Black Sails: Literate and Raunchy Piracy

Hey, I caught the first two episodes of Black Sails on Starz last night, and was mightily impressed.  The series is much more than swashbuckling, and dresses up the high action and fast-moving plot in at least four commendable ways:

1. The show has a real literacy.  Captain Flint quotes the Odyssey in a poetic, soulful reflection about wanting to find some peace and get away from the danger of the seas - the human danger, given his business - and you can't get much better than that.

2. There's a consistent and refreshing political dimension.  The pirates are champions of democracy, with all of its messiness, even their leaders who also yearn to be kings.  And the women are not only fetching but feisty.   I suppose this is a romanticization of what most real pirates were about, but there is a democratic logic and imperative in the pirate's life and community vis-a-vis the Crown, and, besides, it makes for a good story.

3.  The characters and plot display a media savvy - in particular, an awareness of the interplay between the written and spoken word at the time.   Apropos Homer, John Silver's commission to his memory of the page he stole is not only a smart move for him - as he realizes, the only way he could survive - but it puts Silver in league with all the poets of an earlier age who didn't read or write at all, and instead kept all of their creations in their minds for easy retrieval.  If anyone doubts that Silver would be able to memorize a page, consider that The Iliad was committed completely to memory, before the written word had come to Greece, and that's how it ultimately managed to make it into Black Sails' and our own age.

4.  There's nudity and all kinds of hot sex going on, which is always a plus.

So I'll be a regular reviewer of Black Sails.

#SFWApro

Banshee 2.2: Sneak Preview Review

Continuing with my sneak preview reviews of Banshee - this time, episode 2.2, set to air January 17, 2014 - courtesy of a screener disk provided by Starpulse.  As always, these reviews will deal in generalities and avoid specific spoilers.

Among the highlights of Banshee 2.2:

• Lots of hand-to-hand punishing fighting, as always - but in this episode there's a lot more than usual involving women, including some woman-to-woman combat.
• The Indian versus the Amish conflict takes center stage.
• No Feds on camera.
• Probably the best female nudity we've seen so far in the series.

Women have been throughout the most compelling characters in the series, other than Hood and Proctor.  This is not to say that the other men aren't good, it's rather that the women are more exceptional, each in her own way.  In season 2, we have at least four in riveting play: Ana, Rebecca, Siobhan, and Nola.   Each has an erotic relationship of some sort with Hood.  Each either packs a punch or is unafraid to mete out deadly force.   And each has significant screen time in episode 2.2, making it an outstanding feminist show.

One of the other defining characteristics of the series is how, with so many groups ready to commit violence and/or criminal acts, it's almost inevitable that one group will wrongly blame another for a hit it takes.   Watch out for a fine example of this in episode 2.2, and I'll be back here between January 17 and 24 with my sneak preview of episode 2.3.

See also Banshee Season 2 Premiere: Sneak Preview Review


Like crime stories that involve the Amish? Try The Silk Code

#SFWApro

Magic City: Yiddish, Cuba, Bathing Suit Excellent

I caught up with the first season of Magic City and the first episode of the second season in the past few days, and was impressed indeed.  It takes place a tad before the start of Mad Men - in late 1958 into 1959 - but it has almost nothing else in common with Mad Men.   Instead of high-rolling Madison Avenue advertising, we get beach-front Miami Beach, where the main high-rolling depicted is among gamblers, mobsters, and hotel owner Ike Evans.   The mob - in the person of Ben Diamond - contributes murders - and the women, from prostitutes to girl friends and wives, are sassily bright and beautiful.   There's plenty of nudity of all kinds, making Magic City much more like Rome than Mad Men.

The plot is pretty good, too, with some genuinely climatic and touching moments, and a few over-the-top situations and resolutions, which are ok by me.   Ike - well played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan - is struggling to keep his hotel successful and even afloat.   He seeks the help of Diamond, ends up with a murder of union head on his hands, who also happens to be an old friend.   To make matters even more tense, Ike's son Stevie is sleeping with Diamond's wife, and Ike's other son Danny wants to work in the DA's office - the very DA who is out to get Ike and Diamond at any cost.

A lot of the first season was devoted to Stevie keeping polaroids of him and Diamond's wife out of Diamond's hands.   When Diamond finally does get a look at them, however, he kills neither his wife or Stevie, because he rather watch them making love.   Not completely believable, but I guess there are crazed mobsters like Diamond around somewhere, so why not in Miami Beach.

The show has a Yiddishe tahm - look it up if you don't know the language - which makes it especially welcome and appealing.   More than just a Yiddish word is thrown in every now and again.  Magic City is thoroughly steeped in Jewish customs and attitudes.  And among the characters who are Jewish are not only Ike and his kids (though not his second wife, who is Cuban), but Ben Diamond (far more brutal than Meyer Lansky), the late union leader, and even the obsessed DA.   And Cuba indeed plays a significant role in this story.  As does JFK, not yet seen, but on his way to becoming President.

