but kicks the asses of two men who want their way with her when Ragnar and brother Rollo are away, and later in the story talks Rollo down when he makes a pass at her.   Rollo is by this time convinced about the value of a voyage to the west, and is willing to brook its dangers, but will Lagertha in the end go along with it?

A good first episode, with heroes and villains and those in between assembling the ingredients of what looks to be an excellent series.

See also Vikings 1.2: Lindisfarne ... Vikings 1.3: The Priest ... Vikings 1.4: Twist and Testudo ... Vikings 1.5: Freud and Family ... Vikings 1.7: Religion and Battle ... Vikings 1.8: Sacrifice ... Vikings Season 1 Finale: Below the Ash

                                                                       

Trying to Like Alcatraz

Well, I've been watching Alcatraz - seven episodes so far - the latest J. J. Abrams production.  That in itself was a good reason to watch it.  Although I disliked the ending of Lost, the series at its best was one of the best ever on television.  Alias was also superb, as has been Fringe these past two seasons.  And I'm enjoying Person of Interest.

And there other things to commend a television show about Alcatraz.  The Birdman of Alcatraz is a fine movie, and this television show is about time travel - in my book, you can go wrong about that.

But the problem with Alcatraz is that it doesn't have enough of that.   Although time travel figures in every episode, there's little about the paradoxes and narrative joy of really confronting what it's like to run into much older versions of people you  knew when you travel 50 years into the future.  There are hints of that, intersections with characters who lived through those 50 years, including, especially, Emerson Hauser played by Sam Neill.

It's great to see Neill, probably best known for Jurassic Park, on television (he was great in the Tudors, and years ago in Heartland).  And he does a fine job when he's on screen in Alcrataz.  So does Hurley - Jorge Garcia - who basically plays Hurley as a PhD comic book expert.   So does Sarah Jones (Big Love) as Rebecca Madsen.

But the problem is that emphasis on the individual stories of the people - mostly criminals - whisked into the future gets in the way of the really interesting stuff for me, which is why and how they were whisked.  Without that mechanism more in the limelight and explored, Alcatraz remains little more than a Criminal Minds without its intensity, and with intimations of immortality as yet unrealized.

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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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Hell on Wheels: Blood, Sweat, and Tears on The Tracks, and the Telegraph

Thought it was time that I rolled in with a review of Hell on the Wheels, which rolled out its 5th episode on AMC this past Sunday.

I gotta first say that AMC has been coming up with nothing but aces with its series.  From Mad Men to Breaking Bad to The Walking Dead to The Killing and now Hell on Wheels, I'd say AMC has more top-notch series on the air than HBO and Showtime put together these days.

And Hell on Wheels is one of the best - which is to stay, every bit as good as those other four so far.  Now readers of this blog will know how partial I am t to historical dramas - Rome (HBO), The Tudors (Showtime), Mad Men (AMC), The Borgias (Showtime),  Boardwalk Empire (HBO) - and Hell on Wheels has carved out a niche all its own, in 1865, with the Civil War just over and Lincoln in his grave, as the opening episode tells us.

What I especially like about historical dramas is when they not only get the events but the technology and media of the time just right.   Hell on Wheels is about the building of the transcontinental railroad in the U.S., so it's just bursting with technology, accurately portrayed, blood, sweat and tears at every turn.

The only long distance medium at hand in those days was the telegraph, whose poles went up alongside the tracks, and kept information and money, the lifebloods of the massive construction project, flowing.  Colm Meaney puts in his best performance since Miles on Star Trek: The Next Generation (hey, another travel show) as the boss of the whole railroad operation - Thomas 'Doc' Durant - and one of my favorite parts of every episode is watching him bark messages ("STOP") to his hardworking telegraph operator.   (For more on the history and early impact of the telegraph, see my 1997 book, The Soft Edge: A Natural History and Future of the Information Revolution.)  The telegraph has been called The Victorian Internet, and I call it an early form of tweeting in New New Media (2009).

Dominique McElligott is beautiful and bright as Lily Bell, whose beloved husband, surveyor for the railroad, dies at Indian hands in the first episode.   Durant certainly wants Lily - though he probably loves his railroad more - but it's likely just a matter of time before she gets together with Cullen Bohannan (Anson Mount), the other fine lead of the series, a former Confederate determined to kill all of the Yankees who killed his wife in their home.

