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; 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.
Chuck Todd interviews me about alternate histories
Well, the season one finale of Star City -- episode 1.8 -- was one of the best finales of any season of any series I've ever seen. It fired on so many cylinders -- ethical, personal, and sheer human accomplishment. Here are some of them (and there will be spoilers ahead):
Valya actually landing on Venus -- the end of his "one-way" trip (as he put it) to our neighbor planet between us and Mercury and the sun. He did this because he had to be in the bathysphere, firing off Venerus, so Venerus could get back to Earth. Also, because he knew the Soviets would hunt him down and kill him if he got back to Earth.
Belikova, the first woman to land on the Moon, doing her best to stop the Soviet fascist monsters from killing Sasha and Lakshmi. She knew those fascist soldiers would stop for a least a few seconds before they shot her down -- she was known to everyone in the Soviet Union -- and indeed they just took her into custody, without harming her.
Sergei working with Chief Engineer Korolev to get Venerus back to Earth safely, which in this alternate history is Finland, not the Soviet Union, whose lunatics in power would kill their own people.
Not completely a sacrifice,but nonetheless very admirable: Sasha not going with Lakshmi into Finland, but staying in the Soviet Union, so he could in some way be closer to his wife Belikova, whom he’s come to love.
I know I keep talking about the Nazi-like government that existed in the Soviet Union. Korolev says none of that really matters, the important thing is "We sent human beings to Venus." As usual, he has the best lines. He sees the deepest truths. But, for me at least, the fascism of the Soviet Union -- the murder of anyone who gets in the way of their agenda, even heroes who have risked their lives to go to Venus and back -- is also a deep truth, and very dangerous. And its depiction in Star City, as I keep saying, is especially relevant -- fortunately for the series, unfortunately for us living in the United States and therefore the world at large. I look forward to its continuing depiction in Star City, and its reduction in relevance to what is happening in the real reality unfolding in the United States.
I always say that unless you see a character's head blown off, or dissolved in a vat of acid, he or she may still be alive. I learned this watching 24.
[And there will be spoilers ahead ... ]
It apparently happened again at the end of Star City 1.7. Last week, in episode 1.6, we saw Colonel Raskova of the KGB ordering the murder of cosmonauts Sasha, Valya, and Lakshmi, by depriving them of their oxygen on their way to Venus -- after Sasha and Lakshmi disobeyed Raskova's order to do that to Valya --and Chief Engineer Korolev quit in fury and disgust as a result. This week, in episode 1.7, we learn that the Venera (the Soviet ship to Venus) is returning to Earth as per schedule.
Now, that does not necessarily mean that the three cosmonauts are alive. For all we know, the Venera was designed to move through space to and from Venus and even send messages back to Earth automatically. And I guess the KGB and their lackeys in Star City could explain the three cosmonauts dead on the ship as due to a malfunction. But from what we've already seen on Star City, the cosmonauts, like our astronauts in that period of time, were more than spam in the can, as our real astronauts used to say. They had work to do, making sure the voyage was on track, and all the tech was operating as it should. So chances are the fix we saw Sasha attempt to put in at the end of 1.6 indeed got working to save at least one of the three, and I hope even more.
As I've already said here in earlier reviews, the battle between science and paranoid fascism in Star City is an excellent metaphor for the battle the U.S. is going through right now, with RFK, Jr and his anti-vaccine policy in our Department of Health, and much more. I'm very glad to see science perhaps gaining the upper hand in Star City, and I'm hopeful it's beginning to happen right here in America on this Fourth of July.
We come again in Star City 1.6 to the paradoxical collision of fascism and space travel so brilliantly and harrowingly portrayed in this at once triumphant and tragic series. Triumphant because in this alternate history, the Soviet Union has managed to send a spacecraft with three humans on its way to circle around Venus. Something the fascist Communist regime has managed to do. And yet, paradoxical, because ...
[And there will be spoilers ahead.]
It looks, at the end of episode, that this paranoid government is very likely killing these three cosmonauts in mid-flight. We'll see next week if that's what happens. But even if it doesn't, the point is made. On the one hand, we have geniuses like Korolev, the Chief Engineer, who got us humans to the Moon before the United States, and now in a momentous world-changing accomplishment is sending three humans to Venus. On the other hand, we have KGB Colonel Lyudmilla Raskova ordering the three cosmonauts' death as their ship makes its way from Earth to our sister planet. Korolev speaks plain, transcendent truth, when Raskova puts him under arrest, after he refuses to follow her insane order. He tells her, "you're a monster".