In short, Magic City is zesty, refreshing, pounding, and sexy - I'll be an avid viewer from now.   And my wife really likes it, too.


  

#SFWApro

Da Vinci's Demons: History, Science, and Science Fiction

I caught up on the first three episodes of Da Vinci's Demons on Starz last night - the latest offering from David Goyer (of Flashforward television fame) - and I found the series superb, a full-bodied, top-of-the-line player in the surge of outstanding historical dramas that are lighting up television these days.

In time and place, Da Vinci's Demons is closest to The Borgias - in fact, in the exact same places in Italy, and only two decades or so years earlier.  You'll find familiar family names - such as the De Medici's and the Sforza's - as young Da Vinci (25 years old) contends from Florence with the Pope and his nephew. The lovemaking and nudity is also in good supply - even a bit more with Da Vinci, as befits his Renaissance-man talents as a painter and anatomist - and the ambience is as lush and captivating.

But Da Vinci's Demons has far more than political and erotic intrigue.   Da Vinci was a scientist and inventor far ahead of his time - sketching helicopters and tanks that could well have been built right then and there had the needed collateral technology been at hand.  Like Heron of Alexandria 1400 years before him and Charles Babbage 400 years later, Da Vinci belonged to the very small group of visionaries who literally saw the future in their fundamental understanding of the world around them.  Indeed, Da Vinci is easily at the top of this class, and his scientific pursuits, which included not only anatomy but botany and geology, are amply portrayed in the series.   Da Vinci's Demons in its scientific story lines is akin to Vikings on the History Channel, and its excellent depiction of Norse advances in ship building - though the Viking science of ship building is one-dimensional in comparison to what Leonardo wrought.

Such extraordinary range and depth of real scientific knowledge logically spills over into science fiction and fantasy, or speculation about what deep wells of knowledge are feeding this world, and reside beyond.  The possibility that the ancients knew far more than we give them credit for has long been a theme in my own science fiction, and figures in such popular culture triumphs as The Da Vinci Code and Rimbaldi in Alias.   Da Vinci's Demons features an ancient (fictional) Book of Leaves, which contains knowledge of the universe that goes well beyond science.   As the young Leonardo begins to learn of this book and its secrets, he comes into conflict with the Vatican and its desire to contain it and keep it from the world.   As is the case with all good science fiction, there is a proximity to reality which gives it punch:  Leonardo comes across a map of a continent which no one recognizes but he somehow knows is true.  It's a map of South America, a few decades before Columbus, a time when other historically unrecorded voyagers could well have made the trip across the Atlantic, as the Vikings in fact had done some 500 years earlier.

Da Vinci's Demons thus has everything a devotee of historical fiction and science fiction could ask for.   In its fantasy elements, the series also has a kinship with Game of Thrones, but the situation of Da Vinci's Demons in our real world makes it more compelling in my book.

                                        

The Borgias 3.2: Going Both Ways

In terms of sheer licentiousness, The Borgias 3.2 intriguingly went both ways.

Lucrezia and Cesare, who have been partaking of an increasing sexual tension since almost the very first episode in the series, all but got into bed last night.  Or, to be more precise, there were in bed, and would have likely have made passionate, incestuous, mutually consensual love had they been interrupted by a voice at the door.  Not quite as culturally significant as the Person from Porlock whose unexpected knock on the door shattered Coleridge's writing of his Xanadu poem and left it forever a beautiful fragment, but important enough in the Borgias saga on Showtime, and giving us at least one more week of dramatic anticipation.   Same for the brief glimpses of Lucretia unclothed.

Equally compelling, but going in completely the opposite direction, is Rodrigo's lack of passion in bed with Giulia Farnese. The obvious reason is he's still getting over his near assassination by poison - still physically not fully recovered - but the problem turns out to be much more interesting.  Rodrigo, nearly murdered, no longer feels physically enough at ease with his mistress to make love to her.  In a nice twist, it turns out that he does feel at ease with his wife, with whom he has long had a mostly Platonic relationship.  So, as his children move towards sibling incest, Rodrigo goes back into the moral fold with a sexual relationship with his wife.

And he has ample reason to feel not at ease about his safety.  Not only were his family almost murdered last week, but he's almost murdered again this week by a Cardinal he's trying to divest of his robes and power.   This is part of an attempt to root out all of his opponents in the College of Cardinals, whether they actively worked for his death or just wanted it.

The method that Rodrigo used - getting Cardinal Sforza to pinpoint a likely Cardinal and get him to confess about himself and the others, whether this Cardinal really knew of a plot or not, seems strikingly familiar to what we saw in totalitarian regimes in the 20th century.  Sobering thought that these techniques were practiced as a high, evil art in the Vactican half a millenium earlier.