There's just one of those Yankees left, at this point, and it will be interesting to see whether he remains elusive for the entire season or series, or meets his demise sooner.  One of many interesting stories, subtle and powerful, that keep this railroad of a series and its viewers stoked.

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The Borgias Season One Concludes

I haven't had a chance to review as many episodes of The Borgias as I would've wanted, but I've watched and greatly enjoyed every single one.  As I said in my first review of the series, The Borgias is not quite as good as The Tudors, which was almost as good as Rome, one of the transcendent masterpieces of television.  But that leaves The Borgias pretty good and entertaining indeed.

The last two episodes show why.   Not in command of any military to speak of, relying on his wit and devotedly loyal and brilliant family, Rodrigo Borgia - the Pope - manages to fend off and in effect defeat the awesome military might of King Charles of France.  Charles and his cannon have brought Milan to its knees, and ripped the front line of Juan's (Rodrigo's son's) army to shreds.  Rodrigo and Rome are defenseless.  His cardinals flee like rats from a sinking ship.

But beautiful Lucrezia, with a mind like her father's - sharp as a whip - turns being taken prisioner into a Borgia victory.  She charms Charles into sparing Rome and having a meeting with her father.   Charles is putty in Rodrigo's hands.   By the time the episode is over, Charles takes claim not of Rome but Naples - a city decimated by plague.

As Charles lays claim to a city of corpses, Rodrigo celebrates the birth of his grandchild, Lucrezia's son by her stablehand lover, not her boorish husband.   Rodrigo has managed to finesse that as well, manipulating the boor - who also deserted Rodrigo in his military time of need - into accepting an annulment.   As the Borgia family gathers, we see them at the height of their power, influence, and happiness.   They love no one as much as themselves, and that is their great attraction and key to their power.

History tells us there will be severe trials ahead.  I'm looking forward to the second season, and its scintillating mix of story, passion, skin, and spot-on technological accuracy.

See also The Borgias Sneak Preview Review ... The Borgias 1.5: Machiavellian Politics and Marriage ... The Borgias 1.6: Beds, Leg, Cannon

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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 ...

The Borgias Sneak Preview Review

I saw the first episodes of The Borgias last week, courtesy of a Showtime screener.   The series is a worthy successor of HBO's Rome and Showtime's The Tudors, by which I mean vibrant with great acting, lusty scenes, and a keen eye for historical detail, if not quite literal historical chronology.

The Borgias in question and on the screen are the family headed by Rodrigo (Jeremy Irons, always rewarding to see), who became Pope Alexander VI in 1492, the same year, of course, that Columbus reached the New World.  This plays a role in the story, since Rodrigo is Spanish, and Columbus sailed across the Atlantic funded by Queen Isabella of Spain.  Her desire, after Columbus's return, was to Christianize the New World, and this fits right into Rodrigo's schemes.

Also on hand are the beautiful and already beguiling Lucrezia (Holliday Grainger), barely a teenager at this point in the story (and a few years older here as a character than she was at the time in real life), and her brothers Cesare (strong role for François Arnaud) and Juan (David Oakes), each more or less willing to kill for their father.  There's treachery, passion, loyalty, jealously, hatred and love flashing around every corner, in every scene, with a series of unexpected (or expected, if you know your history) murders and near-murders in every episode.  Poison and knives are the weapons of choice, and the team that prevails usually does so because they have the best assassin.

There's also no shortage of torrential prejudice in the story, which makes for a compelling narrative, accurate history, and a reminder about how far or maybe not we've come in our own time.  Marrano Jews (Jewish people who escaped the Spanish Inquisition by pretending to be Christian but secretly practiced their Jewish faith) play a significant part in this story, as Rodrigo's opponents whisper that he is Marrano, a serious charge to be make about a Pope.  Muslims (or Moors, in the parlance back then) are on hand - distrusted and exploited.  And women are clearly second-class citizens, with the partial exception of Lucrezia at this point, though even she is used for her father's political purposes and forced to bend to his will.

A nest of highly attractive people and vipers, and highly recommended.

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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

Goodbye Tudors

The Tudors - one of the brightest stars in the new golden age of television - concluded on Showtime this June.   Along with Rome, The Tudors showed how deeply and satisfyingly television could show ancient and early modern history.  The Borgias will pick up this fine gauntlet on Showtime in 2011.

