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.

Monday, April 20, 2009

In Treatment 3.1-2: Sleep and Ethics

Two brilliant episodes of In Treatment (third week, Mia and April) tonight (I have a feeling I'm going to be saying that a lot on Sunday nights)...

1. Mia's was one of the best sessions in the one+ years of the series so far, featuring memorably expressive acting by Hope Davis - all with her face - and almost more about Paul's relationship with Laura, last year, than we learned last year.

Mia provides a classic rendition of a woman who desperately wants to be loved, but is so sure that she won't, she pushes all potential lovers away. This includes Paul, whom Mia goads to anger in a variety of ways, and in fact succeeds, though Paul is about to contain it. Paul is a very special case in Mia's life, since she loved him 20 years ago as his patient. She suspects/hopes that he may have loved her. And, indeed, Paul has kept a recording of her piano playing, all of these years.

Mia's obsessed with Laura - having come upon her deposition in the Alex case - because she can't abide that Laura may have succeeded in seducing Paul, whereas Mia did not.

But what lifts all of this beyond tawdry soap opera is Mia's telling Paul that she wants to sleep in her lover's arms after making love. That one statement captures perfectly the vulnerability and fundamental human need that has gone unfulfilled in Mia all these years, for her whole life...

2. Sleep plays a role in April's session, too. She's gotten no sleep, she says, for the past few nights. She comes to Paul's office early, and falls asleep. Paul wakes her up.

We thus get a powerful metaphor for what Paul needs to do with April, and her cancer. She doesn't have the time to undergo conventional psychotherapy - she's needs chemotherapy. Paul is therefore in the difficult position of doing two things - getting April to understand what is troubling her mind, but doing this fast enough so she can get the treatment she needs for her body.

Tonight we learn that part of April's problem (of course) stems from her relationship with her mother. Paul needs to break through what April is telling him - that she doesn't want to burden her mother by telling her about her cancer. That's what's keeping her from getting treatment - she says she has no one else who can support her during this.

But how long can Paul wait for April to see the light? He promised April, last week, that he wouldn't tell anybody else about her condition. This presumably includes April's mother. But the time may be drawing near when he will have to make a choice. Which is the most ethical path: keeping your word to your patient and letting her die, or breaking your word so she can live?

I know which one I would choose, and I wouldn't wait too much longer...

See also: Back in Treatment on HBO ... Back in Treatment: Three More Fine Times ... 2.1-2: Fathers and Daughters ...2.3-5: A Senior, A First Love, A Boy and His Turtle

And Season One reviews: In Treatment on HBO ... 2. Scalding ... 3. Triangle ... 4. Love and Death ... 6. Paul's Greatest Strength ... 6. Paul's Boat ... 7. Alex in the Sky with Diamonds ... 8. A Princely Performance ... In Treatment Concludes (For Now)

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... good reading if you're in a doctor's office...

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

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Thoughts about Susan Boyle

The extraordinary success of Susan Boyle shows two things, seemingly contradictory, but in the end very gratifying about human nature.

People were surprised that someone who looks like Susan Boyle could have such a beautiful voice. This shows the initial shallowness that just about every one of us suffers from in one way or another: we tend to discount people who are not physically attractive. In that sense, we are no older, emotionally, than when we were nine or ten years old.

But the speed with which everyone recognized the beautiful talent of Susan Boyle shows that we also have more depth than meets the eye: we are excited, thrilled, to see that physical beauty is indeed only skin deep, and that you can't judge a book by its cover. What starts out as curiosity, driving more than 30 million people to YouTube, at this count, quickly transforms into a satisfaction, a deep delight, that someone so unexpectedly can have such a wonderful, joyous voice. We are pleased to our core to find that there are far more important things than what we look like, and that in fact visual image can be totally irrelevant to some of the best things in life. We feel good about discovering that, because deep down we already knew it.

Susan Boyle's success speaks to the deepest and best parts of our human natures. It also speaks to the continually growing power of social media and the Internet. There was once was a time, not that long ago, when a extraordinary event such as Susan Boyle's performance would be difficult or impossible to see and hear, if you didn't catch it the first time around on television. Nowadays, far more people are seeing the event on YouTube than saw it in the first place.

Susan Boyle will likely win the talent contest, but even if she doesn't she'll sell millions of records and have a spectacular career, and all of us will have won as well. She looks like the Statue of Liberty on that stage, a figure from another century, and has a voice for the ages that frees something very real and ever resident in the human spirit.

Friday, April 17, 2009

In Treatment 2.3-5: A Senior, A First Love, A Boy and his Turtle

Catching up with the second week's second three episodes of In Treatment...