See also The Borgias Season 3 Premiere: "Blade's Breath"

And see also The Borgias Season 2 Sneak Preview

And see also The Borgias Sneak Preview Review ... The Borgias 1.5: Machiavellian Politics and Marriage ... The Borgias 1.6: Beds, Leg, Cannon ... Borgias  Season One Concludes

                                               

The Borgias Season 2 Sneak Preview Review

I had the pleasure of seeing the first 4 episodes of The Borgias second season - thanks to a Showtime screener - and can reveal the following -

• two important deaths, one male, one female, neither of their own hand
• two new appealing (in different ways) female characters
• in general, and especially regarding the 3rd and 4th episodes, I think season 2 is considerably better than season 1 (and this is saying a lot, since I much enjoyed the first season)

Great political maneuvering, nice nudity, and top-notch military confrontation (even better than the first season) continue to light up The Borgias.   The family is at the height of its game, always close to being rent apart by its internecine battles, but pulling together when needed.  As a successor, in a sense, to Rome and The Tudors, I'd say this new season of The Borgias is now about as good as the excellent Tudors.  As with those earlier series, sex continues to be one of the stars of The Borgias, with a menage-a-trois making an appearance in the first four new episodes.

And I'll be back when the second season begins on April  8 with proper reviews of each episode.

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

---

                 Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, Garden.com, eMusic, Mozy

---

---

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

---

---

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 Walking Dead 2.4: What Happened at the Pharmacy

Another excellent episode - 2.4 - of The Walking Dead last Sunday.  They've all been outstanding so far this season.   And this episode featured sex, and its consequences.

Glenn and Maggie go to the pharmacy in town to get supplies.   "Take what you need, God Bless," it says on the window.  But Maggie and Glenn need more than supplies.  They sleep together, at Maggie's initiation.  It was a tender moment, and showed that people still have time-honored needs and attractions in this world gone insane.   Obvious, I guess, but good to see.  And good for Glenn and Maggie (who later says it was a one-time thing, but that's highly doubtful).

Meanwhile, Lori asks Glenn to get her something at the pharmacy.  We don't find out until the end of the episode what that is.   We do know it was in the Feminine Hygiene  section, so the choices are somewhat limited.

It's a pregnancy test, and Lori is pregnant, which could and no doubt will change everything.   Although Lori hasn't slept with Shane since Season 1, in narrative time (as opposed to television viewing time) that's not that long ago at all, which means the baby could be Shane's.  And the same, of course, is true for Rick, whom Lori has been with since Rick joined the group.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.  If Lori has the baby - which I'm guessing she will, after much personal and conflicted deliberation - this might not happen until next season.   But everyone will see that she's pregnant, including Rick and Shane.   Rick will think the baby is his (possibly the scientist in the CDC already told him Lori was pregnant, at the end of last season). Shane won't know whether the baby is his or Rick's.    The two don't look all that different, so short of a DNA test - which may not be available in this place and time - we may never know. And maybe that doesn't really matter.

In a world in which human beings are on the edge of extinction, as far as we can tell, from the plague and the zombies, a baby is especially miraculous and precious.  But Lori already indicated, when Carl was in danger of dying, that she didn't know if it was right to bring a life into this sick world.

The pharmacy and its aftermath promise intense times ahead for our people.

And one other thing -  when Doc Hershel says he'll consider Rick's request that our group be allowed to stay, Hershel says something about there being some secrets in the homestead which Hershel can never divulge.   I wonder what those could be - something having to do with the zombies?

See also The Walking Dead Back on AMC ... The Walking Dead 2.2: The Nature of Vet

... The Walking Dead 2.3: Shane and Otis 

 

And see also The Walking Dead 1.1-3:  Gone with the Wind, Zombie Style ... The Walking Dead Ends First Season

---

                 Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, Garden.com, eMusic

---

---

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

---

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 ...

Boardwalk Empire 2.4: Nearly Flagrante Delicto

HBO's Boardwalk Empire put up one of its most powerful scenes - sensual and psychological - in episode 2.4.  It involved two characters who are major but not the most absolutely central to the series.  And the scene in effect came in two parts.

The characters are Gillian (Jimmy's mother, played by Gretchen Mol) and the Commodore (Jimmy's father, played by Dabney Coleman).

In part one, Gillian starts seducing the Commodore with a 1920s exotic strip tease that leaves her naked and the Commodore breathless.   Gillian never looked better - we see her waist up from the front and all the way down the back - indeed, the only scenes I recall as seductive as this were Atia's (played by Polly Walker) completely nude scenes in HBO's Rome.   But the result of Gillian's temptations is not the greatest for the Commodore, who has a stroke.   We learn later that men in his condition apparently can't take this much excitement.

In part two of this story within a story, which comes much later in this episode, Gillian talks to the Commodore, immobile in his bed.  The talk is her reminiscence of the first time the two made love, which turns out to be a harsh and cruel tale of the Commodore plying Gillian (both were 20+ years younger - Gillian was just 13) with alcohol and starting to rape her when she's passed out.  But Gillian woke up, and has always remembered the incident with understandable revulsion and horror.   Which raises the question: did Gillian deliberately try to seduce the Commodore to  provoke a seizure?