The final season of The Tudors was excellent, if not as commanding as the early seasons.  This is the fault of no one other than Henry VIII, whose real life as an older man was not as riveting as when he was younger.  There were fewer trysts, affairs, and conflicts with enemies in England and abroad.  No contentious titans in the court the likes of Wolsey, Thomas More, and Thomas Cromwell.  But the final season of The Tudors had some fire nonetheless, with excellent segments in France, where Henry's engineer takes a crucial step into the modern age by using the best engineering techniques of the time to build a tunnel into the city under siege by Henry's army.

There were memorable farewells, not just by Henry, but by Charles Brandon (Henry Cavill), the only close friend of Henry's to play a central role in all the seasons of the series, and maintain his admirable independence of mind and spirit.   The three women in Henry's last days - daughters Mary and Elizabeth, and last (6th) wife Catherine Parr - were also effectively presented and acted.   And I've always liked Chapuis - even though disagreeing with much of his politics - and thought his final leave taking was especially good.  Kudos to Anthony Brophy, in his own quiet way as effective as Sam Neill (Wolsey), Jeremy Northam‎ (More), and James Frain (Thomas Cromwell).

The women throughout the series - Henry's wives and bed mates, and those other men in the court - were beautifully rendered, almost literally like a Holbein painting come to life in several cases. 
Natalie Dormer was up to the complex, tempestuous part of Anne Boleyn, and I thought Joely Richardson as Catherine Parr was especially powerful.

And Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Henry VIII was a tour-de-force.

And then there's the history.   Shows that show us the past - from Rome to Mad Men - are ever vulnerable to critiques by historians, professional and amateur.   This is as it should be, and The Tudors was no exception.   But I can say that in the history I know the most about it - the history of media, and, in the case of The Tudors, the advent of the printing press as a powerful social and propagandistic force, The Tudors was spot on.   The scene with Thomas Cromwell showing the printing press to Henry, and explaining to Henry what it could do, is entirely consistent - whether it actually occurred or not - with what I've studied and written about in The Soft Edge: A Natural History and Future of the Information Revolution.

The Tudors is screenwriter Michael Hirst's creation - he was head writer and executive producer.   What he has left us is a history as fine and vivid any ever seen in a movie or read in a book.

See also  The Tudors Final Ten Episodes

and from Season 3:  The Tudors, Season 3: Hard History and Sweet Flesh  ... Thomas Cromwell on The Tudors: "Surely All Art Is a Lie"

from Season 2: Tooling Up for The Tudors and The Tudors: Transformations and Assassins ... John Adams Concludes, The Tudors Continues, The First Amendment Abides ... The Tudors and the Printing Press ... The Tudors Concludes and America Begins

from Season 1: Episodes 1 and 2: History So Colorful You Can Taste It, Episode 3: History So Real You Can Feel It, Episode 4: The Penalty of Royalty, Episode 5: Madrigal, Musical Chairs, Episode 6: Tectonic Chess, Episode 7: Henry's Imperfect Apothecary, Episode 8: The Limits of Power, Episode 9: And Wolsey Falls in a Soaring Performance ... The Tudors Concludes First Season: A Suicide, A Burning, A Roll in the Forest

and:  Derriere and Bosom on The Tudors: More of What the FCC Would Deprive Us Of 





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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True Blood 3.2: King and Wolves

The main event in True Blood 3.2 is the introduction of a King of vampires - the King of Mississippi - analogous to the Queen of Louisiana we met last year.   The King kidnapped Bill, via a pack of werewolves.   The King has a proposal for Bill.

First, as I mentioned last week, it's clear that most werewolves in this story are lot less potent than what we've been seeing in 1940s movies.   Bill dispatches most of the pack, with just a little of his blood consumed by the wolves to show for it.   According to Eric, however, these wolves may be stronger than most werewolves, being part of a secret, ancient sect of the beasts.

In other news, Sam finds his brother, also a shape shifter, and they both run off into the woods.   But the bro is no friend, and does his best to put Sam as a dog in the way of a fast-moving car.  Sam escapes, but apparently sibling rivalry between shape shifters can be deadly.

