Criminal Minds 7.1: "This Is Calm and It's Doctor"

"This is calm and it's Doctor," Spencer tells the jackass Senate Committee Chair who has been interrogating Spencer and the BAU team - he told Spencer to calm down and called him Mister - in the superb return of Criminal Minds for its seventh season tonight.

It would have been even better had not everyone on our side of the screen who had been conscious for the past few months known that Emily would be returning.  Indeed, the exchange of looks between Hotch and J. J. about the announced death of Emily last season had already signaled that she was alive, as did the brief scene of her and J. J. in a cafe a little later.

But it was a powerful episode anyway, with each character getting some good moments in the sun as the Senator questioned and chided them about the unorthodox operation that saved Declan and brought Doyle to ultimate justice.  It was for the most part more like an episode of NCIS or 24, which was refreshing departure for the BAU crew.

But there's still unfinished business within the team, even though it is stronger than ever with J. J. and Emily back on the job.   Morgan is justifiably bitter about Hotch not telling him (and the rest of the team) the truth about Emily, and Hotch has lied once again - a lie of omission - by not indicating that J. J. also knew the truth.   He did this to nobly protect her, but with a high-powered, brilliant team like this, no good ever comes from hiding any truth.

Which is good news if we're looking for another tense, powerful season of Criminal Minds.   One thing I did miss tonight were the opening and closing quotes.  But it was a very different kind of episode - more about the team than the suspects - and we at least have that fine quote from Spencer.

See also Criminal Minds in Sixth Season Premiere ... Criminal Minds 6.2: The Meaning of J. J. Leaving ... Criminal Minds 6.3: Proust, Twain, Travanti ... Tyra on Criminal Minds 6.13 ... Criminal Minds 6. 17: Prentiss Farewell Part I ... Criminal Minds 6.18: Farewell Emily ... Criminal Minds 6.19: Fight Club Redux Plus ... Criminal Minds 6.20: Emily's Ghost ... Criminal Minds 6.21: The Tweeting Killer ... Criminal Minds 6.22: Psycho and a Half ... Criminal Minds 6.23: The Good Lie ... Criminal Minds Season 6 Finale

And Criminal Minds 5.22 and the Dark Side of New New Media

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

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Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...

Homeland on Showtime

I've seen the first three episodes of Homeland, thanks to a top-secret, crumpled envelope with a screener disk sent to me by Showtime.   It looks to be a wrenchingly powerful series, about POW US Marine Sgt Brody, who returns home to his wife and kids after nearly a decade in captivity.

Not, necessarily, great news, since CIA Officer Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) has just been told by an informant that an American has been turned by the Middle Eastern terrorist.  Is Brody that man?

He's certainly not completely comfortable with his family - especially his beautiful wife, Jessica (played by Morena Baccarin of V fame!), who's been having a serious affair with Brody's friend.   But that's likely not the reason Brody is acting weird, because we also see him looking at products for who knows exactly what in a home supply store, and getting up in the middle of the night for prayer - Islamic.

Meanwhile, Carrie has a drug problem, and her superiors are less than convinced of her acumen in any case.  Saul (Mandy Patinkin) is at least willing to have an open mind, and Patinkin puts in his customarily fine performance in the role.

Homeland of course has been compared to The Manchurian Candidate, but it's not clear at this point whether he's aware that he's been turned, or if it's all unconscious, as in The Manchurian Candidate.  I suppose there's also an outside chance that Brody is really a double agent - he really hasn't done any damage as of the end of the 3rd episode.

Showtime tried its hand with terrorist drama in Sleeper Cell a few years ago, which I actually thought was very good, especially in the first of its two seasons.  Homeland looks to be at least as good - with solid acting, action, story line, nudity, and a beat on current events that even mentions bin Laden is dead.   The series premiers right after Dexter on October 2, and I'll be back with more reviews later that month.

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The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

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Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...

NCIS 9.1: Unpacking Partial Amnesia

NCIS returned for its ninth season with a top-notch story featuring DiNozzo with partial amnesia and possible blood on his hands - blood from another NCIS agent.   Kate's sister Wendy  - a shrink - is tasked by Gibbs to coax the truth out of DiNozzo's mind.

It ain't pretty, and features another disagreeable SecNav, an FBI guy (Agent Stratton) played by Scott Wolf (last seen on the late reincarnation of V), NCIS agent Cade (shot but not killed last season). and E.J., who is actually more attractive than ever.  This time, Cade is shot and killed, but not by DiNozzo, who was set up by the bad guy to look like the killer.

The bad guy is Stratton, in league with sleazy Sean Latham (the real-life name of a University of Tulsa professor - just sayin' - I don't know him), and both are left very much standing (actually, sitting) at the end.   Good villains for the rest of this season.

E.J., alas, is just plain missing.  She was shot - by Stratton - too, so lack of a dead body is likely a hopeful sign.   I hope so for DiNozzo's sake - I think E.J. and he are good together.

You know, I was thinking as I was enjoying this show tonight, how come we never see NCIS even nominated for a major Emmy?  Not that the nominees last night are not great and deserving, but NCIS is great, too.