The Walter thread - #4 each week - continues to shine. Part of the reason is that Walter is the oldest patient we've seen in the first two years In Treatment, and this shows a slightly different side of Paul. Not quite as on top of his game as Paul is with kids, but Paul is less threatened by someone Walter's age. And, as I mentioned last week, John Mahoney is just perfect for the part.

I'm continuing to like Paul and Gina more this year than last. Paul still offers the same resistance to seeing Gina - starting off just about the every session with protestations that he doesn't really want to see her as a therapist. But this year the presence of Tammy - Paul's first love, and, dangerously, also Gina's patient - makes the scenario more intriguing. (There's no way the two won't wind up in bed together.) Gina is also less maudlin this year, and therefore more enjoyable.

The presentation of the Oliver story is problematic. Paul's at his weakest when he's treating couples - Amy and Jake were the least interesting thread last year. And the story of Oliver's parents, who take up a good part of the episode, is so far not much more compelling than Amy and Jake's. But Oliver - well played by Aaron Grady Shaw - more than holds his own, an articulate kid with a self-image problem, and I'm looking forward to seeing how his story plays. (I also loved the fact the Oliver unintentionally left his turtle in Paul's office - the patient literally helping shape Paul's environment).

And I'll see you here, maybe as soon as Sunday night, with my review of Week 3, episodes 1 and 2...

See also: Back in Treatment on HBO ... Back in Treatment: Three More Fine Times ... 2.1-2: Fathers and Daughters

And Season One reviews: In Treatment on HBO ... 2. Scalding ... 3. Triangle ... 4. Love and Death ... 6. Paul's Greatest Strength ... 6. Paul's Boat ... 7. Alex in the Sky with Diamonds ... 8. A Princely Performance ... In Treatment Concludes (For Now)

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

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Lost Meets Star Wars and The Sixth Sense in 5.13

A quiet, emotional Lost 5.13 tonight, as befits a character - Miles - who can listen to the dead, and who is also the abandoned son of Dr. Chang aka Marvin Candle.

On the island in 1977, we see Miles meet his father - someone who left his mother and him, when Miles was just a few months old, and therefore Miles tells Hurley he is not interested in getting to know as an adult back in time.

But this scenario provides another touching time travel vignette, of a boy, now grown, getting a second chance to get to know his lost father.

Hurley encourages Miles, with some talk about Luke and Darth and the Empire Strikes Back. Not only that, we get another wink at the fun of time travel, with Hurley explaining to Miles that Hurley, who has seen the movie umpteen times, and knows every line, plans on writing the script and sending it to George Lucas.... (Hurley's becoming the resident science fiction discussant on Lost.) We also get a rare glimpse of Hurley's numbers - on the hatch, which is being built - and that reminded me how little we know of them. I'm guessing we won't find out more until next year.

Tonight also had some good flashbacks of Miles before he came to the island - including a plea from a group of guys not to go back to the island. Who are they? Ben's men? Maybe...

And in two weeks we'll see the next step in this story ... which features Faraday. There's only one reason he's coming back to the island in 1977 (after having left it, off camera). He's determined to save Charlotte...

5-min podcast review of Lost 5.13

More Lost - see : The Richard-Locke Compass Time Travel Loop ...

and Lost Returns in 5 Dimensions and 5.3: The Loops, The Bomb ... 5.4: A Saving Skip Back in Time ... 5.5 Two Time Loops and Mind Benders ... 5.6 A Lot of Questions ... 5.7 Bentham and Ben ... 5.8 True Love Ways ... 5.9 Two Times and a Baby ... 5.10 The Impossible Cannot Happen ... 5.11 Clockwork Perfect Time Travel ... 5.12: Ben v. Charles, and Locke' Slave

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

Monday, April 13, 2009

24 Season 7 Hour 18: Astonishing Surprise - Analysis

24 waited for tonight's Hour 18 to reveal the most astonishing surprise of the Season (7) ....

So astonishing, in fact, that I don't know if I believe it. But I'm not sure...

First, Hodges and his plan to launch missiles with bio weapons against American cities seems foiled. Tony blew up the Starkwood facility.

Jack's getting sicker. Kim comes to see him - and I thought that was a powerful scene. Say what you will about Kim Bauer and her role in the previous seasons of 24 - and I've said that I've been no great fan of that - but her relationship to her father is one of the bedrocks of the story of 24, and Kim and Jack played it just right tonight.

But that's not the astonishing surprise.

If you haven't seen this episode, don't read any further.

If you have - can it be that Tony is bad?