James Frain arrives in Bon Temps to play a new vampire with who knows what motives.  Last seen as a major character to good effect as Thomas Cromwell in The Tudors, and as a guest star in just about every show on television from 24 to the short-lived Miami Medical, it should be fun to see how he plays out vs. Bill vs. Eric.

At present, he's going for Tara, who under Lafayette's tutelage may be coming back at least a little from Egg's loss.  If Frain's vampire is a good guy like Bill - not very likely, but hard to say at this point - he could be the best thing that ever happened to Tara (other than Lafayette, which is something different).   She deserves a break.


5-min podcast review of True Blood


See also: True Blood 3.1: Oxygen vs. Phone

See also from Season 2  True Blood Pours Back In and  Love and True Blood in the Air and Likes Coming Together in True Blood and True Blood Boiling and Godric, Eric, and Sookie on the Roof and Maryann vs. the Good in True Blood and Illusion, Eisenhower, and Texting and True Blood Season 2 Finale

See also from Season 1  True Blood Calling ... Penultimate True Blood ... Last Bite of the Season

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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

The Tudors' Final 10 Episodes: Sneak Preview Review (No Spoilers)

The Tudors returns on Showtime tonight for its final season.  Along with Rome on HBO, The Tudors has been one two superb historical dramas (one ancient, the other Renaissance) that have graced and animated our new golden age of television.   I've seen the first five episodes of this new Tudors, and they're fine indeed.

Henry VIII - the Tudor who this series has most been about - is now married to Katherine Howard, his youngest wife.   She will suffer the same fate as Anne Boleyn.   Katherine's story isn't as compelling - she and Henry are in no sense star-crossed lovers.   But their story - her failure to bear Henry a child, her affair with Culpepper - was ample and provocative enough to incite Henry's frenzy and our keen interest.

Politically, it was good to see the Spanish ambassador Chapuys still on the scene - I don't like his plotting against the King, but I find the character's presence somehow reassuring - and even better to see Charles Brandon, now the King's longest continuing friend, holding strong at the Court.   These two characters have played major roles in every season, and, in addition to Henry, are the mortar that hold this story of The Tudors together.

The costumes and the countryside and the unclothed women are as splendid - and tasteful - as ever.   The food looks luscious.   I miss the intellectual verve of Wolsey, Thomas More, and Thomas Cromwell, but history is what it is, and if these final chapters of Henry's life and reign are not as ideationally revolutionary as his earlier years, if his passions are not quite keenly as felt, this is wonderful and most welcome television nonetheless.

See also from Season 3:  The Tudors, Season 3: Hard History and Sweet Flesh  ... Thomas Cromwell on The Tudors: "Surely All Art Is a Lie"

from Season 2: Tooling Up for The Tudors and The Tudors: Transformations and Assassins ... John Adams Concludes, The Tudors Continues, The First Amendment Abides ... The Tudors and the Printing Press ... The Tudors Concludes and America Begins

from Season 1: Episodes 1 and 2: History So Colorful You Can Taste It, Episode 3: History So Real You Can Feel It, Episode 4: The Penalty of Royalty, Episode 5: Madrigal, Musical Chairs, Episode 6: Tectonic Chess, Episode 7: Henry's Imperfect Apothecary, Episode 8: The Limits of Power, Episode 9: And Wolsey Falls in a Soaring Performance ... The Tudors Concludes First Season: A Suicide, A Burning, A Roll in the Forest

and:  Derriere and Bosom on The Tudors: More of What the FCC Would Deprive Us Of 



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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Thomas Cromwell on The Tudors: "Surely All Art is a Lie"

The Tudors third season wraps up this Sunday on Showtime - I had the pleasure of seeing the final episode in this short season On Demand (and I can tell you Catherine Howard is young, saucy, and naked) - but I wanted to say a few words here about the impressive media savvy displayed by Thomas Cromwell in the next to last episode (3.7).

You may recall, last season, that I praised Cromwell's keen understanding of the relationship of the printer and the monarch, a theme which I explored in my nonfiction book, The Soft Edge.