See also NCIS Back in Season 8 Action ... NCIS 8.2: Interns! ... NCIS 8.3: Tiff! ... NCIS 8.4: Gary Cooper not John Wayne ... NCIS 8.5: Dead DJ, DiNozzo Hoarse, and Baseball ... NCIS 8.6: The Written Woman ... NCIS 8.7: "James Bond Movie Directed by Fellini" ... NCIS 8.8: Ziva's Father 
... NCIS 8.9: Leon's Story ... NCIS 8.10: DiNozzo In and Out ... NCIS 8.11: "The Sister Went Viral" ... Bob Newhart on NCIS 8.12 ... NCIS 8.13: The Wife or the Girlfriend ... NCIS 8.14: Kate ... NCIS 8.15: McGee and DiNozzo's Badges ... NCIS 8.16: Computer Games ... NCIS 8.17: Budget Cuts ... NCIS 8.18: Gibbs vs. the Kid ... NCIS 8.19: The Deadly Book ... NCIS 8.20: CIRay ... NCIS 8.21: Mask and Eye ... NCIS 8.22: "I'd Rather Have a Lead" ... NCIS 8.23: Answers and Questions ... NCIS Season 8 Finale

And see also NCIS  ... NCIS 7.16: Gibbs' Mother-in-Law Dilemma ... NCIS 7.17: Ducky's Ties ... NCIS 7.18: Bogus Treasure and Real Locker ... NCIS 7.21: NCIS Meets Laura ... NCIS Season 7 Finale: Retribution

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The Plot to Save Socrates



"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

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Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...

Dexter 6 Sneak Preview Review!

I saw the first three episodes of the new season (6) of Dexter last night - courtesy of a Showtime screener delivered in a cool blood-evidence envelope- and here's what I can tell you (slight spoilers ahead) -

• Personnel surprises in the Miami Police Department very relevant to our crew.   Look for unexpected promotions and otherwise
• Hot new intern working under Masuka - who would certainly like that in more ways than one, and you never know
• Harrison is already talking about "Daddy's box" (which would be Dexter's box of memento blood slides)
• Dexter is up against a two-person killing team for the main villain - could spell twice as much trouble for him
• the individuals that Dexter brings his justice to, on a weekly basis, are at this point far more interesting and vivid than we've seen in previous seasons (in some of the previous seasons, the weeklies were either neglected or almost an afterthought - quite the opposite so far in Season 6, in which the weeklies are almost as fascinating as the double main villain)

All in all, an excellent, tantalizing start to this superb series.  Religion, sicko science, a little nudity all spice up the stories.  The religion is especially vexing to Dexter, since he professes to "believe in nothing".  Good twists in every episode, Dexter as sharp as always with his voice-overs, and everyone looking as good or better than ever promise a top-notch, intense, cerebral and physical season - or just the way we like it.

The season starts in real time on Showtime on October 2.

See also Dexter Season Five Sneak Preview Review ... Dexter 5.4: Dexter's Conscience ... Dexter 5.8 and Lumen ... Dexter 5.9: He's Getting Healthier ... Dexter 5.10: Monsters -Worse and Better ... Dexter 5.11: Sneak Preview with Spoilers  ... Dexter Season 5 Finale: Behind the Curtain

And see also Dexter Season 4: Sneak Preview Review ... The Family Man on Dexter 4.5 ... Dexter on the Couch in 4.6 ... Dexter 4.7: 'He Can't Kill Bambi' ... Dexter 4.8: Great Mistakes ... 4.9: Trinity's Surprising Daughter ... 4.10: More than Trinity ... 4.11: The "Soulless, Anti-Family Schmuck" ... 4.12: Revenges and Recapitulations

See also reviews of Season 3: Season's Happy Endings? ... Double Surprise ... Psychotic Law vs. Sociopath Science ... The Bright, Elusive Butterfly of Dexter ... The True Nature of Miguel ... Si Se Puede on Dexter ... and Dexter 3: Sneak Preview Review

Reviews of Season 2: Dexter's Back: A Preview and Dexter Meets Heroes and 6. Dexter and De-Lila-h and 7. Best Line About Dexter - from Lila and 8. How Will Dexter Get Out of This? and The Plot Gets Tighter and Sharper and Dex, Doakes, and Harry and Deb's Belief Saves Dex and All's ... Well

See also about Season 1: First Place to Dexter

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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

Who's the Leak on The Closer?

With The Closer ending its Summer 2011 run, and only a few episodes left for Brenda Leigh Johnson in the Winter finale, the question looms larger and more crucial than ever - who on the team, or close to the team, has been feeding Brenda's nemesis Goldman the information he wants to use to destroy her?

Episode 7.10 concluded with Goldman brandishing files of all of Brenda's cases - how did he get those, who pointed him in their direction?

Pope has been a quietly despicable character this season, and it wouldn't be surprising at all if he was knifing Brenda in the back - even more than he did when he directed Raydor to continue her investigation.

We know that Gabriel disagreed with some of Brenda Leigh's actions and directives, so it wouldn't be shocking if he was the leak.   That's logical.  But gut-wise, I just can't see him as the traitor.

Then there's Commander Taylor, who has been in competition with Brenda Leigh since the beginning,  and whose career hasn't exactly flourished in the past few years.

That's about it for obvious choices.  I guess I would go with Pope out of the above.

But what less obvious culprits?