He apparently kills Larry Moss, who was trying to stop a bad guy with a canister of the weaponized prion.

Since I can't believe that Tony is bad, after all of this, I see only two possibilities:

1. Larry is not really dead. Tony just pretended to suffocate Larry - the way Jack did Renee, earlier this year. He needed to do that to get in the bad guy's good graces, so Tony could find any other bio-weapons. (The bad guy already knew Tony from his earlier work.)

2. Tony really did kill Larry, for the reason indicated above.

But I have to admit I'm not too sure about any of this. I would certainly prefer #1 rather than #2, but #2 is certainly better than #3 - Tony really is bad. Hodges did tell the President that she had no idea what greater evil she and the country would be facing ... Can Tony be a part of it?

Nah, I don't believe it...

But I can't wait to see in the weeks ahead.

6-min podcast review of 24 7.18

See also: Hours 1 and 2 ... Hours 3 and 4 ... Hour 5 ... Hour 6 ... Hour 7 ... Hour 8 ... Hour 9 ... Hour 10 ... Hours 11-12 ... Hour 13 ... Hour 14 ... Hour 15 ... Hour 16 ... Hour 17 ... Hour 19

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

Sunday, April 12, 2009

In Treatment 2.1-2: Fathers and Daughters

Two splendid sessions on In Treatment tonight -

1. Mia comes to see Paul - not as his almost-lawyer, but his erstwhile patient. This was an episode which, as a professor (not a therapist) I could thoroughly identify with. There's a profound asymmetry in the way profs remember students, and students remember professors, for the basic reason that students have been taught by far fewer professors than professors have taught students. I've taught thousands of students, and each of my students has been taught by probably not much more than a hundred professors, if that many. The numericals of therapists and patients are no doubt much smaller, but the same asymmetry applies.

So ... Mia remembers Paul far better than he remembers her. And the specialness of their relationship, from her point of view, is apparently not that they had an affair, but that she thinks he talked her out of having a baby - into having an abortion. This is looming larger than ever in Mia's life now, because she realizes that her child-bearing years are concluding. (This must be a concern of every therapist - to be contacted by a patient 20 years later, and find he or she holds you responsible for something they did or didn't do in their lives.)

Mia's relationship with her father (of course) also figures in her current situation. She relays a recollection of how her father made her feel grown-up when she was a little girl, by giving her coffee (mostly milk) in his shop. There's something about fathers and daughters which the writer of this episode keenly understands. I remember taking my daughter to a science fiction convention when she was a little girl, and letting her order an adult cut of steak. She was really happy, not just because she liked steak, but because she loved being treated like an adult.

2. April's session with Paul was even more intrinsically father and daughter. Paul's goal is to get April to an oncologist, so her cancer can be treated. He has to tread very carefully, and make sure his pressure doesn't drive April away. He seems to be navigating these dire straits almost perfectly, but the clock continues to tick...

As I mentioned last week, it's a pleasure to see Paul with teenagers and people in their early 20s - he's a professional completely in control of his emotions and strategies. In contrast, Paul's conversation with Mia is riddled, understandably, with personal responses, and it's often difficult to tell the difference between them and his professional responses. Kudos to Gabriel Byrne for a razor-sharp, satisfying rendition of these different states. He's played some great roles in movies, but his performance in these sessions is in class of its own.

And I'll be back late tomorrow or some time on Tuesday with my review of 2.3-5...

See also: Back in Treatment on HBO ... Back in Treatment: Three More Fine Times

And Season One reviews: In Treatment on HBO ... 2. Scalding ... 3. Triangle ... 4. Love and Death ... 6. Paul's Greatest Strength ... 6. Paul's Boat ... 7. Alex in the Sky with Diamonds ... 8. A Princely Performance ... In Treatment Concludes (For Now)

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

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Southland Debuts with Good Storylines, Appealing Characters, and Irritating Beeps

Southland - ER showrunner John Wells' latest creation - debuted on NBC this week. The LA cop show has an appealing ensemble of characters, promising story lines - and distracting beeps.

The good stuff, first ... Rookie Officer Ben Sherman (Benjamin McKenzie) and his mentor John Cooper (Michael Cudlitz) make a good team. The talk Cooper gives Sherman after Sherman makes a righteous kill - you have a front row seat to the most real action, a chance to make a difference in this world with your every move - was one of the best I've seen of this kind of scene. It's difficult for any cop story to be shocking and original after The Shield, but Southland had some nice twists, and a pace reminiscent of Hill Street Blues. And the dialog was--

Punctured by beeps. In a big step backward from NYPD Blue, it seems you can't even have a cop say "asshole" on network television these days. So we're treated on Southland, instead, to "ass[bleep]" any time an officer wants to voice such an opinion ... and that's the least of lacerations.

