Boardwalk Empire 2.4: Nearly Flagrante Delicto

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

---

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

---

The Plot to Save Socrates




"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

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

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

---

---

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

Person of Interest 1.5: Potentials

Person of Interest is really beginning to come into its own, and I'm beginning to really enjoy it.  In tonight's episode 1. 5 we find that -

• Once again, Reese is fallible - that is, he's not a superhero who can always get the better of any number of bad guys whatever the fight.  A few episodes ago, he got knocked through a window or a door (he did pretty quickly recover).  Tonight he arrives just as a judge's son is being kidnapped, does his best to stop a team of cold killers, but gets stopped by a shot of something in the shoulder.  This makes him more appealing as a character - he's only human, albeit one knows how to shoot, punch, etc. with usually devastating impact.
• Reese is grateful for the job Finch has given him.  He was none too happy about it at first, and he's gradually warmed up to it over the past few episodes.  I like evolutions of characters in a given season.
• Reese and Finch may have an ally they can call upon in some future episode - Judge Samuel Gates (played by David Costabile, who had very memorable runs in both Breaking Bad and Damages).   Makes me hope that we indeed see more of the judge in Person of Interest.

About the only thread that I don't like much in this series is the local cop story.   Detective Fusco (played by Kevin Chapman, who was outstanding in Brotherhood) is a bore.   And Detective Carter (played by Taraji Henson) is alright.  But their stories don't really add much to the central Reese and Finch story, other than the constant danger that Reese and Finch, especially Reese, will be discovered and arrested.   But until this becomes a serious factor in the series, Carter's role is little more than a distraction from the main plot line.  I'd say the writers need to correct this, sooner not later.

But the overall theme of trying to stop murders before they happen remains compelling, and with Reese and Finch continuing to develop in unexpected ways, Person of Interest has a lot of potential.

See also Person of Interest of Interest  ... Person of Interest 1.2:  Reese and Finch

---

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

---

---

The Plot to Save Socrates


"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

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

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

---

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

NCIS 9.5: Behrooz's Mother

I first became aware of actress Shohreh Aghdashloo when I saw her on 24 for most of its 4th season a few years ago, playing Behrooz's mother, caught up in a major terrorist plot by her husband that endangered her son and put her on Jack Bauer's radar.  She gave such a powerful performance in that role, I've always thought of her since then as Behrooz's mother, including in a smaller stint last year on FlashFoward.

Tonight Shohreh Aghdashloo turns in another memorable performance as another mother caught up in a terrorist plot, in this case on NCIS 9.5 not only involving her husband of 30 years but one of her sons.  The stakes, it turns out, are high indeed, putting half of Norfolk Harbor at imminent, deadly risk.

Her performance also brings out a great hour from Cote de Pablo as Ziva, who, as we know, has deep and deadly family issues of her own.   DiNozzo manages to be the butt of significant humor, literally, with an apparent detergent stain on his pants giving CGIS (Coast Guard) Special Agent Abigail Borin (Diane Neal of Law & Order fame) a chance to rub his rear (of his pants, that is) in an attempt to remove the stain (that's the funny part) with no success, which then gives Abby the opportunity via chemical analysis to discover evidence of the terrorist plot (the significant part).


The team would like to see Gibbs and Borin get together romantically, but Gibbs is keeping his own counsel on this, and tells Ziva near the end that the team is his family.  Another tender moment from Gibbs at the end of an episode, which has become something of an endearing signature of NCIS this year.


Also worthy of note in this episode is the SecNav backing Gibbs not Leon in one call, and another scene near the end which hints at some kind of problem Secretary of the Navy Jarvis may be facing.  All of which more than hints of a continuingly interesting season of NCIS this year.


Hey, I'll be overseas next week - no, not as part of any world intrigue that I know of, but rather to give Keynote Addresses about Marshall McLuhan in Brussels and Copenhagen.  Depending on the availability of the current season of NCIS in Europe, it may be two weeks before I get a chance to see and put up a review of the next episode - which looks like a good one - but I'll see you then if not sooner.
 