For all we know, in our offscreen reality, this could be why the Soviet attempt to beat the US to the Moon failed so grandly in the 1960s. But we in the US were no angels then either. Nearly 4 million people died on both sides of the US war against Vietnam, at the same time the US was preparing to land on the Moon and successfully retrieve six Apollo crewed spaceships there. The Vietnam War was undeclared, a blatant violation of our Constitution. Maybe one of the reasons we humans have not gone further into space is too many countries have monsters in too much power. (Our current President and Federal government are defying the Constitution in multiple ways every day.) Maybe, until we rid ourselves of this human perversion, or learn to curb by it by not giving these monsters such power, we'll never really get very out into the huge cosmos.
I'm an optimist, as you know, so I still fervently hope that we do. In the meantime, watching Star City is as much a soul-searing, crushing experience as it is an inspiration for what our better selves can do.
Well, I have mixed feelings again about the latest episode -- 5.5 -- of For All Mankind, up on Apple TV today. On the one hand, it's crucial to speak out against the murders and general brutality that ICE has meted out in its treatment of protestors in our reality right now in the USA. I give The Pitt on HBO Max high marks for integrating into its narrative the manhandling and arrest of a health-care worker who dared to stand up to the ICE agents who were interfering with the treatment of someone they had brought into the ER. But that was just one thread in a complex, multifaceted story, the rest of which had no relation to ICE.
In For All Mankind 5.5, we're treated to a full-scale attack on the "Mars is Ours" protestors on the Red Planet. It's ordered by the current Governor of Mars -- Leonid Polivanov (Lenya, a former Soviet cosmonaut, played by Costa Ronin, who portrayed a KGB operative in The Americans), and is reminiscent of both the British attack on America in the Revolutionary War, and the current depredations of Federal agents in the past months in our own country. (This happens in For All Mankind after we and the protestors are reminded in episode 5.3 that the First Amendment doesn't apply on Mars.) From a political point of view, I was glad to see this reminder of the attack on our freedoms that is going on right now. It's necessary to keep these attacks on our democracy front and center, by all means possible.
But that doesn't mean I enjoyed the episode, and this part of its alternate history. It was fun to see Ted Kennedy elected President (no Chappaquiddick), and John Lennon not assassinated. And I know that for an alternate history to be believable, it can't be all a bed of roses. So episode 5.5 deserves credit for that, in addition to reminding us of the ongoing fascist attacks on our democracy. But after watching protestors beaten senseless on Mars, I nonetheless hope there are more brighter interludes in outer space in this series.
I've been a devoted fan of Dexter since it debuted on Showtime in 2006. My very first review of a TV show on this blog in December 2006 was a rave review of the first season of Dexter 20 years ago on Showtime. The review is entitled First Place to Dexter.
I've reviewed in this blog every episode of every season of Dexter since then. And of course I reviewed every episode of Dexter: Original Sin last summer. I was sad when the original run of Dexter ended in 2013, thrilled when Dexter returned in New Blood in 2021, disappointed when Dexter Morgan apparently died at the end of that one season in 2022, delighted with the prequel Original Sin,glad that it was renewed earlier this year, and I think Dexter: Resurrection this year was masterful.
So you can imagine how stunned I was about the announcement that the renewal of Original Sin for a second season had been reversed, the prequel series cancelled, this past August. As Alisha Grauso pointed out in her Screen Rant article four days ago, Original Sin "immediately became Showtime's most-watched premiere ever, with 2.1 million viewers". She then says its about-face cancellation by Paramount four months after Original Sin had been renewed "was seemingly a casualty of the Skydance-Paramount merger," and goes on to explain that after the merger, Paramount reviewed all of its programming (ok, that makes sense) and she further suggests Paramount may have to decided to revoke its renewal because prequels are narratively difficult and even when successful often satisfy their viewing audience with just a single season. And that makes no sense to me at all. Even if that characteristic of prequels is true, there was no way Paramount would not go for a second season of Original Sin, given how successful -- immediately becoming "Showtime's most-watched premiere ever" -- Original Sin on Showtime was.