Here's a message to NBC: if you're so afraid of the FCC and Congress, get out of the television business. You do a disservice to your viewers, and freedom of expression, when you kowtow to unconstitutional FCC regulations. Southland clearly has a story to tell - let its writers tell it.

As it is, viewers are leaving network television for cable and the Internet in record numbers. People want real emotions, real language, real people in their fiction. If NBC wants to continue to be a significant player in the presentation of cutting edge, important entertainment programming, it needs to get its collective head out of its [beep].

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

Friday, April 10, 2009

The Sarah Connor Chronicles Season 2 Finale

A fabulous Season 2 - I hope not series - finale of The Sarah Connor Chronicles on Fox just concluded, in which we learn -

1. Catherine is a good Terminator - unless what we saw is some kind of ruse. But Catherine saves John (and Sarah and Ellison) with her liquid polymer powers (in a great scene in which she becomes a shield), and tells them she's working against Skynet, and her John Henry is as important to this cause as Sarah's John Connor.

2. John Henry's circuitry is unique - if a relay is swapped out, it will change him, change a small part of his cyber soul. This makes Terminators even more unique than humans - if a small part of our brain is swapped out, would that change our soul, psyche, or whatever it is that makes us who we are? Well, that probably depends upon what part of our brain.

Meanwhile....

Cameron and John have a fine, intense scene, in which, well, John gets about as close as we've seen to sleeping with her...

But Cameron leaves to break Sarah out of prison, in one of the best scenes in the series. Cameron's not "one hundred percent," as she puts it, after getting one of her eyes and who knows what else blown out. This sets her up, not in the best of shape, for a battle with John Henry, that we do not see. He gets the better of her - or, at least, he leaves her body in the room, and he goes into the future, with her chip. (Possibly this wasn't a battle at all - Cameron may have willingly given John Henry her chip, because she knew she was damaged, and a danger to John.) If Catherine is to be believed, John Henry with Cameron's chip in the future is good. At the very least, it gets John to time travel with Catherine to the future...

Where he meets his father, and Derek (before Derek traveled back to our time), and ... Cameron ... whew... (*Note added April 11, 2009: Lucila Mango commented below that it was it not Cameron but Allison Young - I think this is probably right, and creates possibilities for John having a full-fledged physical relationship with her. They could have children, which would make for all sorts of future scenarios.)

And Sarah and Ellison are back in our time ...

The series had a few missteps in the first two seasons, no doubt. Too much meandering with local stories, and not enough development of the major plot threads. But the series has redeemed itself powerfully in the past few episodes, and especially in this finale. I hope we get to see more.

PS - Excellent, memorable FBI interrogator of Sarah - fine performance by Joshua Malina.

6-min podcast review of Sarah Connor Chronicles

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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!

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 ...

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Fringe is Back - with Feral Child, Pheromones, and Bald Man

Fringe came back on Tuesday after a two-month break with Episode 1.15 - a top-notch story, one of the best in the series, which centered around a bald boy discovered in the nether reaches of a building about to be demolished. He bonds to Olivia, and helps her nab a nasty serial killer, "The Artist," who dresses his women victims up after killing them, and puts them on public display.

Walter and Peter are back in great form - lots of crazy, funny talk from Walter, with Peter providing sarcastic commentary, in between Walter coming up with his customarily brilliant insights and solutions. In this episode, Peter comes up with a solution, too.

Walter early on realizes that the bald boy is empathetic - not that he literally reads thoughts, but gets the feel of what people on his radar, such as Olivia, are feeling. Not only that, but he can do this at a distance, to the point of sensing things highly relevant to Olivia's case. A feral child, yes, but since this is Fringe, the child has fantastic abilities. (Walter also comments at some point that the boy may be older than he looks - I was thinking that, for all we know, the boy could be a guy with a crush on Olivia.)

Broyles is in fine form tonight, too - working with Olivia to get the boy into a home rather than surrendering him to some government agency.

So why did I put the bald man - the eternal bald observer - in the title of this review?

Well, in the last scene, as the bald boy is being driven to his new home, he passes a man on the street - a man whose presence disturbs the boy. No wonder that it does - it's the bad man, the eternal bald observer we see on the fringes of every episode of Fringe, who may well be an older version, relative, variant relative, of the bald boy whose story we just saw.

(Hey, come to think of it, Broyles is bald, too.)