See also NCIS 9.1: Unpacking Partial Amnesia ... NCIS 9.2: Lying to Yourself ... NCIS 9.3: McGee's Grandmother ... NCIS 9.4: Turkey Vulture as Explained by DiNozzo

And 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

---

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

---

---

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

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

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

---

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

House 8.3: Dr. Adams and Thirteen

Hey, Dr. Adams - the best thing about House 8.1 in prison, and someone whom I hoped we'd see more of (played by Odette Yustman) - is back on House 8.3, coming to work for nothing in Princeton Plainsboro, in search of a job offer.   She did the right thing in House 8.1, backing House's diagnosis, but of course was sent packing by her narrow-minded, by-the-book superior.

And Thirteen's back, too.   Together with Dr. Park, the two manage to help House find a cure for a patient suffering from crazy altruism (that's his most salient symptom).  Foreman is of course against a lot of this, realizing he's been played, and it turns out Park and House are playing Adams, too.  With House and his assistants, it's never unlikely to find a round of mutual scamming.

But Thirteen's reappearance may be only temporary, as was Cameron's last year, though I hope that's not the case in this case, for Thirteen.  And Taub and Chase are in the wings.  Both were mentioned as being ready to rejoin or reconstitute the team, if only House can get the money.  Which we know he likely will, sooner or later, even if he didn't quite get the nut tonight out of the cured irrational altruist.

But House did a get good haircut, and he's looking good, as is the prognosis for a fine Season 8.

See also House 8.2: Patient Lungs

And see also House and Cuddy on the Other Side in Season 7 Premiere ... House 7.2: House and Cuddy, Chapter 2 ... House 7.3: The Author and the White Lie ... House 7.9: The Vilda Chaya ... House 7.11: The Patient's Most Important Right ... House 7.14:  House, Death, and Cuddy ... House 7.16: Broken Hearts and their Repair ... House 7.17: Deadly Healthy Diet ... House 7.18: Thirteen Mysterious ... House 7.19: Rules ... House 7.20: Cuddy's Mother as Catalyst ... House Season 7 Finale: In Paradise

And see also House Reborn in Season Six? ... 6.2: The Gang is Back and Fractured ... 6.3: The Saving Hitler Quandary ... 6.4: Diagnosis vs. Karma ... 6.5 Getting Better ... 6.6 House Around the Bases ... Four's a Crowd on House 6.7 ... House 6.8 and the Reverse of Flowers for Algernon ... House 6.9: Wilson ... House 6.10: Back in Business ... House 6.11: Making Amends, Mending Fences, and a Psychopath  ... House 6.12: The Progression to Mensch ... House 6.13: Cuddy's Perspective ... House Meets Blogger in 6.14 ... House 6.15: About Taub ... House 6.16: Revealing Couples ... House 6.17: Socrates on Steroids ... House 6.18: Open Marriage

---

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

---

---

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

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

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

---

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

The Walking Dead Back on AMC

AMC's gory but erudite horror-drama The Walking Dead was back on the air last night, with a second season premiere that picked up pretty much where the first one left off.

Indeed, the story introduced no new characters, which was fine, because there's a lot more to be told about the characters we know.   Most of the action centered around trying to find Sophia - Carol's young daughter - who walks off near a stream in a forest while Rick dispatches two menacing walkers.  This happens after a tip-top scene in which our band of survivors fend off and mostly elude a huge group of marchers aka walkers, as our group is one its way to Ft. Benning after the disappointment at the CDC in Atlanta.

But the most gut-wrenching moment comes at the very end, when Rick's son Carl gently approaches a buck with beautiful antlers, alive and almost shimmering in the forest.  It's a magical moment, showing Rick and Shane that there's still beautiful life in this world-  suddenly shattered by a rifle shot (likely from a human hunter) that goes through the deer and fells Carl.  The coming attractions indicate he's still alive, but this is the kind of moment, the awful juxtaposition of life and death, that makes The Walking Dead so powerful.