I'm not sure, but I do find it just-desert O'Henry-esque (you can't escape your fate) that the Commodore is now pretty much back where he started last year, an invalid in bed in serious condition.  And this is one of the things - actually, three, the scene and the questions and the cycles - that makes the series so good, and this episode especially. It also featured Chalky's flaws as a father (he's insecure when his daughter brings home a well-educated young suitor), and the gang back in New York.   Any scene with Lucky, Lansky, Bugsy, and Rothstein is always one of my favorite scenes on this show.

So far, Season Two of Boardwalk Empire is even better than Season One, which is saying a lot, because Season One was fine indeed.

See also Boardwalk Empire 2.1: Politics in an Age Before YouTube  ... Boardwalk Empire 2.2: The Woman Behind the Throne ... Boardwalk Empire 2.3: Frankenstein and Victrola

And see also Boardwalk Emipre on HBO ... Boardwalk Empire 1.2: Lines and Centers Power ... Boardwalk Empire 1.10: Arnold Rothstein, Media Theorist  ... Season One Finale of Boardwalk Empire

---

                 Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, Garden.com, eMusic

---

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

---

---

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 ...

Game of Thrones Begins Greatly on HBO

Game of Thrones began tonight on HBO.  It's adapted from George R.R. Martin's work.   I reviewed his novel set in this world back in 1996 - see the link to my review below - and enjoyed it.  But I'm going to review this series in its own right, and try not to let what I know about the story influence me overly, though it no doubt will.

Here are the basics of the complex, powerful plot.  King Robert - of the Seven Kingdoms, in a place much like medieval England - wants Ned Stark, Lord of Winterfell, the northern kingdom (he's also Warren of the North) - to become his "hand," or right-hand man.   Stark has five children, and a bastard son.  Before the first episode is over, the King's brother-in-law - brother of the Queen - will push Stark's youngest son out a high open window, because the boy saw the brother-in-law schtupping his own sister, the Queen (good to see Lena Headey of The Sarah Connor Chronicles and The 300 in this role).

Here, let me mention that there's lots of fine female nudity in this episode - and I presume series - if not quite as good as yet as on HBO's  Rome, I'd say better than Showtime's The Tudors.  And there's also a lot of love-making - to be genteel about it - and the characters talk about it a lot.   And, so far, they mostly seem to do it the really old-fashioned way, from the back.   I say mostly, because the Queen's other brother, a dwarf, is seen in bed with a bevvy of beautiful, procured women, and it's not clear how they did it in bed.

Meanwhile,  speaking of nudity, love-making, and politics, beautiful Daenerys is across the sea - in the equivalent of Normandy - and obligated by her brother to marry the young King of a fierce horsemen people, much like the Huns or the Mongols.   She's Tagarian, and her brother yearns for the throne now occupied by Robert.  A few years before the start of our story, the pair were driven from the Seven Kingdoms, when the King and his supporters swept the Kingdoms of Tagarians.

There's also a supernatural facet to all of this.   There are fossilized dragon eggs on the mainland - Daenerys gets one as a gift for her wedding.  And north of Winterfell is a wild, mystical, deadly land - north of the wall - peopled or zombied by "white walkers" (some kind of cold humanoid demons) and replete with dire-wolves.    Six of these baby wolves are now in the hands of Stark's children.  They - the wolves - grow up fast.  And one has seen Bran,  Stark's youngest son, pushed out of the high tower...

An altogether excellent start of what promises to be a superb series.  I'll be back here next week with more.


5-min podcast review of Game of Thrones

See also A Game of Thrones: My 1996 Review of the First Novel

---

                 Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, eMusic, Mozy, Zazzle

---

---

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

---

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 ...

 

 

..

Sexting: Nobody's Business Except the Sexters and their Parents

You've likely heard about "sexting" - teenagers sending photos of themselves, naked or partially unclothed, to themselves via their cellphones, and then being arrested on "child pornography" charges in states ranging from Pennsylvania to Wisconsin and Alabama. A Google search today shows nearly 700,000 hits on "sexting". Mike Galanos raves about the horrors of sexting just about every night on CNN's Headline News.

Here is why is this public furor, in particular the arrests, arising from sexting are wrong - and dangerous:

1. Sexting does not entail an adult endangering a minor. Adults are not involved. If the photos were used by adults, or predators, then police involvement would be not only warranted but rightfully obligated.

2. Use of police authority to stop sexters reduces the police available for cracking down on dangerous predators who abuse, kidnap, and kill kids and teenagers - real crimes, in contrast to sexting, which is an act between consenting teenagers. Obviously, if the act was not mutually consenting - if a teen used such pictures for cyber bullying, public ridicule, etc - that would be a completely different matter.

3. The First Amendment prohibits the Federal government (and the Fourteenth Amendment extends this restriction to state and all other governments) from interfering with freedom of speech and press. A photograph is a kind of press (in this case, used for private, interpersonal rather than public purposes).