My wife, also an avid fan of Dexter on television, didn't get a chance to watch Original Sin until this past week. I was half-watching it with her and enjoying it immensely. And I starting wondering, again, why had Paramount reversed itself? Why cancel at a time when the Dexter franchise was taking the screen by the storm? Yes, that decision was indeed a result of the Skydance merger. And what else had happened with Paramount and CBS after that merger? Well, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert had been unceremoniously cancelled (effective May 2026) after Skydance got in the driver's seat. And why was that? The billionaire who owns and runs Skydance is a big Trump supporter, and Colbert's sarcastic comedy has been at its sharpest when it came to Trump.
But Dexter: Original Sin had no political comedy, right? Ok, but maybe one of its lead actors, or writers, or directors, had spoken out against Trump and the march towards fascism in America he's engendering and leading. I did a search on Christian Slater (who brilliantly plays Dexter's father Harry in Original Sin) and Trump. And bingo! Back in 2018, Slater called Trump an "asshole". Breitbart, a right-wing publication, was so upset about that, they devoted a whole article about it. Surely Trump, who keeps track of every insult, real and imagined, was bearing one of his myriad continuing grudges, and desire for revenge, against Christian Slater.
Of course, I have no proof of this. But I wanted to put this hypothesis out there. Was Christian Slater and thereby Original Sin another victim of Trump's rampage against free expression, abetted by the billionaires who support him, in this case, a billionaire whose company now in effect owns Paramount, and thereby has easy control over its programming? Maybe, given the damage Trump has already done to the arts and culture in this country, I'm being too quick to see him as the villain behind Paramount's illogical reversal on its renewal of Dexter: Original Sin. But the other explanations just don't add up, given Original Sin's enormous success, and I really can't think of a more convincing explanation of why it was cancelled after it had been renewed.
My son (Simon Vozick-Levinson, Deputy Music Editor at Rolling Stone) invited me to see One Battle After Another with him (he wanted to see it a second time), and I'm sure glad that I just did. Paul Thomas Anderson's movie (based on Thomas Pynchon's 1990 novel Vineland, which I haven't read) opened in New York City and around the country last month, on September 25. It tells the story of resistance to a fascist United States of America, a story which is becoming ever more like the reality of ICE and government agents pepper-spraying clergy, pulling innocent American citizens off the street for deportation without a hearing, that we see every day on television and social media.
The only difference is Federal police in One Battle After Another fire real bullets not pepper-spray. But the dystopian movie -- this fictional film of a Hitlerian dystopia that is nearly here -- gives us a frightening portrayal of the racism and xenophobia of the rich white men and military who order ICE to go out and do their worst. At the same time, the movie portrays those who are driven to violence to oppose what they rightly see as the destruction of America.
One Battle After Another indeed shows us two generations of opposition to fascist government in the USA. This has two narrative dividends. First, it enriches the narrative, exploring the family dynamics of the revolutionaries. Also first, it provides a truthful historical depth to the story: in our offscreen reality, fascism and its attendant racism didn't originate in the past ten or twenty years. It has roots that go back centuries not decades to the birth of America, and its acceptance of slavery.
The movie is also brilliantly acted. Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, and Benicio Del Toro never disappoint, and they all were outstanding in this movie. Chase Infiniti, who was memorable in the TV series Presumed Innocent, was powerful in One Battle After Another, as was Teyana Taylor. It was also great to see Wood Harris (The Wire) and Tony Goldwyn (Law & Order) and Brooklyn Demme on the big screen. (Demme was interviewed on the Being Frank podcast this past April, in an episode that ended with Frank LoBuono playing my song "Alpha Centauri").
Speaking of songs, there was some excellent music, across a diversity of times. My favorite was "Soldier Boy" by the Shirelles, which was eerily satisfying to hear, given that it was on Top 40 radio in 1962, the happiest time in politics in my recollection, a time that sparkled with promise and progress, in such stark contrast to this wrought movie and our country today. And there was indeed some gallows humor that was pretty funny in One Battle After Another, which was also a tonic for what was happening on the screen.