The other persuasive quality comes from the depth of the characters and the human relationships in this hell of a world.  The insane triangle - insane by normal standards - of Rick, Shane, and Lori is still very much in play, though there could be something good starting up between Shane and Andrea.   She's furious at Dale for forcing her to save her life as the price for saving his last season, and her fury is a good call on the part of the writers.

Looking again at the coming attractions, there are vehicles overhead somewhere down the road in this season, which spells some kind of ultimate hope for our people, and explains exactly why I'll keep watching.   The key to The Walking Dead's success, I've thought from the beginning, is life is putting up a good struggle indeed.

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

---

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

---

---

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

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

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

---

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

Occupy Wall Street, Direct Democracy, Social Media: A Thumbnail History of Media and Politics Since Ancient Athens

The role of social media in triggering and facilitating the now world-wide Occupy Wall Street protests - of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google+, and kindred systems in getting word out about Occupations, and documenting them for the world to see and join - has been remarked upon so often as to almost seem a cliche.  But the link between social media and direct democracy is true and profound, and is the current culmination of an evolution of media and political expression that began in ancient times.

Back in the city state of Athens, in the time of Pericles, direct democracy arose, in part because of the new literacy that allowed citizens to be informed of public events and the views and actions of their leaders.   The words that these people read were handwritten, which meant that anyone who wanted to write and be read could do so.  Writing and publishing were just as about as easy, in other words, as reading.  

All of that changed dramatically with the invention of the printing press, which had the wonderful result of spreading the written word to millions, but the anti-democratic effect of greatly reducing the ratio of published writers to readers.   Millions of people became accustomed to reading words written by a handful of others.   Unsurprisingly, when democracy slowly re-emerged in the Renaissance and the Age of Reason, it was not the direct democracy of Ancient Athens.  Instead, it was a representative kind of democracy, in which elected officials made all the decisions, and all the people could do was vote the representatives up or down.   This was almost exactly parallel to the transformation in information production and reception brought about by the printing press, in which all the people could do is read and agree or disagree with a book or manifesto or pamphlet, and in no way write or produce it, unless you were in the less than one-percent of the population fortunate to have a monarch's or a printer's (later publisher's) favor.

This inequality of producer and consumer - few producers and legion consumers - was not only continued but exacerbated by the advent of broadcast media, which reduced the number of producers (harder to get your views on radio and television than in newspapers, which at least has letters to the editors) while increasing the number of consumers.   People in representative democracies became better informed, but the information was created by fewer and fewer people.  In some countries, such as the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, this inequality was masterfully mined to do away with democracy altogether.

The introduction of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube in the first decade of the 21st century shifted that ratio back to a more even distribution of producer and consumer for the first time since the handwritten manuscript held sway in Ancient Athens.   These new media live online, but they were unlike other new media like Amazon and iTunes, which still run for the most part like traditional publishing media, with few producers and many consumers.   In contrast, any one can Tweet, post a status on Facebook, upload a video to YouTube - any consumer could become a producer.  That's why I say these new social media are not just new but "new new media".

People in the streets, demanding freedom and justice in the Arab Spring, and redress of economic grievances in the United States, Europe, and Asia, are the healthy and long-overdue political expression of the revolution in social or new new media.  The Occupy movements are expressing a dissatisfaction with others making decisions for us - with our elected representatives doing the bidding of banks rather than the people who elected them.

With means of expressing one's political views in almost everyone's pockets and hands, the age of mass media and representative democracy may well be in irreversible decline, replaced by the more equitable system of direct democracy in which the majority not only truly rules, but in which everyone's views can get a public hearing, and everyone can vote at any and all times.   Campaigns such as Dylan Ratigan's to "get the money out of politics" may be well meaning, but miss the point that it's representative democracy itself that must go or be transformed into a system of democracy that always moves to the people's views.

I talked about all of this a bit more and led a discussion after the 7:15pm screening of Tiffany Shlain's new movie Connected, at the Angelika Film Center in New York City this Wednesday, October 19.