Captain Raydor has been almost nothing but supportive of Brenda this season - but could she be playing some sort of double game, designed to get Brenda out of the picture?   Why would she do that?  To take over Brenda's job, or even become the new Chief?

Fritz of course loves Brenda.  Could he be seeking to get her out of the job that has almost killed her in two out of the last three episodes?   A long shot ... nah, I can't see Fritz doing that ... but he did say last night that Brenda is using up her nine lives.

As for Provenza, Flynn, Tao, Sanchez, and Buzz - I can't see any of them turning against Brenda, for any reason.

That's what's making this closing of The Closer so good - in addition to the excellent action scenes. My best guesses at this point are Pope, Raydor, and, as an extreme long shot, Fritz.

See you back here this Winter.

See also:  The Closer 7.2: Pope   ... and Who's the Leak on the Closer, Part 2

And  The Closer 6.1: The New Building ... The Closer 6.2: Fun Bumps ... The Closer 6.11: Andy Flynn

And from Season 5:  The Roots of Testimony on The Closer and Finding Killers vs. Hearts on The Closer and Brenda Leigh's Niece and Libby from Lost on The Closer and Tom Skerritt on The Closer and Det. Richard Tracy on The Closer and Pres. Laura Roslin vs. Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson  and The Closer Closes on a Fine Note for the Season

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The Plot to Save Socrates



"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

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Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...

Review of Connected: A Triple Threat Movie by Tiffany Shlain

Just saw Tiffany Shlain's new documentary Connected: An Autoblogography about Love, Death & Technology via private online screening.  I saw an earlier version about a year ago, and was well impressed both times.

The movie is actually three in one -

1. Connected is a sagely and even delightfully presented story of our interconnectedness as a species - among ourselves, all living things, and the technologies through which we extend ourselves and give substance to our imaginations, plans, and desires.   In its warnings about what we can do wrong - such as Mao's killing of sparrows to improve harvests (sparrows eat seeds) which resulted in massive crop failure (fewer sparrows resulted in more locusts, also eaten by sparrows) - Connected is cousin to Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth.  In the hope it holds out for our new media, it is the kind of movie Buckminster Fuller might have made.

2.  Connected is a passionate biography of Leonard Shlain (1937-2009) - Tiffany's father - whose The Alphabet versus the Goddess (1999) argued that the advent of the alphabet over earlier forms of writing encouraged masculine thinking and dominance.   In its daring media determinism and historical sweep, the book put Leonard Shlain on a par with Julian Jaynes as a worthy successor to Marshall McLuhan in provocative and mind-opening hypothesis.

3. But Connected is most of all an autobiography of Tiffany Shlain, who recounts her inspiration by her father, her struggle with his passing, her struggle to make sense of the curves the universe has thrown her, and in one way or another, throws at all of us.   That's what it means to be an intelligent being in this world, someone who doesn't just accept what she or he finds, but seeks to understand it, get a little on top of it, and thereby have a little bit more say and control over the course of our lives and the world.

Narrated by Tiffany Shlain and Peter Coyote. Animated bits by Stefan Nadelman (of Food Fight fame). Highly recommended for students of media - indeed, for students of life.

Connected opens in major cities in America in September - here 's a list - and Fordham University will be hosting a special free screening on September 25 as part of its Media at the Center McLuhan Centenary symposia.

Note added October 14, 2011:  I was at the premiere screening in New York City - at the Angelika Film Center - earlier this evening.  The movie's better than ever on the big screen, and the audience loved it.  It's become increasingly clear to me, in the past few weeks, that Tiffany Shlain's movie is the story of humanity, and recent history in particular, leading up to the healthy resurgence of direct democracy in the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street - triggered, stimulated, facilitated by the advent of social media, or what I call New New Media.  Which is what I'll be talking about when I lead a discussion with the audience after the October 19, Wednesday, 7:15pm screening, at The Angelika.

The FCC Finally Does Something Right

Good for the FCC for formally eliminating the Fairness Doctrine, which it wisely hadn't been enforcing anyway for twenty years.  The last thing we need is the government having any say whatsoever in the political content of radio and television broadcasts.

As a case in point, consider the advent and growth of cable TV news.   Without any FCC supervision, we have conservative Fox, progressive MSNBC, and down the middle (if usually boring) CNN.  In other words, the marketplaces of ideas and money brought about a very well balanced system of news delivery and commentary.

The next thing the FCC should do it is eliminate itself - or, at very least, the fines it has been levying against broadcasters it deems to be putting out "objectionable" content.   Like the Fairness Doctrine and just about everything the FCC does other than keeping track of broadcast frequencies - increasingly unnecessary in our age of Internet streaming - the FCC is in principle and practice a blatant violation of the First Amendment.

Sholem Aleichem and Marshall McLuhan

I saw Joseph Dorman's 2011 documentary, Sholem Aleichem: Laughing in the Darkness, with Tina last night.  Superb footage and sage commentary about the man born Sholem Rabinovich in Russia in 1859, who died world-renown under his pen name Sholem Aleichem in New York City in 1916 (a year after my father was born here in 1915, four years after Marshall McLuhan was born in Edmonton in 1911).  Sholem Aleichem was known as the Yiddish Mark Twain.   Given one of his specialties in ironic endings of short stories, he also could have been known as the Yiddish O'Henry or De Maupassant.