Last week, Cromwell caught my attention again with a remark he makes to the painter Holbein, who wants to clarify that Cromwell wants Holbein to create a flattering portrait of Anne of Cleves, whatever she may really look like. "Surely all art is a lie," Cromwell sagely replies. And indeed, as I also explore in The Soft Edge, and teach my students in "Intro to Communication and Media Studies" regarding symbols and signals, a painted portrait is an entirely human concoction (or symbol), and thus in principle a subjective or inevitably deceptive depiction of reality, in contrast to a photograph, which although it can deceive, has an intrinsic connection to the real world (light bouncing off the world onto the photographic plate, etc), and thus has an irreducible element of truth (a signal).

Good for Cromwell and the writers and producers of The Tudors for saying that - and in fewer words than I just did.

As for Cromwell ... well, you surely know his history, and I'll miss him.

Meanwhile, whatever Anne of Cleves may have looked like, I certainly found Joss Stone, who portrayed her, attractive enough. But I guess acting, too, is an art...





See also The Tudors, Season 3: Hard History and Sweet Flesh


5-min podcast review of The Tudors

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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 Tudors Season 3: Hard History and Sweet Flesh

The Tudors returns for its third season on Showtime early next month. I've seen the first two episodes - thanks to a preview copy from Showtime - and the series looks to be as wonderful as ever, just the mix of hard history and sweet flesh we've come to expect from this drama about one of the most important eras in our past, a time when our British ancestors clawed and fought and loved their way into the modern age.

What's most new about this season is Jane Seymour, now Queen, and now played by Annabelle Wallis (Jane was played last year by Anita Briem). I like Annabelle's performance much more than Anita's, whose Jane was bland. Annabelle has a soft, engaging power, and reminds me, in terms of accent and looks, of Princess Diana.

There are other powerful performances. James Frain returns with a superb rendition of Thomas Cromwell, Alan Van Sprang is new in the court as the feisty, piratical Sir Francis Bryan, and Max Von Sydow and his expressive face is in Rome as Cardinal von Waldberg. Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Henry VIII and Henry Cavill as Charles Brandon are as good as they've been, too - which is to say, quite good.

And there are some fine ladies in court. Look for Charlotte Salt as Lady Ursula Misseldon, and an outstanding nude scene, which made me glad that the FCC has not yet expanded its repressive rule to cable.

Censorship and the struggle for democracy is also very much in the air on The Tudors, where rebellion and religious intolerance serve as midwives to our ways of life. I'll be back with more after the season gets under way in April.




5-min podcast sneak-preview review of The Tudors


See also ...

Tooling Up for The Tudors and The Tudors: Transformations and Assassins ... John Adams Concludes, The Tudors Continues, The First Amendment Abides ... The Tudors and the Printing Press ... The Tudors Concludes and America Begins ... and links there to reviews of episodes from Season One.

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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

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

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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 ...

 

Fringe 10: Shattered Pieces Come Together Through Space and Time

Anyone who thought that Fringe was just milling around, taunting us with disparate slivers that would never come together, needs to see tonight's Episode 10, in which

1. We learn what is the likely the main thing that Walter was inventing years ago - a device that can pluck anyone or anything through space and time. Except, Walter never got to finish and test his device, but

2. This apparently is the bigger picture behind the apples through steel we saw a few weeks ago. Moving objects through solid steel is just one aspect of Walter's unfinished, untested device. Tonight it moves far more than applies, including

3. A nasty scientist or some kind of intense dude from that German "Wissenschaft" prison (means, science, as in Einstein) we also saw a few weeks ago. And before he takes his teleporting, steel melting leave, he kills his lawyer, last seen on The Tudors as Thomas Cromwell and earlier on 24 as Audrey's husband (not Jack, the British guy - well played in all cases by James Frain). The prison traveler also tells his guys on the outside, back in the US, to

4. Kidnap Olivia - who is indeed kidnapped - because

5. Massive Dynamics is finally getting a clue about Olivia and John Scott - she's drawing on some of his memories, which she acquired when she wasn't completely nude in that tank (though the script was sounding like she was supposed to be) (did Fringe or Fox make that scene a little more tame, because of the FCC?) (never mind, I don't want to start rambling off like Walter). But, yeah, Massive D is on to the danger that Olivia poses to them, and

6. Don't hold your breath for any more, because that's it, until Fringe returns in January.

But I'm thinking Fringe has really begun to prove itself, the pieces are beginning to make much more sense, and we have a fine science fiction show for at least the Spring ahead...