6-min podcast review of Fringe

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 ... 10. Shattered Pieces Come Together Through Space and Times ... 11. A Traitor, a Crimimal, and a Lunatic ... 12, 13, 14: Fringe and Teleportation

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

Lost 5.12: Ben vs. Charles, and Locke's Slave

Just saw Lost 5.12 on DVR - after the Passover seder. The two stories have a lot in common, actually - release from bondage, quest to regain a promised land, intervention of forces greater than humanity - but, as far as I know, no time travel in the Jewish tradition....

Tonight's Lost was not that much about time travel, either, though we saw glimpses of Charles and Ben throughout time. We learned last week that Charles and El have some kind of authority over the island and Richard's people - though Richard, who in effect is the high priest in contrast to Charles and El's political authority, made it clear that he takes orders from no one.

Young Ben's recovery, due to Richard and the island's healing properties, puts him on a slow-moving collision course with Charles, which leads to Ben forcing Charles off the island, a few years after Charles tried to prevent Ben from "adopting" Alex.

We already knew part of the later piece of the story, in which Ben holds Charles responsible for Keamy's killing of Alex, as he holds himself even more responsible, too.

It plays out tonight. Ben comes to kill Penny - Charles' daughter - but Desmond stops him and beats Ben to a pulp (a common condition for Ben). Penny & Desmond may be my favorite couple on Lost, so I was glad to see Penny live. I have a feeling Penny may be out of danger now - at least, from Ben.

And later, back on the island, resurrected Locke leads Ben to confront the smoke monster, who lets Ben live, but summons Alex to tell Ben he must become Locke's slave.

So now it will be Locke with Ben in service versus the still dangerous Charles.

But I'd still like know why Richard - unlike even Moses - never ages, and if he's the only one.

6-min podcast review of Lost 5.12: Passover edition

More Lost - see : The Richard-Locke Compass Time Travel Loop ...

and Lost Returns in 5 Dimensions and 5.3: The Loops, The Bomb ... 5.4: A Saving Skip Back in Time ... 5.5 Two Time Loops and Mind Benders ... 5.6 A Lot of Questions ... 5.7 Bentham and Ben ... 5.8 True Love Ways ... 5.9 Two Times and a Baby ... 5.10 The Impossible Cannot Happen ... 5.11 Clockwork Perfect Time Travel

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

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

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

Back in Treatment, Three More Fine Times

In Treatment was back again on HBO tonight, with three episodes that rounded out this Season's five-episode premiere. As with last night, I realized how much I had missed listening in to this good often extraordinary conversation...

Starting with the Paul and Gina episode - last things first - I first have to admit that I left out an important piece of the Paul-Alex story when I outlined it here to you last night. Actually, I knew I was leaving it out, but was too lazy or impatient to figure out a way to put it in without taking the review too far off on a tangent. Score one, apropos Marshall McLuhan, for the medium being more important than the message.

But the message, which plays a significant in role in what Paul and Gina say to each other, is that Paul's love for Laura got somewhat in the way of his treatment of Alex, because Laura slept with Alex to make Paul jealous (she may have loved Paul, too). These are the kinds of things which Paul can discuss only with his mentor Gina, which makes their relationship unique. He can also tell her, in one session, how sick and tired he is of providing treatment, and then how determined he is to save April (from last night). Of course, Paul and Gina continue the tug-of-war that typified last year about whether it makes sense for Paul to see Gina, and of course he will. Also of significance is the way Paul's face lights up when his first love, dazzling Tammy Kent - one of Gina's patients now - walks in. As Gina said to Paul, it was good to see him smile.

Meanwhile, cases four and three back in New York look promising (at least, for us).

Walter - perfectly played by John Mahoney - is a rich CEO with anxiety problems which he (of course) doesn't want to acknowledge. Perfect timing for a storyline like this - though I'd guess that AIG execs won't be among the most avid viewers of In Treatment this year, if they were last year. Walter's anxiety, though, seems more tied to his beloved daughter, overseas in Africa, than to his business. We'll no doubt be learning more of what she means to him, and why, in the episodes ahead.

Nuclear family life is also the centerpiece of Oliver's story, whose parents are getting divorced but have not yet quite told him. Tonight's episode was mostly focused on why Oliver does not want to stay over at his father's house. Far from school, one reason. No food in fridge, another. But the real reason, as yet unspoken, is .... Well, my guess is some kind of sex has something to do it. Also, romantic that I am, I'm thinking how refreshing it would be if Oliver's parents did not get divorced.

I'm also noticing again, as I did last night, that Paul is really at his best when he's talking to children. There's no danger of his falling romantically in love with them, or being stung by something they say to him. As with Sophie last year, Paul's sessions with them are a pleasure to see.