But the Twain reference speaks most to Sholem Aleichem's relevance to Marshall McLuhan.  Mark Twain's ear for American vernacular, and capacity to put it on the written page, fired up his master works Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.  Aleichem did the same for Yiddish.  McLuhan provided tools for explaining this genius of both writers - hybrid energy, their capturing of one mode, the acoustic, and rendering it convincingly in another mode, the visual.

As Dorman's movie makes clear, Sholem Aleichem might have written in Russian, his native written language, or in Hebrew, the formal, sacred language of his people.  Instead, he chose to write in the shtetel slang he heard all around him.  This made him cooler than Tolstoy and the Talmud, a written rapper of his time.

McLuhan understood and wrote about the power of slang, including its transformation into cliche and in turn into archetype (see my Digital McLuhan and its discussion of McLuhan's tetrad for more).  Sholem Aleichem, alas, died a decade before his work would achieve its full archetype status - in the Soviet Union, Palestine, and America, in different ways, as the movie shows.

Laughing in the Darkness now buttresses that enduring status.   I had one quibble with the documentary - it made no mention of Joe Stein, who wrote the play, Fiddler on the Roof,  which catapulted Aleichem's Tevye the Milkman stories into theatrical and then cinematic prominence in the 1960s and 70s.  Although I studied Sholem Aleichem in the Workmen's Circle Yiddisheh shuleh in the late 1950s, and heard about him from my parents and grandparents, for many people Fiddler was their introduction to Sholem.

From the ear to the page to the screen, a McLuhanesque story of media evolution right there.

In Defense of Flashmobs and Blackberrys

I just heard Martin Fletcher on MSNBC say that, over in the United Kingdom, some people are calling for "crack downs" on Blackberrys, since messaging on them has been implicated in the assembling of the rioting mobs over the there.   Meanwhile, I was interviewed the other day in The Daily about talk in Philadelphia and elsewhere in America to limit flashmobs, responsible for violence in Philadelphia and other American cities.   My response to The Daily - “The Cairo flash mob had a very good result."

Think about it.   There no doubt were all kinds of criminal activities planned on telephones in the 20th century - should that have led to their banning or any across-the-board restrictions?   Aside from being an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment, such limitations would have been entirely unnecessary: we already have restrictions on criminal activities.

Banning or even general limitations on flashmobs not would not only violate the freedom of speech provision of our First Amendment, but its freedom to peaceably assemble, as well.  And they are similarly unneeded.  We already have ample laws on the books against looting and other criminal activities of crowds.   England does, too.

The Arab Spring, while not successful everywhere, has already peacefully spread to democracies in Israel and Spain.   The larger message of these assemblages of people, brought together through online invitations, and publicized through Twitter and other new new media (my name for media which transform consumers into producers) is that we may be witnessing a profound shift, even in democracies, from representative to direct forms of governance.  When elected representatives don't do their jobs, the people press to take more power.   This was always the case - and why we in the United States changed from selected to directly elected U.S. Senators a century ago.   But now the voice and wishes of the people can be heard as never before, through the smart phones in an increasing number of hands.

Governments would be wise to take this revolution seriously, and not disable it by even a well-meaning but unnecessary limit on smart phones and flashmobs in response to a summer of hooligans.

Falling Skies Concludes First Season

Falling Skies finished its first season last night - and took off with what promises to be a very new, unexpected wing of adventure next summer.

As I wrote here earlier, I always like to see a series grow as we watch it, with changes subtle and major throughout the season.  Falling Skies has been doing this, but took the changes to new levels in its Season One double-episode finale.

Gone is JFK High School, headquarters of our brave fighters and survivors.   The aliens were given its location by Rick, who, fortunately, now sees that the aliens don't want him back.

And gone also is Tom - not killed, not even taken captive, but leaving voluntarily with a humanoid alien, who communicates to Tom via Karen that Ben could still be transformed into an alien, and the only way Tom can stop that is if he goes with the aliens, who want to learn more about our species from Tom - in particular, how and why we have mounted such an effective resistance (including Tom shooting down an alien plane!).

One weakness in this dramatic plot turn is that Tom, having seen that Nick was deemed unsuitable for alien re-integration, might have realized that Ben would similarly be unfit - that is, that the aliens were bluffing about Ben.   But, on the other hand, we can understand why Tom would not want to take any chances, and his going off with the aliens makes for great possible story lines next year.

We also get a good goodbye kiss for Tom and Anne.   Meanwhile, Weaver, Pope, Hal, and all the other major characters are in good form.   And I'll see you here next year with reviews of the next season.

See also Falling Skies 1.1-2 ... Falling Skies 1.3 meets Puppet Masters ... Falling Skies 1.4: Drizzle ... Falling Skies 1.5: Ben ... Falling Skies 1.6: Fifth Column ... Falling Skies 1.7: The Fate of Traitors ... Falling Skies 1.8: Weaver's Story

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

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Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...

Politics and New Media live blogging of House Vote on Debt Ceiling

I asked my Politics and New Media grad class at Fordham University to live blog the House of Representatives' vote on the debt ceiling bill this evening.  Here are the results, including responses to Gabriella Giffords' return to the House for this vote.