The action scenes were excellent, too. One of my favorite was Del Toro’s character Sensei Sergio St. Carlos escaping via a tunnel under his house, something I’ve always wanted to construct, and one thing I’ve admired about El Chapo. The car chases were exceptional, with one blockbuster chase involving three cars driving at lightning speed in hilly terrain, each driver having a separate agenda, something I've never seen before, even in a James Bond movie.
But the undeniable strength of this movie is its warning against what America is becoming before our very eyes -- a sober warning delivered with all manner of quirks and idiosyncratic characters that all too often border on gonzo -- which couldn't have been delivered at a better, more necessary time.
The firing of Jimmy Kimmel by ABC -- which is exactly what his "suspension" is -- is the latest step in the road to fascism being paved by the current President of the United States and his allies. It began with the hounding out of their jobs of FBI and other people who lawfully investigated Trump's instigation of the January 2021 attack on the Capitol, the pressure on universities to end DEI and other policies distasteful to MAGA Americans and their theorists, and of course the firing of another late-night host, Stephen Colbert, by another cowardly media operation, CBS. (William Paley must still be turning over in his grave.)
In the case of Kimmel, rumblings were being made about the FCC doing something about him. I've thought the FCC was blatantly unconstitutional as soon as I was old enough to think. It violated the First Amendment's clear proscription on the government "abridging the freedom of speech or of the press" -- what else would any honest person say a late-night comedian, ridiculing Trump and his policies, was doing? The only crime in that would be how easy it was to make those jokes, because the threat to our democratic way of life was so obviously no joke indeed.
FDR, certainly one of our greatest Presidents, jeopardized our democracy when he signed the Communications Act of 1934 into law. So did Felix Frankfurter in the 1943 Supreme Court decision "NBC v the US," which he wrote, which ratified the FCC's power to regulate broadcasting. Ironically, that was in the middle of our war with Nazi Germany which FDR was so instrumental in winning, not to mention that Frankfurter was a founder of the American Civil Liberties Union in 1920.
I started teaching at universities in the 1970s, and the danger of the FCC has always been a part of my courses about the media and their impact. My main point has always been: imagine the FCC under the control of a President bent on willfully superseding our democracy and its protections from dictatorship (see, for example, my 2005 Media Ecology conference Keynote address transcript and video The Flouting of the First Amendment). I take no satisfaction and indeed am saddened and deeply concerned to see this patent threat to our democracy so vividly realized by this President and the many people who support him.
Note added September 24, 2025: Last night: Jimmy Kimmel's sage, hilarious opening monologue
To the fascist enablers that prevented this show from being aired in 20% of its markets, I hope you go out of business soon; to fascist enabler Paramount/CBS: reverse your decision to end The Late Show w/ Stephen Colbert]; to everyone: I'll be recording a conversation w/ Frank LoBuono about this in a few hours for his Being Frank podcast
I binged the six-episode Zero Day that went up on Netflix. Herewith my thoughts, with no major spoilers to warn you about [except in the very last paragraph].
First and foremost, the acting was outstanding. I mean, with Robert De Niro, Lizzy Caplan, Jesse Plemons, and Connie Britton in major roles -- not to mention Matthew Modine and Angela Bassett with slightly less screen -- how can you go wrong. From the point of view of the acting, every scene was a real pleasure to watch.
As to the story ... well, I've heard this limited series touted, in more than one place, as strikingly similar to what we've been seeing and hearing on our cable news stations, laptops, and social media these days. Of course, any plot about a terrorist attack that kills lots of people, and the government veering towards fascist tactics to find the culprits, and stop this from happening again, resembles our times. But actually, it resembles what George W. Bush and the Congress did with the Patriot Act after September 11 (mentioned in Zero Day) far more than it resembles today. And that's because our current swerve towards fascism has nothing to do with a terrorist attack. It stems from the voters of the United States electing to office a President whose every other pronouncement is out of Joseph Goebbels's handbook. So yes, although high-tech digital prowess and at least one billionaire are part of the action in Zero Day, the heart of the story is something else.