I also discussed many of these issues on Good Day Street Talk, Fox-NY-5, on a panel taped on Thursday October 20 and broadcast Saturday October.   Video is here:



Occupy Wall Street Chronicles, Part 1

Fringe 4.4: Peter's Back, Ectoplasm, and McLuhan

Peter's back in Fringe 4.4 - first in 1950s reality-unsettling ectoplasm, and then, at last, in the flesh.

If the coming attractions for 4.5 are any indication, Peter remembers everything, but Olivia and Walter still do not.   In 4.4, though, it's clear that Olivia is aware that Peter has been trying to contact her, via the ectoplasm that fleshed out (or in) in Reiden Lake, in our current time.  This of course is the same Reiden Lake where Peter drowned as a boy as Walter was trying to take him back to our reality in the Fringe v2 we've been watching this season, and the same Reiden Lake that figured so crucially in Fringe v1 of Seasons 1-3.

Also of note is the Eternal Bald Observer who watches as Peter appears currently in the lake.  This suggests that Peter's return is part of the EBO plan to deal with the "bleeding" of Peter into Walter and Olivia's minds, which we saw the EBO concerned about in the first episode this season.   And this further suggests that what the EBOs have given, they can yank away - that is, pull Peter back out of our realities, again, if for some reason they deem that in their/ours/who-knows-whose best interests. And, to make matters even more fun, the EBOs don't necessarily all agree on the best courses of action, and to what extent their best interests are the same as ours - but this sort of multi-valent interest is clearly in our, the audience's, best interest (or at least, mine, as a viewer - I like this kind of stuff).

Speaking of Walter, he gets a vote a confidence from Olivia, who checks a box indicating that she does not want him returned to the wretched mental hospital.  Regarding Walter's sanity, I'm always reminded of one of my favorite lines from Marshall McLuhan, that "the only people who have proof of their sanity are those who have been discharged from mental institutions" (from Take Today: The Executive as Dropout - see also my Digital McLuhan for more on McLuhan).

No Fringe on next week - World Series on Fox (I won't be watching, since Yankees won't be in it).  And I may not get a chance to watch Fringe in two weeks, either, since I'll be in Europe then, giving Keynote Address about - yes - Marshall McLuhan, in Brussels and Copenhagen.  But not to worry, I'll be DVRing and will post my review as early as possible in the week of October 31.

Hey, check out my essay The Return of 1950s Science Fiction in Fringe in this new anthology




See also Fringe Returns for Season 4: Almost with Peter ... Fringe 4.2: Better and Worse Selves ... Fringe 4.3: Sanity and Son

See also Fringe 3.1: The Other Olivia ... Fringe 3.2: Bad Olivia and Peter ... Fringe 3.3: Our/Their Olivia on the Other Side ... Fringe 3.5: Back from Hiatus, Back from the Amber ... Fringe 3.7: Two Universes Still Nearing Collision ... Fringe 3.8: Long Voyages Home ... Fringe 3.10: The Return of the Eternal Bald Observers ... Flowers for Fringenon in Fringe 3.11 ... Fringe 3.12: The Wrong Coffee  ... Fringe 3.13: Alternate Fringe ... Fringe 3.14: Amber Here ... Fringe 3.15: Young Peter and Olivia ... Fringe 3.16: Walter and Yoko ... Fringe 3.17: Bell, Olivia, Lee, and the Cow ... Fringe 3.18: Clever Walternate ... Fringe 3.19 meets Inception, The Walking Dead, Tron ... Fringe 3.20: Countdown to Season 3 Finale 1 of 3 ... Fringe 3.21:  Ben Frankin, Rimbaldi, and the Future ... Fringe Season 3 Finale: Here's What Happened ... Death Not Death in Fringe 
 