DB http://unmsum11.blogspot.com/

KOC Helloreallifenyc.blogspot.com

AMcC capriciousramblings.tumblr.com

SG  http://anonymousblog-caveatlector.blogspot.com/

MP  mariaparonich.blogspot.com

AD  Dretheprophet.tumblr.com

EP www.estherpang.com

MS   http://furanimalrights.wordpress.com

EP  http://constitutionstate.blogspot.com/

AR  http://alexromblog.blogspot.com/

Falling Skies 1.8: Weaver's Story

Another fine Falling Skies last night - episode 1.8 - in which we finally a learn a crucial bit more about Captain Weaver (Will Patton), whose life prior to the alien attack has pretty much been a cipher until now.   The scoop is Weaver had a wife and two children, and he finds something in his wife's home (the two had been divorced) - her eyeglasses - which gives him hope that she and one of his children may still be alive somewhere.

His other child died after Weaver tried to remove a harness, which brings us back to one of the main continuing stories.  All of the harnessed children rescued by Hal and Tom, and operated on by Anne,  have healed, with the exception of two.  Ben is ok mentally, but he has much more than natural strength, and the harness connections on his back are still out there.  Rick is not ok mentally, and his continuing insistence that he's part of the aliens shows that Ben may not be quite out of the woods on  this yet, either.

Meanwhile, we have two new discoveries: a humanoid alien form, which/who seems to be superior to the skitters; and Anne's finding that the skitters themselves seem to be harnessed (except they carry the harness on the inside, which makes sense, since their shell or bone structure is external and their flesh internal).   The two taken together could be momentous: are the skitters and we humans both victims of the humanoid aliens?

One indisputably good discovery comes from Pope, the Sawyer-like (Lost) character in Falling Skies.  After delivering a nice, funny line about NPR as a weapon that could bore the aliens to death, Pope - with Matt's help - realizes that bullets fashioned from Mech metal can cut right through them, like a hot knife through butter.  At last, a real weapon for our side.

But in some ways, Weaver's story is the most significant: he was on the verge of throwing in the towel before he discovered his wife's eyeglasses.  This shows how fragile even the toughest of us humans are in this insane environment of near alien conquest of Earth.   Which is, alas, a quite realistic portrait of where we'd be if such an invasion occurred.

Season One two-hour finale next week!

See also Falling Skies 1.1-2 ... Falling Skies 1.3 meets Puppet Masters ... Falling Skies 1.4: Drizzle ... Falling Skies 1.5: Ben ... Falling Skies 1.6: Fifth Column ... Falling Skies 1.7: The Fate of Traitors

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The Plot to Save Socrates



"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

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Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...

Breaking Bad 4.2: Gun and Question

The long and short of Breaking Bad 4.2 is that Walter buys a gun for the purpose of killing Gus, before Gus kills Walter and Jesse, as Walter is sure Gus will, as soon as Gus lines up a reliable replacement for Walter.

Is Walter right about Gus' intentions?  Hell, yes.

Will Walter be able to follow through on his intentions (not yet an actual plan)?  Very likely yes.

So why then did Walt approach Gus's steely enforcer, Mike, with a request to set up a meeting between Gus and Walt?   Surely Walt must have known that Mike would almost instantly see through this, even if Mike hadn't spotted the gun which Walt worked so hard not to reveal.

Elsewhere, Hank's making a small bit of painful progress, but can barely stand the sight of Marie.  This is only slightly the result of her lack of appreciation of Hank's interest in minerals - which she calls rocks - and more much because her presence reminds Hank of the pathetic shape he feels he's in, and what he can't do now.   This is the result of the careful care she has given him - including emptying bed pans - and gets at the very heart of this series.

Breaking Bad continues its mix of following though, rather than skating around, the tough issues, and throwing in a less than comprehensible move which will no doubt lead to some sort of shocking surprise.  Fine, different television.

See also My Prediction about Breaking Bad ... Breaking Bad Season 4 Debuts

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The Plot to Save Socrates


"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

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Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...

Falling Skies 1.7: The Fate of Traitors

An excellent Falling Skies 1.7 last night, the best so far in the series.  I've said that before, which means the series is getting better and better.  Among the main things we learned last night -

• Ben is thoroughly with us.  His time harnessed has given him greater than his previously human endurance - in running as well as push-ups - but his loyalties are still with his family and species.  Indeed, he's one of the heroes in last night's story.
• Not so much Mike's son Rick, who was also liberated from the harness, but, apparently, only physically.  At the end of last night's episode, he reveals his continuing alien loyalties - especially disquieting, in view of his father's death at the hands of the humans in business with the aliens,
• But Pope is back in action, and he's heroic, too, as he saves Hal from death.  (Fine acting by Drew Roy as Hal, by the way - his intonations are just like Noah Wyle's, who plays his father.)

But back to the humans doing business with the aliens - giving them our children in return for the traitors' own safety - one thing I didn't like at the end of last night's episode was letting them go free.  In reality, I'm against the death penalty (because of the danger of innocent people wrongly convicted).  But in this fiction of an alien invasion, they - the human adults we saw working with the aliens - deserved the firing squad.

Looking forward to the last two episodes of this season.