4. Parents have a right and obligation to know what their children are doing, and talk about it to them if the parents deem it objectionable. That's a far cry from being arrested!

5. What do these arrests teach our children? It says that, when they do something which brings them pleasure, which hurts no one, the government has a right to step in and arrest them. That stikes me as the kind of lessons the government meted out in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union - not in the United States of America.

I hope the courts throw each and every one of these cases out - a Federal judge already issued a restraining order on the Pennsylvania prosecutor last week. Give the prosecutors and police a stern warning: keep your focus on crimes, that's what the American people expect of you.


Barna Donovan & Ernabel Demillo interview me on Culture Wars about sexting;
starts a fews mins into interview


I talk to the Truth on Earth Band about combatting cyberbulling

Nancy Has Limits: Weeds 4.9

Well, we've finally come upon one of Nancy's limits - in the excellent 4.9 of Weeds.

Shane's been masturbating to those full frontal nudity pix of Nancy that Judah took of her years ago. That's too much even for Uncle Andy, who has had a good time with this picture over the years himself. Andy tells Nancy, who is also trying to deal with Silas' hot affair with MILF Lisa (played by Lost's Sarah - Julie Bowen). Nancy finally sits down with the two boys, and gives them her point of view. (Actually, though both involve boys and older women, Shane's is much more over the top. Possibly Nancy would not have reacted that much to Silas's doings, had she not been so understandably appalled by Shane.)

Meanwhile, Andy is El Andy in Mexico, a great coyote with great lines. Over the years, Andy, brilliant played by Justin Kirk, has had the best lines in the series.

Mary-Louise Parker's putting in an especially superb, saucy performance as Nancy this year herself. It's good to see her and Esteban together - I think they're an even better couple than Nancy and Conrad (Nancy certainly seems more happy). I hope Weeds doesn't break her heart by getting him killed...



See also: Showtime's Sassy Hour of Sin ... Weeds 4.3: Nancy by the Endless Sea ... Sitting Shiva on Weeds and Laughing: 4.4 ... Nancy Gets Spanked and Likes It: 4.8 ... Shane and Two Girls: 4.10 ... Nancy Turns a Corner: 4.11 ... The First Bitter Fruit of Telling Till: 4.12

---

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!

Nancy Gets Spanked and Likes It: Weeds 4.8

Nancy hasn't had much romance this season. There's certainly none at home, Doug is making her nauseous, and Conrad has vanished from the universe. But there's a tall, dark stranger who clearly desires her, and it flashes to the surface in Episode 4.8 - in a spanking.

Esteban, the drug lord at the end of the underground tunnel, Nancy's ultimate boss in her current drug trade, and the mayor of his town in Mexico (that's his cover job - mayor - I love it), has shown his interest in Nancy and spanking a few episodes ago. Nancy has not followed drug cartel protocol, and needs to be disciplined. When Nancy shows up by car (not tunnel) this time, to ask Esteban for her own supply of weed (which Guillermo has refused her), Esteban asks Nancy if she realizes she needs to be punished. Nancy says yes, and - he spanks her (on her panties, to be precise).

Nancy's reaction is the key to this important episode. She's surprised, and is sore afterwards, but clearly enjoyed the spanking. She's certainly not sore at Esteban, who comes through for her with the drugs.

A breakthrough episode in more ways than one, with Nancy for the first time this season regaining some power. And those photos that Judah long ago took of her, which Andy teased her about, and Shane and we now see, ain't bad either ...


See also: Showtime's Sassy Hour of Sin ... Weeds 4.3: Nancy by the Endless Sea ... Sitting Shiva on Weeds and Laughing: 4.4 ... Nancy Has Limits: 4.9 ... Shane and Two Girls: 4.10 ... Nancy Turns a Corner: 4.11 ... The First Bitter Fruit of Telling Till: 4.12

---

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 ...

 

Showtime's Sassy Hour of Sin

Showtime debuted its Monday night hour of sin last night - Season 4 of Weeds, and the brand new Secret Diary of A Call Girl - and it wasn't bad. Actually, it was bad in a good way. Anyway, I enjoyed both half hours.

Nancy and family are getting situated by the beach in a whole new area of California, in Judah's father's house (well played by Albert Brooks). Lots of good lines from all members of the family, especially brother-in-law Andy, as always.

Meanwhile, back in what's left of fire-ravaged Agrestic, Celia is pointing the finger at Nancy as drug lady - as she did at the end of last season - but Doug and her husband and the hilarious Indian gay guy are all telling the police otherwise, to wit, that Celia is behind it all.

A good set-up for this season.

Meanwhile, Secret Diary of A Call Girl is sassy, smart, funny, and real. Billie Piper (see the video below) is thoroughly appealing as Belle (the call-girl) / Hannah (her real-life name), giving good voice-over narration in the episode, as well as whatever her customers want, as soon as possible (as she informs us), if she is able to wheedle the deepest desires out of them.

There's even a nice character insight in the premier episode, when Belle realizes that what a customer (whom she likes) most likes about her are her Hannah's qualities - not good for someone in Belle's business.