And that heart, which we've also seen in other movies and TV series on various screens, is a pretty good narrative, with affairs, difficult family relationships, politics reminiscent of what Jack Bauer had to deal with in 24 and prevalent in House of Cards, all done up nicely with a few real newscasters, a house on the Hudson, and of course the nation's capital. So, if you're looking for a thriller brought to you by flat-out great acting and a decent-enough storyline, I'd recommend Zero Day. But don't expect anything searingly relevant to what's actually going on today. De Niro's character is named Mullen, and he gives a report to Congress in the last scene. A nod to Mueller and the report he gave to Congress in Trump's first administration, right? But that was long long time ago, in terms of the speed with we've slid and are still sliding into fascism right now.
Welcome to LightOnLightThrough, Episode 156, in which I consider why more than 70 million Americans voted for Donald Trump in the just concluded Presidential election.
Welcome to LightOnLightThrough, Episode 155, in which I put Joe Biden's victory in some philosophic context: it offers proof of John Milton's argument, way back in the Areopagitica, that truth can win in the marketplace of ideas, even this age of social media.
The second season of Jack Ryan began streaming yesterday on Amazon Prime. My wife and I saw it tonight, and thought was it excellent, and better than the first season, which I said last year was splendid.
The theme was shreddingly relevant to the world around us right now: a President in Venezuela who values his power more than democracy and is willing to do anything to hold on to his power. By relevant, I'm not referring to the shaky hold on democracy that has long characterized many countries in South America. I'm talking, sadly and obviously, about what is going on in the United States right now.
President Reyes is willing to suspend elections when he fears they're not going his way, and order a compliant military to murder civilians. True, that's not quite as bad as what we have in the United States today, and not likely to happen. But that's only because I don't think our military would follow orders like that in the United States. But the very fact that we have to think about it, which is because we have a President who daily denounces the news as fake and thinks any votes against him were somehow rigged, is reason enough to be very concerned.
Meanwhile, on the screen, Jack Ryan was better than ever. He's unbribeable and unshakable in his devotion to truth and justice. He's clearheaded and steadfast in his loyalty to his friends. And he gets the job done. The story has some good turns, suitable villains, and even a complicated love interest who gets in the action with Jack in more ways than one. And the supporting characters, ranging from the lead commando team, to Greer and November, are all in good, memorable form.
So see the second outing of Jack Ryan on Prime Video and enjoy. And take comfort in the fact that our current President in what passes for real life these days was roundly booed tonight in Madison Square Garden. (That's right, Joe Scarborough, that's democracy.)
With fascism rearing its ugly heads around the world, including in the White House in the United States, it was timely, chilling, and good to see it front and center stage in Season 5 of Peaky Blinders on Netflix.
Thomas has intersected with British government in previous seasons. But in Season 5 we see him an eloquent member of Parliament, soon befriended by Oswald Mosley, a real MP who was prominent in the 1930s as head of the British Union of Fascists. I had heard of him, but didn't explicitly know his story, which worked well for watching Peaking Blinders, since the shocks were real shocks to me.
Mosley seeks to recruit Thomas as his second-in-command, or prime deputy. Thomas accepts, but seeks to use this position to bring Mosley down, with the cooperation of the British government. Thomas sees Mosley as "the devil," and he is, ranging from his treatment of women to his Hitlerian anti-semitism, and he's vividly portrayed by Sam Claflin (whom I don't recall seeing before, but will look out for now as a top-notch actor).
Fascism fed on the discontent and dislocations caused by the stock market crash of 1929. The Shelbys lose tons of money, and Thomas blames his cousin Michael, who was repping the family in America. The conflict between Thomas and Michael provides a trenchant secondary theme of tension in this season, and of course Polly is drawn into the imbroglio, since she's Michael's mother. Thomas still seems young and not that old (to me), but Michael and his wife cast the conflict with Thomas as one of age, with Michael urging Thomas to give way to a new generation and its new ways of conducting business. If you know anything about Thomas, you don't need to see this season to know how he will react to Michael's suggestions.
But you do need to see Season 5 for many other compelling reasons. Arthur once against presents an unforgettable portrait of a decent man riven by and unable to control the inchoate violence that inhabits his soul. Winston Churchill, who appeared earlier in the series, puts in another few captivating minutes (as MP - he was not yet Prime Minister). And the sheer flavor of the cultures portrayed, from the Protestant Scots to the Peaky Blinders' Jewish allies, is indelible.