See also Falling Skies 1.1-2 ... Falling Skies 1.3 meets Puppet Masters ... Falling Skies 1.4: Drizzle ... Falling Skies 1.5: Ben ... Falling Skies 1.6: Fifth Column

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

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Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...

MSNBC Up to Its Old Tricks: Fires Cenk Uygur

The news broke this past week that Cenk Uygur was going the way of Keith Olbermann, at least insofar as being shown the door at MSNBC.   Al Sharpton is now on in Uygur's 6 pm hour, and is said to be Uygur's likely permanent replacement.

I like Sharpton, but am once again dismayed at the short shrift MSNBC gives to its hard-working, passionate anchors.   Uygur, though sharing a strong progressive perspective with Olbermann (which I generally share as well) actually ran a show which had little in common with Countdown on MSNBC.   Uygur happily interrogated Republicans (Olbermann by and large only had guests who agreed with him) and dished out plainspoken logic in contrast to Olbermann's often florid hyperbole.

But what both also had in common was a stubborn, refreshing insistence on calling events and issues as they see them, including criticizing the President, even though he's obviously part of the party the two usually support.   And this, apparently, was too much too much for the frightened, shallow people who call the shots at MSNBC.

But that's ok.  We now have Olbermann on Current TV, and Uygur will no doubt show up there or somewhere else, and if Current TV would only get itself into a few more cable lineups, there would be even less reason to watch MSNBC than there is now.

The Closer 7.2: Pope

As The Closer slides smoothly into its 7th - and sadly, final - season, Will Pope is emerging as the most interesting character, to say the least.   First, in the wake of Delk's dropping dead last week, Pope is now the interim police chief.   This disavantages the hapless Taylor, and one might think it would be of great help it to Brenda Leigh, but -

Far from it being a lucky break for our heroine, Pope now being in charge may be a disaster for her, which she doesn't yet know yet quite see.  When Raydor tries to close the investigation into what happened at the end of last season, when Brenda set up a vile perp for his comeuppance, Pope insists that Raydor continue with her investigation, and forbids her from telling Brenda what's going on.

Pope, in other words, is turning out to be an out-and-out traitor, and only Fritz has an unblinded perspective on this.   It's rare to see a character have such a profound change in personality, but, then again, there were some elements of this in Pope vis-a-vis Brenda all along.  He certainly has the age-old motive of unrequited love.

Top this off with a good whodunit story, and The Closer is off and running with a great season - in fact, one that might well be among its best.

See also:  The Closer 6.1: The New Building ... The Closer 6.2: Fun Bumps ... The Closer 6.11: Andy Flynn

And from Season 5:  The Roots of Testimony on The Closer and Finding Killers vs. Hearts on The Closer and Brenda Leigh's Niece and Libby from Lost on The Closer and Tom Skerritt on The Closer and Det. Richard Tracy on The Closer and Pres. Laura Roslin vs. Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson  and The Closer Closes on a Fine Note for the Season

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

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Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...

Falling Skies 1.6: Fifth Column

Fifth columnists - those who live amongst us in wartime, but who are in league with the enemy - are nothing new in war.    They're therefore now a factor in Falling Skies, where our enemy comes from outerspace.

This cadre is not the harnessed kids, who now live with the aliens.  Nor are they those freed from the harnesses, such as Ben.  He apparently still has positive feelings for the aliens, but so far he's likely done nothing on their behalf.

No, the fifth column - at least at this point - consists of just one guy, a military man from another unit, who talks our people into sending the children along with him for safety from an impending alien attack.  Tom's not happy about it, but Ben talks him into it (does this mean that Ben is working with the aliens? maybe) and Tom then in turn sways the others, many of whom are understandably loath to let their children out of their sight or at least site.  (That would have been my position as a parent, for sure.)

The one bright note in this is Tom's oldest son Hal has gone along with the kids, presumably because he is concerned about Ben.  And Ben could turn out to be thoroughly loyal to his human family and species, despite the hints that he may not be.

So the fifth columnist will have his work cut out for him, as he delivers a human girl to a harnessed girl (who can speak, which make her more dangerous), and turns his attention to the children of our heroes and heroines, who don't yet know that their kids are a just a beat away from being turned over to the aliens ....

See also Falling Skies 1.1-2 ... Falling Skies 1.3 meets Puppet Masters ... Falling Skies 1.4: Drizzle ... Falling Skies 1.5: Ben

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

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Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...

Breaking Bad Season 4 Debuts: Jump Cut in Blood

Well, I was mostly wrong in my prediction about what we would find out about the last scene of season 3 of Breaking Bad in the debut of its fourth season last night.   But I was right about one thing - Victor is dead - even though I was wrong about who killed him.

That would be Gus, who we learn last night is not only ruthless and brutal in the orders he gives, but in his personal conduct.   Victor had to die because he failed to protect Gale, ok.   But the way Gus dispatched him was so bloody, literally, that the clean-up took a long few minutes in the story, and AMC felt obliged to post a warning about the "intense" violence.   From a cinematography point of view, mopping up blood on the floor allowed for a nice jump cut to pushing around ketchup on a plate.

So this is what Jesse and Walter will be up against this season.  As Walter explains to Jesse, their days are numbered.   Gus will let them live only until he finds someone as good or better to do the cooking.  But is there anyone who can cook better than 99% pure?   As the very first scene last night made clear, there may always be someone better.