Looking forward to more Weeds and wheedle in the weeks ahead ...

See also Weeds 4.3: Nancy by the Endless Sea ... Sitting Shiva on Weeds and Laughing: 4.4 ... Nancy Gets Spanked and Likes It: 4.8 ... Nancy Has Limits: 4.9 ... Shane and Two Girls: 4.10 ... Nancy Turns a Corner: 4.11 ... The First Bitter Fruit of Telling Till: 4.12


And Secret Diary of a Call Girl: Last Page, First Season

Looking In on The L Word...

Long before women were being wittily, hilariously, so coolly bedded almost round the clock by Hank Moody in Californication, they were being wittily, hilariously, coolly bedded around the clock by ... women, in The L Word, on Showtime.

Californication and Weeds are often cited (by me and others) as the spear carriers of Showtime's sweep into first place as the most innovative story telling network on cable, but this leap forward really started with The L Word, which debuted its 5th Season last Sunday.

The series has been and still is in a class by itself. It is more daring than HBO's Big Love - lesbian sex is more radical than polygamy. It explores more nuances in sexual relationships than HBO's Tell Me You Love Me. And The L Word of course has more women in positions of power and not in power than Weeds.

But The L Word feels most like Californication. Both shows take place in California, and both are intimately intertwined with writing, movie-making, and their travails, as well as sex.

My favorite characters in The L Word, however, are not in the movie or publishing business. Bette is a museum director who becomes dean of a school of design. Maybe my being a professor makes me naturally relate to her, but Jennifer Beals' performance is a perfect mix of primness and passion. She has been a pleasure to see on screen since Flashdance, and is only getting better.

Katherine Moennig is also superb as Shane in The L Word. She's usually up for sleeping with just about any woman, but brings a refreshing understanding of - or at least, an attempt to understand - the subtleties of every relationship she's in or wants into. Shane is a hairdresser, not an academic or a writer. But she thinks more than any other character on the series.

I've seen the first four episodes of the new season, and it's lots of fun, with serious themes including life in prison and the military woven in, and lots of other top-notch acting talent including Cybill Shepherd and Pam Grier, a plus in any scene they may appear.

Highly entertaining, thought provoking, and recommended, and I'll be back here with more reviews as this bright new season of The L Word progresses.

See also The L Word Concludes This Season with Powerful Lessons

---

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!

Tell Me You Love Me Concludes for First Season

A very satisfying finale to Tell Me You Love Me on HBO On Demand last night...

1. Jaime and Hugo's getting back together and married was entirely motivated. I also liked the realistic way this episode built up to their happy ending. They meet in a gas station mart. Next have dinner, but don't sleep together. Instead, they talk later that night on the phone... and seal the deal. There surely were more people with broken hearts in the world before Alexander Graham Bell.

2. Palek walks out, Carolyn loses their baby, Palek comes back. A harsh arc, but it's about the only way the couple could have proceeded. What's not entirely clear is whether Carolyn will ever completely forgive Palek (I would say not - but there was no clear indication one way or another on the show).

3. Katie and David come this close to splitting, but - at last - make passionate love. This was predictable - but nonetheless satisfying.

And let me say here that Ally Walker's acting as Katie was really exceptional - last night and on the entire series. She had just the right mix of vulnerability, hope, and fatigue. All the acting on the series was excellent - the women (Michelle Borth as Jaime and Sonya Walger as Carolyn) standing out maybe a little more than the men (Tim DeKay as David and Adam Scott as Palek) (and Ian Somerhalder as Nick and Luke Farrell Kirby as Hugo with less screen time as Jaime's guys) - but it was all fine, and Ally Walker was the best of the best.

Along with Jane Alexander, who was superb as Dr. May Foster, and as I've said before, has never put in anything less than a great performance in anything I've ever seen.

As I also said in my preview review of the first show, Tell Me You Love Me wasn't really about the nudity, though that certainly made for some nice scenes.

But the show was about relationships, and I'm looking forward to Season Two. Will we be seeing these three couples again? I'd say probably not, but I have no information about this. Surely May Foster will be back - with David Selby as her husband Arthur - and you can be sure I'll be posting reviews right here on Infinite Regress.

Hey, it's a tough job, but someone's gotta do it...

See also Tell Me You Love Me on HBO and Tell Me You Love Seven Times ... and Episode 8 ...


5-minute podcast about Tell Me You Love Me

---

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

Tell Me You Love Me on Tell Me You Love Me (Episode 8)

There is a moment in some movies - maybe some novels, too, I'm not sure - which can either be tacky and obvious or good and locking-it-in. I don't think I've ever seen in a television series. It happens when a character in the movie says the name of the movie. I know I've seen this a bunch of times - readers, let me know if you have any examples...