But so is the whole series, and I'll be back here with more musing on this year's In Treatment, bright and early (or late, depending on your sleeping habits) next week.

See also: Back in Treatment on HBO

And Season One reviews: In Treatment on HBO ... 2. Scalding ... 3. Triangle ... 4. Love and Death ... 6. Paul's Greatest Strength ... 6. Paul's Boat ... 7. Alex in the Sky with Diamonds ... 8. A Princely Performance ... In Treatment Concludes (For Now)

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

Monday, April 6, 2009

24 Season 7 Hour 17: Voight Tour de Force

In tonight's Hour 17 of 24 Season 7, Jon Voight showed why he is an academy-award winning actor - as Starkwood boss Jonas Hodges, he shouts FBI bureau chief Larry Moss off Starkwood's premises (though Moss provides a good distractive play to keep Tony there), beats and throws over the railing Starkwood's Chair of the Board, and makes the President of the United States back down with quiet, tough talk, in between coolly planning every move. A tour de force of acting in an hour.

And the stuff of what Hodges says to the Chair, before he kills him, is instructive indeed. Starkwood, Hodges says, carried out every dirty mission the U.S. government asked it to undertake. When you consider that fictional Starkwood is clearly meant to call forth echoes of Blackwater in our real world, it becomes obvious, once again, that 24 is in no sense an endorser of the right-wing cabal than some zealots on the left imagine it to be. It certainly is not this year. It never was.

But back to the fiction on the screen: Jack's symptoms are getting worse. Turns out there may be some sort of stem cell treatment that could help him - but the donor has to be a close relative. Kim! Actually, I'm looking forward to seeing her again, which we certainly will, even though Jack is resisting.

Other good stuff tonight .... The President's daughter sleeps with the sleazy reporter, and outfoxes him (but I'm not sure Aaron would have allowed to her to go into the closed room, alone). Tony is great in the field. And the vice is now tightened, with Starkwood's missiles armed....

This powerful, wild Day of 24 continues...

See also: Hours 1 and 2 ... Hours 3 and 4 ... Hour 5 ... Hour 6 ... Hour 7 ... Hour 8 ... Hour 9 ... Hour 10 ... Hours 11-12 ... Hour 13 ... Hour 14 ... Hour 15 ... Hour 16

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

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Back In Treatment on HBO

Two people - Mia and April - were back In Treatment with Paul on HBO, and though the April story was grim and wrenching, it was good to see such good, trenchant television again. As with the first year - last year - the action is almost all conversation, and it's captivating and impressive indeed.

Mia is an attorney, and Paul comes to see her, not vice versa, because he's being sued for $20 million (far in excess of the $3 million his insurance covers) by the father of one of his patients, Alex, who may have committed suicide last year, when his plane crashed, after Paul certified that Alex was ready to return to pilot service. The Alex thread was one of the best last year. You can read more about it in reviews of last year's episodes listed below, but the gist of the story, for the purposes of the present season, is that Alex left Paul, after he and Paul moved from words to shoves, and Paul was not one-hundred percent sure at all that certifying Alex was warranted, when Alex returned and pressured Paul to do so...

Meanwhile, it turns out that Mia is not just any excellent civil attorney - she was a patient of Paul's, twenty years ago, and something happened between them, which perhaps involved their having an affair and more ... Paul sagely does not want her as his attorney, but she'll be showing up as his patient ... a great set-up for this year.

April's story is thus far the most wrenching we've seen In Treatment. She has lymphoma, progressed to Stage 3, and has not told anyone about it except a construction worker (she shot back to him that she had cancer, in response to his cat-call about why wasn't she smiling). The possibility of a cure - from what I could see online - is 70-80%, so it's not a death sentence, but she has to start treatment, fast. And she's resisting that.

Three more brand new patients tomorrow - this year In Treatment is on two rather than five days, with two patients on the first day, and two more plus Paul as patient with his therapist Gina on the second day. I'm looking forward to riveting conversation tomorrow and next week, and the powerful acting of Gabriel Byrne as Paul (he looks, understandably, a little more worn this year) and the cast portraying his patients. Allison Pill as April was especially effective tonight.

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Saturday, April 4, 2009

Profound Lessons from a Kidnapping in The Sarah Connor Chronicles

I said here last week that The Sarah Connor Chronicles has been getting better with every episode, and last night's Episode 2.21 was really better than just about anything previously on the series, and may be one of my favorite hours of television this season.