See also My Prediction about Breaking Bad

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The Plot to Save Socrates



"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

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Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...

My Prediction about Breaking Bad

As we wait for the beginning of season 4 in just a scant few hours, here's my prediction about what we'll find happened in that last scene at the end of season 3 of Breaking Bad:

We saw Jesse fire his gun, but at an angle that looked to be maybe slightly off target from the geek who was about to become Mr. White's replacement.  I think Jesse was firing not at the geek, but the killer who was rushing to the geek's house to save him and kill Jesse.

I'm thinking Jesse will either kill or badly wound the killer, and then maybe take the geek at gunpoint over to where Mr. White is being held.

I'll be reviewing the first episode of Breaking Bad here tonight - and will from now on be reviewing every episode - and will either crow or eat crow about my prediction.

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

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Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...

True Blood 4.3: Amnesiac Eric

Eric loses his mind at the end of True Blood 4.2, as the witches' coven turns the tables and exerts a surprising resilience to his powers.   In 4.3, we find that he didn't lose all of his mind, just his personal identity.  In other words, he still know he's a vampire, but has no recollection of Sookie, owning her house, what he's been up to since he became a vampire lo those centuries ago.

What Eric will get back of his lost identity, and how this happens, will make for a good continuing story.  But, for now, the crucial question is how this will alter his relationship with Sookie.

He's still deeply attracted to her, without understanding why.  He'd love to bite her, make love to her.  Sookie could have used this as an opportunity to sleep with him, and staying more in control of the relationship than if Eric knew who he was, but of course goodie two-shoes won't do that.  Too bad - that attitude is one of the annoying things about Sookie.

Meanwhile, her brother Jason is in the hands of the panther people who have no such qualms.  It's getting to the point now that every major character is becoming or is already supernatural.  Who's left who's not:  Hoyt and the Bellefleurs?

Well, I guess that's ok by me.   After all, if it's just plain old humans who interest you, you've got just about every other series on television.

See True Blood Back for Season 4

See also: True Blood 3.1: Oxygen vs. Phone ... True Blood 3.2: King and Wolves ... True Blood 3.3: Rolling Eyes and Spinning Heads ... True Blood 3.4: Running Hot, Winning Names ... True Blood 3.5: Square, Love, Crown, Power ... True Blood 3.6: True Life and Death ... True Blood 3.7: Lorena and the Magister ... True Blood 3.8: Break Up to Make Up ... True Blood 3.9: The King and the VRA ... True Blood 3.10: "Medieval on TV" ... True Blood 3.10: Here Comes the Sun ... True Blood Season 3 Finale: Concrete and Bubbles  

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

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

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

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Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...

Falling Skies 1.5: Ben

I like television shows that make real progress, if not from episode to episode, at least over the course of a season.  Falling Skies made such a move last night in episode 1.5

From the beginning of the series, Tom's guiding goal has been to get Ben back with him.  No easy task, because of deadly alien resistance to rescues, and because the harnesses could not be removed without killing the victims.   The second problem received some resolution two episodes back, as the outside doc who had a history with Tom was able to more or less successfully remove a harness - the "less" coming from the control that the alien in the cage still had over the formerly harnessed boy.

Last night we got some satisfying resolution to the first problem, as Matt bravely infiltrates the ranks of the harnessed captives.  In one of the best sequences of the series so far, we get a sickening taste of life with the aliens - as the skitter cuddles up for the night with its (her?) human captives - and then Matt with back-up from Tom and his unit free the captives and bring them back to their sanctuary.

All but one survive the removal of the harnesses.   Ben is among the survivors, and seems to recover more quickly than the previously liberated boy.   Anne understandably feels bad about the boy who didn't make it (as my grandmother used to say, if you hurt a finger, it doesn't lessen the pain to realize that the other four fingers are fine).

I hope Ben is fully back with his species and family.  Falling Skies now has an opportunity to branch out into other areas, and there are lots awaiting.   On the other hand, the captive alien killed the doc, and may yet be able to exert some control over Ben, and/or some of the other rescued kids.

See also Falling Skies 1.1-2 ... Falling Skies 1.3 meets Puppet Masters ... Falling Skies 1.4: Drizzle

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The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

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Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...

First Presidential Twitter press conference

Just watched the first Presidential Twitter press conference - mostly on MSNBC, which stopped its live coverage about 10 minutes before the press conference was over.  I saw the rest on the more reliable Twitter site.

Like all firsts - such as the first YouTube Presidential debate, back in the 2008 campaign - the Twitter event was as much show as substance.   But there were some good questions and answers, and I think the event was therefore worthwhile.

Herewith a few helpful, friendly criticisms:

• The "curation" or screening of questions gets in the way of the democratizing point of this kind of event.  Obviously, no President or any one person could answer or even read the multitude of Tweets.   My suggestion is randomly select the Tweets that the President will see and respond to.
• Along these same lines, the inclusion of Tweets from House Speaker Boehner and New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof only get in the way of a Twitter press conference being a real expression of the people.  Neither Boehner nor Kristof need Twitter to get their ideas in front of President Obama.  Most other Americans do.
• Obama needs to work on his pronunciation.  The funniest part of the press conference was when he pronounced a Tweeter named "Schnapps" or "Shnapps" as "Shnepps" (apparently Obama has never had a schnapps?  Oy!)