Anyway, I'm sure I've never seen it in a television series - until last night, on Episode 8 of Tell Me You Love Me on HB0. In the very last scene, Nick (Ian Somerhalder) and Jamie (Michelle Borth) are evaluating their fledging relationship, Ian correctly feeling that he may want Jamie more than she wants him - which she of course denies - and Nick utters the magic words: "Tell me you love me."

I think it served last night to ratify the series, in some way - by finally making it crystal clear to everyone that that's each partner of each couple really most wants, whether by words or deeds. This is what the series is really most about, regardless of the specific stories.

And we learned other interesting things last night. Dr. Foster and husband didn't have kids because Dr. Foster didn't want to share her husband. Palek may have some of the stuff of good fatherhood in him, after all. And in a very tender scene with Katie and her daughter, becoming a woman, we learn that, whatever Katie's problems with her own sexuality, she's a good, loving mother in explaining some of solitary facts of life to her daughter.

Only two more episodes left. Tell Me You Love Me is doing very well for itself.

See also Tell Me You Love Me on HBO and Tell Me You Love Seven Times


5-minute podcast about Tell Me You Love Me

---

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

Tell Me You Love Me Seven Times

Well, I've now seen seven episodes of Tell Me You Love Me on HBO, and thought I'd report back to you, your dedicated correspondent, about how I think the series is progressing.

First, the sex continues to be explicit and good. Episode 7, still fresh in my mind, had some especially good scenes with Jamie and Hugo, and Carolyn and Palek (separately, that is).

And what about the four ongoing relationship stories? Let's take them in chronological order, starting with the youngest.

Jamie (Michelle Borth) and Hugo (Luke Farrell Kirby): are no longer a couple, even though they were together last night, and who knows what might happen next. Turns out that Jamie, who in the first episode was obsessing about Hugo's wandering eyes, has a history herself. This is one of the signatures of the series: With each couple, we start out thinking that just one of the partners is causing the problem. But we soon learn that both are responsible, in their own ways. Jamie has now slept with two other guys since Hugo left her, and may (though I doubt it) be falling in love with Nick (Ian Somerhalder - Lost's Boone! - he never met Penny on Lost, but it's good to see both of them on Tell Me You Love Me, anyway).

Carolyn (Sonya Walger - Lost's Penny) and Palek (Adam Scott): have for the most part been trying to have a baby (or, at least, Carolyn's been trying), and there are some good surprises in this story that I won't tell you about in case you haven't yet seen
them. I don't see much hope for this couple, mainly because Palek is, I don't know, such a pretty-boy cold fish.

David (Tim DeKay) and Katie (Ally Walker): As I mentioned in my review last month, I find this relationship the most far-fetched: a couple sleeping together in the same bed, but haven't had sex in a year. I mean ... sooner or later, they're close together, half asleep, something should lead to something more ... but, ok, leaving that aside and suspending my disbelief ... Theirs is indeed a complex story, and more than it seemed at first. Katie is contributing to the problem. She confided last night that, when she and David were having sex, she sometimes faked her orgasms... And maybe more than sometimes. I predict that by the end of this season, we'll see this couple making love again, but it will be interesting to see how they get there.

Dr. May Foster (Jane Alexander) and Arthur (David Selby): are clearly a fourth couple, which is a nice touch, since Dr. Foster is also the couples' therapist treating each of the other three couples. We see May and David having some pretty passionate sex - though not as explicit as the first two couples - and I give Tell Me You Love Me credit for going into that largely uncharted territory of hot sex in your seventies. (Hey, it's always good to see a rosy future.) Their problem as a couple is probably the most mundane - a lifelong love of May's, played by Ronnie Cox, comes back into her life when his wife dies. But the story is well rendered.

All said, then, Tell Me You Love Me is keeping the promise it made in the first episode: a portrayal of sex and relationships in diverse walks of life in the 21st century, with not much left covered. The acting is really excellent throughout, and if some of the stories seem a bit strained, the passion of the players more than makes up for it.


5-minute podcast of this review


See also Tell Me You Love Me on HBO and Tell Me You Love Me on Tell Me You Love Me: Episode 8

---

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

Tell Me You Love Me on HBO

I saw the first episode of Tell Me You Love Me on HBO On Demand last night.

It begins this Sunday, and I was going to wait until then to see it, like a normal person, but (a) who says I'm normal and (b) reporters from the Christian Science Monitor and the Baltimore Sun called in the past week to interview me about whether I thought Californication and Tell Me You Love Me represent a new leap forward in sexuality on television.

They do. Network television was and to some extent still is the old maid of media when it comes to sexuality. NYPD Blue made a little bit of progress in the 1990s, but it was HBO on cable which made the big breakthrough in the Bada Bing on The Sopranos, and went even further with Atia and Brutus (separately) in Rome.

Now even that has been surpassed by Hank and his continuous escapades in Californication, and the three couples we see in imperfect and intriguingly difficult relationships, in and out of beds and cars and clothes, in Tell Me You Love Me.