The kidnapping of Savannah - played just perfectly by little Mackenzie Smith - sets up an extraordinary sequence of scenes and conversations. John Henry (who I finally am beginning to agree is no Cromartie - that is, he may be good) tries valiantly to save Savannah. They have a great Terminator logic and bright little girl conversation. But John rescues her, and proceeds to also have a remarkable little talk with her, in which he learns about John Henry. Catherine Weaver's response to all of this is also highly instructive.

She reveals to Ellison that she cares as much about John Henry as her "daughter" Savannah. She recovers well, explaining to Ellison that John Henry could be crucial to Savannah's survival, which may well be true.

Now, we well know Catherine would care more about John Henry, the special Terminator, than about her human daughter who is not her daughter. But what's now fascinatingly unclear is what Catherine ultimately wants for the world. Until last night, I was sure she was bad. Now ... perhaps she's nurturing John Henry to be a good Terminator? Which would mean, what - John Connor in the future sent her back, on yet another variant of the saving the world mission? I still can't quite buy it, but the fact that I'm even contemplating it shows how good last night's show was in shaking up our assumptions.

One event which left no ambiguity was the death of Derek. He died with his boots on, defending Savannah and John from a Terminator. He was one of my favorite characters on the show. But to be consistent with what the show is all about, good brave people must die.

Sarah, who may have cancer after all, is captured at the end of the show - probably the result of Catherine's treachery. So we look forward to next week's season finale with Cameron as John's sole defender.... She was certainly in top form taking Terminator bullets in the chest for Sarah and John last night (but she should have destroyed the new bad Terminator, rather than just throwing him down the hill).

Should be good. And I'm rooting for another reason.

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Friday, April 3, 2009

ER Ends Softly

There is more than one good way to end a television series. One of my favorites is the camera pulls back, our characters recede, and we take our leave of them, along with the irresistible impression that they are continuing their lives and business as usual, lives and work which we have been privileged to see. The last scene of Star Trek: The Next Generation did a great job of that, with the camera pulling away from Picard and his top officers playing cards around a table. ER did that last night with John Carter and newer characters responding to an all-out out emergency...

ER started much the same way in 1994, except John Carter was just a med student back then. The series was immediately appealing, with its multiple stories and criss-crossing, fast-moving camera trajectories. This was a new mode of story telling on television, and, actually, still is.

The intense linear story lines of the Sopranos, the Wire and 24, the incredible, compelling complexities of Lost and Battlestar Galactica, the idiosyncratic brilliance of House and Bones - what I've been calling the new golden age of television drama - blew by ER, and left it spinning like a top...

Except, ER was already spinning, with a pace and style all of its own, from the very beginning. The doctors and students all jockeying for position, but all devoted to saving lives ... drinking in and pumping out adrenalin ... and you never knew exactly when the door would swing open with another life-and-death emergency, except you knew that it surely would.

I wrote here several weeks ago how good it was to see Doug Ross (George Clooney) and Carol Hathaway (Julianna Margulies), Peter Benton (Eriq La Salle), John Carter (Noah Wylie), and lots of the original nursing staff back for an episode. Benton and Carter were back again last night, as well as Susan Lewis (Sherry Stringfield), Kerry Weaver (Laura Innes), and Elizabeth Corday (Alex Kingston). It was also heartwarming to see Mark Greene's daughter Rachel (Hallee Hirsh), now in her 20s, seeking to join the ER team, picking up for her late father, and poised to pick up the John Carter role as medical student. The eternal cycle continues. John Wells, executive producer - show runner - of the series since its beginning, wrote both episodes.

The two-hour finale will air again on NBC this Saturday - well worth seeing if you've ever been a fan of the show. A last chance to see the life-savers outside of Chicago County General, as the ambulances swoop in, and the scene moves one last time from the pace on the screen to the soft recesses of our memories.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Damages Concludes Season 2 with Great Acting and Surprises

Tip-top Season 2 finale for Damages on FX last night, with some excellent surprises.

We've been treated for the whole season to scenes of Ellen shooting Patty. At first, we didn't know it was Patty. But then we saw Patty was indeed the person Ellen was talking to, and, worse, waving a gun at. In the past few episodes, we've seen Patty staggering out of the apartment, bleeding ... and the FBI guy phoning in that Ellen had shot Patty.

But could Ellen really have killed Patty like this? She had motive - she was sure that Patty had tried to kill her last year. But would she shoot Patty, unprovoked, at point blank range?

Turns out, in a well-plotted and motivated twist, that Ellen didn't shoot Patty at all - she fired over her head. So why was Patty bleeding? She had been stabbed in the elevator on the way to see Patty, which also explains why she had looked so shaken during her ensuing conversation with Ellen.