But, all in all, a good first effort the President and the Twitter sector of new new media.  I hope we'll see more.  And this will be the first lesson in my "Politics and New Media" graduate class which I begin teaching at Fordham University tonight.

 

Falling Skies 1.4: Drizzle

An ok Falling Skies 1.4 on Sunday - not much was happening or falling, which is why I think of this episode as just a drizzle.

We did learn a little more about the aliens - they have human-like emotions, and this will make it easier for us to combat them.   But their control over the harnessed kids seems to be even deeper than first thought - it continues even when the harness is removed and the victim survives - and this will make the task of humanity, in particular the parents of harnessed kids, even harder.

But otherwise, no big surprises or wrenching developments.  To some extent, we're all junkies for the jolt of the unexpected in our television shows.   But that's a tough row to hoe for a series - in the case of V, for example, the surprises happened so often that we got used to them.

Maybe Falling Skies will be a different kind of alien invasion series, with a pace that defies expectations, because it throws in a quiet, more contemplative show once in a while.   I'll be keeping my eyes to the skies and the screens.

See also Falling Skies 1.1-2 ... Falling Skies 1.3 meets Puppet Masters

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The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

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Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...

my Readercon schedule - July 15-16, 2011

My Readercon 22 schedule (Burlington Marriott, Burlington, Massachusetts) - including my first public reading from "Ian's Ions and Eons" (Analog, April 2011) - follows ....

Friday July 15

6:00 PM    F    The Dissonant Power of Alternative Voicing. Glenn Grant, Paul Levinson, Kate Nepveu, Kenneth Schneyer (leader), Howard Waldrop. At Readercon 21, there was a panel discussion on the use of documentary text in fiction to lend "authority" to the voice. It can be argued, however, that alternative voicing strategies, particularly the use of documents, framing narratives, etc., are powerful precisely because they are not authoritative. Readers know that they are reading an incomplete version of the document, and consequently are led to imagine what is not being said. What lurks in the interstices between texts? What is this particular document-writer failing to say, or deliberately omitting? This panel will explore the use of dissonance occasioned by indirect voicing to make the reader a fuller, more active participant in the process of creating the fiction.

Saturday July 16

10:00 AM    VT    Reading. Paul Levinson. Levinson reads from Ian's Ions and Eons.

12:00 PM    Vin.    Kaffeeklatsch. Paul Levinson, Barry B. Longyear.

3:00 PM    E    Autographs. Paul Levinson, Rick Wilber, D. Harlan Wilson. 

Further details - including complete conference schedule and directions to the Marriott in Burlington, MA - over here.

Treme Season 2 Concludes

Treme Season 2 wrapped up business last night with a mostly happy ending -

• Albert is finally happy!  Yes, he is - he likes the money he made with his and Delmond's and the all-star recording, and he's up for more.
• Janette's not only back in New Orleans - to open her own restaurant, this time with some strong money backing - but she's in bed with her sous-chef Jacques.   Glad to see it - good for both of them.
• Davis is back on the air - at least, as a substitute host for a night.  Otherwise, he's come to terms with his not be being a big star.  He's still together with Annie - but I bet that she gets back with Sonny next year, and Janette has a least one roll with Davis.
• Sophia has come to terms with her father's suicide.
• LaDonna is finally back to her feisty self - getting to righteously beat on one of her vicious attackers.  After meting out this justified piece of personal justice, she feels better about the bar and her patient husband.

That's the good news.  On the other side of the ledger -

• Toni and Terry seem pretty close to finished - at least, for now - after Terry rudely badgers Toni for some evidence in a murder.  It's all for a good cause, but Toni doesn't know that.
• Nelson has to take a break from N.O. - his backer cuts him loose, because of his association with Oliver Thomas.
• Speaking of which, the Councilman is out of the race for Mayor, and arrested for bribery, just as happened in real life.

Kudos again to Thomas for playing himself - he did a good job - and to Treme's producers for giving him this role.

It was a good season - not as exciting as the first season, but weaving together an engrossing set of stories.   And the music was always great.   In fact, for this last episode, I have no favorite, because I loved them all - every swinging performance - especially the dazzling work at the Jazz Fest.

I'll see you here next year.  (By the way, I didn't get a chance to review last week's episode, but I liked it just fine.)

See also Treme Is Back! ... Treme 2.2: Bounce and Jazz ... Treme 2.3: Crime and Music ... Treme 2.4: Angry Albert ... Treme 2.5: "Today I'm Gonna Write a Song" ... Treme 2.6: "Phil Ochs Said" ... Treme 2.7: "One-Murder Mardis Gras" ... Treme 2.8: Antoine's Music ... Treme 2.9: Pied Pipers

And also Treme! ... Treme 1.2: "If you ain't been to heaven" ... Treme 1.3: Fine Sweet and Sour ... Treme 1.4: New Orleans, New York, Nashville ... Treme 1.5: Delicious! ... Treme 1.8: Passions and Dreams ... Treme 1.9: Creighton ... Treme Season One Finale: Happy Sad Life

And: My Favorite Moment in Treme (Season One)

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The Plot to Save Socrates


"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

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Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...