See also Fringe Begins ... Fringe 2 and 3: The Anthology Tightrope ... 4: The Eternal Bald Observer ... 7: A Bullet Can Scramble a Dead Brain's Transmission ... 8. Heroic Walter and Apple Through Steel ... 9. Razor-Tipped Butterflies of the Mind

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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 Tudors Concludes and America Begins

America began in response to what we see in the final two episodes of The Tudors' second - and thank goodness, not final - season.

Torture to get confessions, executions for no good reason other than the whim of the government - in this case, a psychotic King Henry VIII - these are the things that Thomas Jefferson and our Founding Fathers tried to make sure would never happen in America, by insisting on a Bill of Rights for our Constitution.

And the torture and the beheadings were searingly portrayed on The Tudors. The execution of Anne was more harrowing and indelible than any I've seen in any movie.

How could reasonable people allow this to happen? The answer, clearly, was that in the 1500s we were less removed from sheer barbarism that we might assume or suppose.

George Boleyn beheaded on the strength of a hug or two he gave his sister Anne. Henry Norris executed on no evidence at all. A Jesuit assassin lies to bring Anne down - he says he slept with Anne - and he's beheaded. Mark Smeaton the musician denies any carnal knowledge of Anne - because he had none - until torture makes him falsely confess it. He's beheaded, too.

But nothing compares in sheer power - in acting and rendering for the screen - of the beheading of Anne. Natalie Dormier's performance was as memorable as it gets. I'll certainly never forget it.

And Nick Dunning as Thomas Boleyn, Anne's father, was extraordinary, as well. He's thrilled not go to the grim reaper, even as his son has just gone there, and his daughter soon will. Charles Brandon expresses our outrage at Thomas, who soon proceeds to leave the tower, freed. He looks back up an Anne's window. She smiles at him, still loving her father, happy to see that he, at least, will live. He turns his back on her, and just walks on. He set much of this game in motion, and he walks away when the stakes turn deadly. (I wonder how much of this Thomas Boleyn of The Tudors really lived in the real Thomas Boleyn of history.)

Yes, this is the depravity that America was born as an action against, less than two centuries later. We have done a fair job of keeping to the better road - though torture apparently has not been beyond the tools of the current administration.

But that's a story for another blog post, when I review Recount, on HBO. For now, I'll just say the juxtaposition of The Tudors and our election in American is no coincidence in this cosmos.

Bravo to a great cast and a great second season. My only regret was not seeing more of Peter O'Toole as Pope in the last few episodes - but I hope to see that corrected next season.

See also ...

Tooling Up for The Tudors and The Tudors: Transformations and Assassins ... John Adams Concludes, The Tudors Continues, The First Amendment Abides ... The Tudors and the Printing Press ...

and my reviews of all of last season's episodes, beginning here ...

and more on the printing press and the Protestant Reformation in my book, The Soft Edge ...

and ...



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 Tudors and the Printing Press

Some wonderful, decisive moments in history have been brilliantly portrayed in the past few episodes of The Tudors on Showtime. I've currently seen 8 of the new season, thanks to Showtime On Demand.

My single favorite moment, being the media historian that I am, was Thomas Cromwell's introduction - to us as well as Archbishop Cranmer and George Boleyn - of a great "new weapon" for the Protestant reformers, in Episode 6: the printing press. This scene was right on in its portrayal of how monarchs such as Henry were able to harness the advantages of the press in their campaign to break free of Rome, and establish their national identities. (And James Frain superbly played Thomas Cromwell, as he does in every episode.)

As media historians such as Marshall McLuhan and Harold Innis explained back in the 1950s, and I elaborated upon in my 1997 The Soft Edge: A Natural History and Future of the Information Revolution, books printed in English and other national vernaculars in Europe helped crystallize a powerful sense of nationhood. Those few who were able to read were able to see words in their own languages rather than Latin. Public education arose primarily to teach children how to read. More and more people became literate, the Church weakened, and the rise of national states was off and running.

That, however, was only Part I of the story of monarchs and printers. In Part II, which we will not likely see this season, printers begin to break free of the monarchs, and print tracts and pamphlets that were critical of the monarchies. This led to crackdowns by the monarchs, and informed Thomas Jefferson and his insistence on a free press, and a First Amendment insuring it, in America.