See also reviews of Season 2: Top Notch Return of Fringe Second Season ... Fringe 2.2 and The Mole People ... Fringe 2.3 and the Human Body as Bomb ... Fringe 2.4 Unfolds and Takes Wing ... Fringe 2.5: Peter in Alternate Reality and Wi-Fi for the Mind ... A Different Stripe of Fringe in 2.6 ... The Kid Who Changed Minds in Fringe 2.7 ... Fringe 2.8: The Eternal Bald Observers ... Fringe 2.9: Walter's Journey ... Fringe 2.10: Walter's Brain, Harry Potter, and Flowers for Algernon ...  New Fringe on Monday Night: In Alternate Universe? ... Fringe 2.12: Classic Science Fiction Chiante ... Fringe 2.13: "I Can't Let Peter Die Again" ... Fringe 2.14: Walter's Health, Books, and Father ... Fringe 2.15: I'll Take 'Manhatan' ... Fringe 2.16: Peter's Story ... Fringe 2.17: Will Olivia Tell Peter? ... Fringe 2.18: Strangeness on a Train ... Fringe 2.19: Two Plus Infinity ... Fringe the Noir Musical ... Fringe 2.21: Bring on the Alternates ... Fringe 2.22:  Tin Soldiers and Nixon Coming ... Fringe Season 2 Finale: The Switch

See also reviews of Season One 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 ... 15: Fringe is Back with Feral Child, Pheromones, and Bald Men ... 17. Fringe in New York, with Oliva as Her Suspect ... 18. Heroes and Villains across Fringe ... Stephen King, Arthur C. Clarke, and Star Trek in Penultimate Fringe ... Fringe Alternate Reality Finale: Science Fiction At Its Best

---

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

---

---

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

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

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

---

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

NCIS 9.4: Turkey Vulture as Explained by DiNozzo

The funniest NCIS of the new season, with a great head smack for DiNozzo (he says admiring words about the technique of the suspect - Gibbs administers the smack and comments laconically "he's a serial killer"), a great line from DiNozzo about a sexy older landlady who wouldn't mind getting Gibbs in bed (she's a "turkey vulture," DiNozzo helpfully explains, "20 years past a cougar - still likes to hunt, but too old to take down the prey"), and like that.

And this is sprinkled into a good mystery, in which it turns out that the Navy Lt Commander under the team's protection - thought to be the killer's intended victim -  turns out to be the killer.  But before we learn this, Ziva gets in some good moments - her best so far this season - serving as his bodyguard.


But the heart of episode 9.4 concerns Abby, who starts off eager to donate a kidney, and ends up learning she's been adopted.  Gibbs provides comforting words and arm at the end of the story, assuring Abby that she's doesn't have to face this unsettling revelation alone - that she has a family to support her, i.e., the NCIS team.

So this now makes something like the third episode in a row in which Gibbs serves as the team's nurturer - last week it was McGee, the week before DiNozzo, who got Gibbs' good treatment.  As I said in reviews of those past two episodes, I like this side of Gibbs.  We've seen it before - certainly to Ducky, and Ziva - but is this a new Gibbs, more expansive in his sensitivity?  Well, yeah, maybe - but then there was that spirited head smack.


See also NCIS 9.1: Unpacking Partial Amnesia ... NCIS 9.2: Lying to Yourself ... NCIS 9.3: McGee's Grandmother

And 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

---

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

---

---

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

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

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

---

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

House 8.2: Patient Lungs

Well, House is back in the hospital in House 8.2, in the most refreshing episode in a year, more or less.

Cuddy's gone - as we know (she's on The Good Wife, or Lisa Edelstein is) - and the only two major players that we know who are on the job in Princeton Plainsboro are Wilson, in his exact same job, and Foreman, who has replaced Cuddy as House's boss.  Nice, wise touch.

House's team consists of Dr. Chi Park, an intern who is about to leave for Chicago (ER or Chicago Hope?), because her former supervisor at Plainsboro grabbed her tush (House's word - she said "behind"), and she doesn't want the aggravation of bringing charges.   She's bright, and contributes as much to House's solution of the problem as most of his other assistants over the years.

