Paul Levinson's Infinite Regress

reviewing Black Doves; Dark Matter; Dept. Q; Detective Hole; Dexter: Resurrection; Fauda; For All Mankind; Foundation; Hijack; Memory of a Killer; MobLand; Outlander; Paradise; Presumed Innocent; Reacher; Severance; Silo; Slow Horses; Smoke; Star City; Star Trek: Strange New Worlds; Tehran;The: Day of the Jackal, Diplomat, Night Agent; Your Friends & Neighbors +books, films, music, podcasts, politics

George Santayana had irrational faith in reason - I have irrational faith in TV.

Showing posts with label Titan. Show all posts

Friday, May 15, 2026

For All Mankind 5.8: Firing on All Cylinders

Ines Asserson

For All Mankind was firing on all cylinders -- literally and figuratively -- in episode 5.8, up on Apple TV today.

The main action was the approaching attack on Mars by the Earthly multi-national alliance, and the defense that our Martian heroes mounted. Celia (Mireille Enos) and Leonid (Costa Ronin) were a good duo to mount the defense, and we get a better understanding of Leonid, his ethics and prowess, in this dangerous undertaking.

On board in the attack from Earth is A. J. Jarrett, granddaughter of the world-famous Tracy and Gordo Stevens, characters that I really miss in this multi-generational story (there is no else in the current story who have their unique mix of outrageousness, heroism, and sheer style). Jarett (Ines Asserson) is a complex character to begin with, and what happens to her when she gets to the Goldilocks asteroid will make her far more complex and conflicted.

Meanwhile, there's also a classic drama brewing with the crew that has landed on Titan. As we saw last week, Kelly Baldwin defied Captain Griebel's command that the Sojourner turn around and go back to Mars, rather than make the perilous landing on Titan. But Griebel doesn't yet know that Kelly did this -- he thinks the failure of the Sojourner to turn around was his fault, some mistake he made in the programming. He's determined to find out what he did wrong, but you and I both know that it's just a matter of time until he realizes what Kelly did. I like these kinds of powder kegs in narratives.

And just to end on a musical note: I really like Ollie's song, "A New Life," played twice in this episode. As soon as I can find a video of it up on YouTube, I'll post it here.

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Saturday, May 9, 2026

For All Mankind 5.7: Titan!

Finally, an inspiring episode this season -- 5.7 -- of For All Mankind. An episode that captures the essential quality of what we humans need to do to push the limits our existence, and through science and spirit get ever further out into this infinite universe.

[And there will be spoilers ahead ... ]

The set-up was perfect. The Mars settlement is continuing to destroy itself. Earth is no help at all, and indeed is making life on Mars worse. One of the two missions to Titan -- the largest moon around Saturn, replete with an atmosphere, and therefore a possibility of life -- has failed and taken with it its crew. The captain of the other mission, with Kelly Baldwin on board, wants to turn back. But Kelly has other ideas. And ...

The mission lands on Titan! The final scene of the crew standing on Titan, looking at the darkly clouded sky, was wonderful. We may call it a moon, because Titan revolves around a planet, Saturn, not the sun. But we're walking on another world, the furthest away from our homeworld of Earth that we've traveled so far. That's an epitome of progress.

I will say, though, that I wish For All Mankind would stop presenting communication from Titan to Mars as instantaneous. The same for communication between Earth and Mars. Since the show isn't postulating that in this alternate history in the 2010s we humans figured out a way to send messages across these enormous distances at a faster-than-light speed, there would be an inevitable lag in the communication. I understand that For All Mankind is ignoring the lag for dramatic effect, but I think these scenes would be more effective if they respected the laws of physics.

Back to the narrative: Dev may not have intended to hurt let alone kill anybody, but launching that attack against the Martian greenhouses was still unconscionable. I've been pretty much a fan of Dev up until episode 5.7, but I have to now classify him as a demented maniac with a god-complex. Given what happened, Lily did have a great idea for a birthday present for Alex, but the two would have been better off celebrating Alex's birthday is his room.

And back to Titan: I hope our team discovers some kind of life there. And if it's intelligent life, that it doesn't have it in for us.

And I'll be back here next week with a review of the next episode.

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"challenging fun"
- Entertainment Weekly

e-mail received from a reader:
Dear Paul, I just dreamed of airships flying between raindrops. I just returned from 2042 CE, where I sold my hardcover copy of The Plot to Save Socrates for seventy million Neo-Euros, because it had your response to this e-mail from way back in 2007 scotch-taped onto the inside of the cover. A Paul Levinson collector paid top Neo-Euro, because of the authentic archaic e-mail printout from you. It turns out that not many of your e-mails from before your tenure as CEO of HBO/Cinemax and terms as United Nations Secretary General will survive that far into the future. So, please respond to this e-mail, to help found my great-grandchildren's fortune. My Will will stipulate that they must share with your great grandchildren. Thanks! Tom

I of course happily replied...

42 reviews of The Plot to Save Socrates!