Also surprising but well motivated and very satisfying was the way Wes (well played by Timothy Olyphant) not only walked away from killing Ellen, but became her defender, and even saved Patty's life (after the FBI guy left to bleed to death in the elevator on the way down, after Ellen had left).

So Damages can chalk up a second powerful season. With especially superb acting this year by William Hurt and John Doman - who was great as the Acting Commish on The Wire - speaking of which, it was good to see Clarke Peters (the incomparable Freamon on The Wire) play a political, ruthless bad guy this time on Damages.

Other special shoutouts - SNL's Darrell Hammond as the demented killing machine the Deacon - I hope he comes back next year. Ted Danson was great again as Frobisher, and Michael Nouri as Patty's husband (now thrown out, like just about everyone else in Patty's life). Rose Byrne was attractive as Ellen, but the character felt a little more limited in range than in the first season. (It may well that she won't be back in the 3rd season).

Glenn Close was incomparable this season, as she was last, and I'm looking forward to more of this in Season 3.

See also: Lying about Damages ... 2.2: A Good World of Hurt ... Damages 1-10

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

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The End of Life on Mars in America

Life on Mars American style made its final bow last night, and I have to say I was disappointed, not because the short-lived series ended, but because it never really lived up to its potential.

I hear the British version, with a somewhat different story, is brilliant - and I look forward to seeing that - but the American version of Life of Mars brilliant was not. And that's saying a lot for me, because I'm always willing to give any story with even a whiff of time travel the benefit of the doubt, and usually much more.

Until the last few minutes of last night's finale, the episode did about the only thing the series was good at - providing brief instances of Sam's inexplicable, paradoxical life in 1973/2008-9. Last night had another compelling scene of adult Sam in 1973 watching himself on television in 2008 (taking care of an aged Norris), and a good exchange between adult Sam and his father in 1973, in which Sam's father says he knows that the adult Sam is his son. Gene (Harvey Keitel) and Ray (Michael Imperioli) were ok, but, as in the entire series, these two were acting way below their talent.

The denouement did wrap everything up, with some nice touches, but the "everything was just a dream" resolution, even when Sam is dreaming on a mission to Mars way in the future, is one of the tritest gambits in fiction and science fiction.

I'm glad the series tried to do something different, sorry it didn't do it better, and will look forward to seeing the British version when it's available in Region 1 DVD.

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

The Plot to Save Socrates

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Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Lost 5.11: Clockwork Perfect Time Travel

A brilliant, clockwork-perfect time-travel episode of Lost - 5.11 - tonight, along with a satisfying explanation, at last, of why Kate left Aaron back in Los Angeles.

First the time travel. The conversation between Hurley and Miles, early in the episode, covered the same ground I outlined in my review of 5.10 here last week. Young Ben's in critical condition. If he dies, that will change everything - Hurley, Jack, Kate, and none of our survivors from the first plane crash, now back on the island in 1977, would likely be there. Hurley is right, in this scenario, to look at his fingers and make sure he's not disappearing. But Miles (taking up the role of Faraday), correctly replies that since Miles and Hurley are in fact having this conversation in Dharma-ville in 1977, Ben had to have lived. Someway, somehow, he'll survive. Hurley then correctly asks Miles, so how come older Ben, having survived Sayid's gunshot, didn't recognize Sayid when they first ran into each in 2004 (or in when our Losties first ran into Ben).

Miles had no answer. I realized that Ben would have to recover with no memory of being shot - no memory of what led up to it - no memory of Sayid. Certainly patients who are seriously wounded as was Ben could have amnesia of events surrounding the inflicting of the injury.

Richard, who will bring Ben back to health, says Ben will have no memory of what had happened - he'll be changed forever. This not only provides a perfect resolution of Ben's being shot, but explains Ben's special connection to the island in the bargain. And Jack's not wanting to operate on Ben rings plausible and meaningful.

As was the case with the Desmond "constant" episode last year, this was about as perfect a time travel story as ever I've seen on television.

Meanwhile, we were given a fine, believable explanation of why Kate left Aaron - which has been a gaping question mark since she left him to go back to the island. The answer is that Kate realized she was taking care of Aaron as much for herself as for Aaron, who belonged with his grandmother. Put in the mix that Kate feels she has to go back to the island to find Claire, and it all starts to make sense. (It's still unclear, though, if Claire is alive - I was leaning towards no - but after tonight, I'm not really sure.)

Lost continues to fire on all cylinders in what is becoming my favorite season.

5-min podcast review of Lost 5.11

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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...

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