The problem at hand is a sick pair of lungs that need to be cured so they can be transplanted into Wilson's patient who will shortly die without them.   Wilson unsurprisingly resists any overtures of friendship from House, and unsurprisingly reaches an accommodation with him by the end of the episode. (I've long considered the Wilson thread the weakest part of the series.)

But it's great to see House back - I missed the hospital and the total lack of familiar people in last week's prison debut - and his starting out anew, though of course done before on House, has almost an innocence in this show that was very appealing.

I'll be back next week for more.

See also House and Cuddy on the Other Side in Season 7 Premiere ... House 7.2: House and Cuddy, Chapter 2 ... House 7.3: The Author and the White Lie ... House 7.9: The Vilda Chaya ... House 7.11: The Patient's Most Important Right ... House 7.14:  House, Death, and Cuddy ... House 7.16: Broken Hearts and their Repair ... House 7.17: Deadly Healthy Diet ... House 7.18: Thirteen Mysterious ... House 7.19: Rules ... House 7.20: Cuddy's Mother as Catalyst ... House Season 7 Finale: In Paradise

And see also House Reborn in Season Six? ... 6.2: The Gang is Back and Fractured ... 6.3: The Saving Hitler Quandary ... 6.4: Diagnosis vs. Karma ... 6.5 Getting Better ... 6.6 House Around the Bases ... Four's a Crowd on House 6.7 ... House 6.8 and the Reverse of Flowers for Algernon ... House 6.9: Wilson ... House 6.10: Back in Business ... House 6.11: Making Amends, Mending Fences, and a Psychopath  ... House 6.12: The Progression to Mensch ... House 6.13: Cuddy's Perspective ... House Meets Blogger in 6.14 ... House 6.15: About Taub ... House 6.16: Revealing Couples ... House 6.17: Socrates on Steroids ... House 6.18: Open Marriage

---

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

---

---

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

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

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

---

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

Levinson re: McLuhan 2011

I've been having a blast bopping around the world and talking on the radio about Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) on the hundredth anniversary of his birth this year.  My talks and interviews mainly have been about McLuhan's relevance to today's world - how his notion of the global village and related ideas explain the impact of social media on the resurgence of direct democracy that we see in the streets all around the world today - sprinkled with reminiscences of the few years I had the pleasure of working with McLuhan at the end of the 1970s.  I've listed the major talks and interviews below, with links to videos and podcasts where available ...

Keynote Addresses, Lectures, and Panels

• Keynote Address, "McLuhan, North Africa, and Social Media," McLuhan at 100, Saint Francis College, Brooklyn, NY  February 25, 2011 see video
• Keynote Address, "The Global Village Fulfilled: How McLuhan's Vision of a World Information Environment Has Come True in Facebook, Skype, and Smartphones," Cybergarden, Media Institute of Katowice, Poland, May 21, 2011 (via Skype)
• Keynote Address, “Understanding Social Media: How McLuhan’s Probes Help Us Make Sense of Today’s Media," Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, Spain, May 24, 2011 see video clip; see interview given before Keynote
• Lecture, "Digital McLuhan," McLuhan at the Center, Fordham University, Lincoln Center, NYC, September 17, 2011
• Lecture, "The Global Village, Direct Democracy, and Occupy Wall Street," after screening of Connected movie by Tiffany Shlain at The Angelika Theater, NYC, October 19, 2011
• Keynote Address, "McLuhan's Glosses as Facebook Statuses and Tweets:  How the Sage of Aquarius Continues to be a Guide to our Digital Age," McLuhan's Philosophy of Media – Centennial Conference, Brussels, Belgium, October 27, 2011
• Keynote Address, "McLuhan, the Arab Spring, and the Resurgence of Direct Democracy in the World," The Legacy of Marshall McLuhan - Revisiting the Message, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, October 31, 2011
• Panelist, "Media Ecology, Medium Theory, and McLuhan," McLuhan 100 Conference, University of Toronto, November 8, 2011
   