My favorite is the youngest couple - Hugo and Jamie, played very well by Luke Farrell Kirby and sizzling Michelle Borth. Their problem is the most common - they have great sex but Hugo has wandering eyes. Carolyn and Palek - also well played by Lost's Penny (Sonya Walger) (did she give up looking for Desmond?) and Adam Scott - are having trouble conceiving, which is making their sex into clinical baby making motions. And David and Katie - also well acted by Tim DeKay and Ally Walker - are in their 40s, and haven't had sex in a year.

All three couples are or will be headed to couples' therapist Dr. May Foster - Jane Alexander - who has been giving great performances since the Great White Hope in 1970. Dr. Foster may have the best sexual relationship, with her husband Arthur (David Selby), of any couple on the show, but you never know...

So ... three, actually, four couples, all trying to get the most of their physical and emotional relationships, with varying degrees of success. Lots of explicit sex, lots of nudity - yeah, front and back, women and men - and, yeah, if you must know, even more than in Californication.

There will be no doubt be lots of informed and uniformed discussions about whether what we're seeing is real or prosthetic.

Doesn't really matter, I'd say. The stories are real and captivating, even when a litte far-fetched (like David and Katie), and I'm looking forward to more Tell Me You Love Me.

Likely under the influence of the more libertine Internet, which is increasingly a form of television, the screens in our living rooms are growing up, and that's a good thing.

See also Tell You Love Me Seven Times and Tell Me You Love Me on Tell Me You Love Me: Episode 8

5-minute podcast about Tell Me You Love Me

---

Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Rent-a-Car, eBags, eHarmony, eMusic, Nutrisystem

---

See also:

The Sopranos As A Nuts-And-Bolts Triumph of Non-Network TV

Good Sex on Rome, Bad FCC in Washington

---

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!

Californication Going On Mondays

Californication debuts on Showtime tonight.

I saw an advance copy of the first episode, and was laughing my ass off.

Tom Kapinos' writing is brilliant. David Duchovny's Hank Moody and Natascha McElhone's Karen are called to school to hear a guidance counselor or whoever express concern about their daughter's behavior - they're unmarried parents. The guidance person starts out by saying how good the daughter is in many ways. Hank quips, I sense "a hairy but" coming.

He's a writer whose book is made into a big movie he doesn't like (I only wish I had that problem). He's a font of funny quips - someone's voice sounds like a "dialtone," he says (for some reason, I liked that line - I think I've spoken to that same person - used to be Director of a program I taught in years ago).

And ... the sex is great, and hilarious. Hank gets woken up in the morning with oral sex, later gets punched twice in the face while having sex with a hot chick he picked up in the bookstore reading his book ... who could ask for more.

Californication promises to be the funniest, raunchiest show on television.

See reviews of other Californication episodes: 2 ... 3 ... 4 ... 5
... 6 ... 7 ... 8 ... 9
... 10 ... 11: Pivitol Mia ... 12: Californication Comes ... To a Season's End



5 minute podcast review of Californication

---

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

Derriere and Bosom on The Tudors: What the FCC Doesn't Want Us To See

The Tudors concludes its lusty inaugural season on Showtime next week. This was a time - the dawning of the Renaissance - that is perfect for exposition in the almost no-holds-barred television that HBO pioneered with The Sopranos, and Showtime is now pursuing with series such as Dexter and The Tudors.

These shows are intellectually daring - The Tudors has Thomas More talking about what to do about Martin Luther and his Protestant Reformation. Presumably the FCC would have no problem with that.

But the shows also have lots of sex and nudity. Precisely what would be lopped off if the FCC and Congress get their way, and extend their unconstitutional regulation of network television to cable. Until now, cable has gotten something a free ride, because it's not broadcast over the hallowed "public airways".

The sex on The Tudors has been passionate and frisky, if not as multi-faceted as on HBO's Rome, which still holds the record for the best sex in a sophisticated television drama (someone should come up with an Emmy for that).

But The Tudors has had at least one very prime shot of a derriere, and enough bosoms in various states of dress and undress to open a department store.

All of that would be gone if the FCC and Congress have their way with us and our cable.

The feisty, delightful Renaissance drama would be turned into a show about a monastery, or just another bloodless, political chess game.

It's time to stop playing games with Congress and the FCC, and let them know how we feel about their depriving us of our right to enjoy television, like Rome or The Tudors.

If you like these shows, bear that in mind the next time you hear what the FCC and Congress are trying to do with their new legislation. If they have their druthers, that's precisely what you will no longer be able to see on your television screen.

Useful links:

History So Colorful You Can Taste It ... History So Real You Can Feel It ... Penalty of Royalty ... Madrigal Musical Chairs ... Tectonic Chess ... Henry's Imperfect Apothecary ... Limits of Power ... Wolsey Falls in a Soaring Performance ... my reviews of The Tudors

Naked Bodies, Three Showings a Week, No Commercials:
The Sopranos as a Nuts-and-Bolts Triumph of Non-Network TV my 2002 article

Good Sex on HBO's Rome, Bad FCC in Washington like it says...

---

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