Back on The Tudors, the other great moment of historical drama is the Pope's gradual declaration of cultural war on Henry VIII. You couldn't ask for a better actor than Peter O'Toole to play Pope Paul III, and his every word rings with resonance and almost cosmic authority. It won't be enough to overthrow Henry in England, but it's a pleasure to see on TV.


The Tudors continues to be a feast for the historical intellect - and hey, the sex and romance and heartbreak are pretty good, too.

See also ...

Tooling Up for The Tudors and The Tudors: Transformations and Assassins ... John Adams Concludes, The Tudors Continues, The First Amendment Abides ... The Tudors Concludes and America Begins ...

and my reviews of all of last season's episodes, beginning here ...

and more on the printing press and the Protestant Reformation in my book, The Soft Edge ...

and ...



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!

John Adams Concludes, The Tudors Continues, The First Amendment Abides

A fabulous, instructive night for history on cable television - John Adams, the splendid mini-series, concluded on HBO, and The Tudors, the magnificent, searing series, continued with its second season on Showtime.


The last episode of John Adams was mostly personal, and very powerful. Adams' daughter dies of breast cancer. Abigail dies. And Thomas Jefferson and John Adams die on the same day, July 4, 1826, after they have reconciled via letters.

What was mostly at dispute between them was freedom of speech and communication, and the First Amendment. Adams, early in the hour, complains that all he'll be remembered for is signing the Alien and Sedition Acts - the closest our nation has ever come to abrogating the First Amendment.

Its importance was wrenchingly, brilliantly portrayed in the two episodes (4 and 5) of The Tudors I saw tonight (on Showtime On Demand). Thomas More resists the law that Parliament passed on behalf of Henry, proclaiming him the ultimate religious authority in England. More can accept Henry's marriage to Anne, but not the displacement of the Roman Catholic Church in his country. He doesn't seek to compel any other person to follow his lead, but nor will he give in to the King's and Parliament's request.

And so, he is sentenced to death. And, much like Socrates, Thomas More is executed for his beliefs.

This is precisely what the First Amendment is supposed to prevent. By separating Church and State, by insisting that government cannot compel people to believe, cannot punish people for not believing, or believing something different, cannot punish people for talking and writing whatever they may politically and/or religiously believe, our American society seeks through the First Amendment to improve upon the savage worlds of ancient Athens and Henry VIII.

I often tell people that, were I in Socrates' position, and given a chance to escape, I would have done so, rather than drinking the hemlock. And were I Thomas More, I might well have taken his own hypothetical mode of escape and publicly said I accepted the King's law - given it lip service - and continued with my contrary beliefs. But More rejected that, and chose martyrdom instead. I doubt that I could have been a martyr like Socrates and More.

But the point is that the First Amendment in America makes such an agonizing choice unnecessary. And that is why we are truly more civilized.

As long as we don't let the First Amendment slip away.... But it's not easy - it never is. It and we are daily tested...

Truly powerful history on our new golden age of television tonight. Emmy award-winning acting by Paul Giamatti as John Adams, and by Jeremy Northam as Sir Thomas More.

And let's not forget Peter O'Toole, who is unforgettable in his every scene as the Pope, and tonight was part of the one laughing-out-loud funny scene of the evening, as he hears Michelangelo berating one of the workers on the Sistine Chapel, "Moses looks like a pile of ..."

But television nowadays has never looked better.

See also: John Adams on HBO: Good Founding Father, Bad President ... John Adams 3 and 4: Jefferson and Space Travel of the Soul ... 5. Jousting of Ideas ... John Adams 6: Flawed President and Flawed Father ...

Further reading ...

The Flouting of the First Amendment - my 2005 Keynote Address at Fordham University, in which I talk about the vying opinions of John Adams v. Thomas Jefferson...

The Soft Edge: A Natural History and the Future of the Information Revolution - my 1998 book, with more details on this time in history, and the roles of Adams and Jefferson

And ...



See also ...

Tooling Up for The Tudors and The Tudors: Transformations and Assassins ... The Tudors and the Printing Press ... The Tudors Concludes and America Begins ...

and my reviews of all of last season's episodes, beginning here ...

and more on the printing press and the Protestant Reformation in my book, The Soft Edge ...

and ...



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!