Radio interviews, July 21, 2011

• on Brian Lehrer's show on WNYC Radio, listen to podcast
• on Wisconsin Public Radio's To the Best of our Knowledge (re-broadcast on WNYC and nationally), interviewed by Jim Fleming, listen to podcast
• on eight CBC (Canadian Broadcast Co) broadcasts
• on two ABC (Australian National Radio) broadcasts

Podcasts

• "Voice Mail from Marshall McLuhan, 1978"  Light On Light Through podcast, November 7, 2011
• Conversation with Bob Dobbs, hosted by Andrew Chrystall, McLuhan on Maui 2011 MoMday night Seminar 32 podcast, November 19, 2011
  

 And here's a link to my 1999 book, Digital McLuhan

See also Alex Kuskis' McLuhan Galaxy and Laureano Ralon's Figure/Ground for comprehensive listings of all scholarly events McLuhan in 2011.

Added in 2017:  McLuhan in an Age of Social Media - in effect a new chapter of Digital McLuhan

Boardwalk Empire 2.3: Frankenstein and Victrola

Nucky finally confronts Jimmy in Boardwalk Empire 4.3 - in Babbette's restaurant, where Nucky goes out to dinner with Margaret and another couple, and Jimmy is dining with the Commodore and the Governor.   The immediate cause of the confrontation - what gets Nucky to walk over to Jimmy's table, and throw the Commodore's plate of lobster thermidor on the floor - is Nucky's frustration at Margaret's ordering of the lobster, only to be told that the last dish with lobster had just been served a few minutes ago.  There ensues a great scene in which Nucky calls Jimmy on his shift in loyalties and Jimmy has to be restrained by the Commodore from getting physical.

The real source of Nucky's fury, of course, is the systematic attack on his livelihood being mounted by the Commodore and Jimmy.   Not only has he been thrown in jail and subject to investigation by the authorities, but his booze trade is in serious peril as the Coast Guard, now in the Commodore's pocket, is blocking Nucky's shipments from the sea.   Nucky even calls the Federal Attorney General - appointed by the corrupt President Harding whom Nucky helped get in office - only to be told that the Feds have no jurisdiction in state matters.

About the only bright spot for Nucky - other than Margaret - is the IRA leader's man Owen who is staying behind in America, and is eager to help Nucky.   Owen goes gun to gun with Richard, to stop a delivery of the Commodore's liquor, in another fine scene, in which neither man fires.  The two have a mutual respect, and it will be interesting to see how that plays out. 

Speaking of Richard, he's earlier referred to as "Frankenstein" by Al Capone, in town to give Nucky yet more bad news.  The reference was a bit of an anachronism - although the Mary Shelley novel was published a century before, and the character certainly famous in a literary sense, the movie that put the name of the Doctor and the face of the monster on the map was not made until 1931.  Thomas Edison had made a Frankenstein movie in 1910, and it was indeed made in his New Jersey studios, but it is highly unlike that Al Capone in the 1920s would have known anything about it.

Eddie Cantor and his rolling eyes were certainly around in the 1920s, and his visit to pregnant Lucy was a pleasure to see (and hear - great Eddie Cantor accent by Stephen DeRosa).  Lucy's story in this episode at least had something of a happy ending, as Van Alden buys her the VV-80 Victrola she's been yearning for.

And I'm yearning for the next episode of this fine period drama.

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

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

---

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

---

The Plot to Save Socrates



"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

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

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

---

---

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

Breaking Bad Season 4 Finale: Deceptive Flowers

Well, the Season 4 finale of Breaking Bad was stunning, though I called the very last scene about a minute or two before the end of the ending.

The episode early on gives us one of the best lines of the season as Jesse, questioned by cops about how he knew his girlfriend's son was poisoned by ricin, responds that he "saw it on House".  The nature of the poison - it turns out not to be ricin - and the poisoner proves to be the biggest twist in the finale.

But, first, Walter masterminds a daring plot to blow up Gus, in the aftermath of Gus having walked away at the last minute from his car rigged with a bomb by Water.  Where can Walter get another chance to blow Gus up?   Walter enlists Tio - who hates Gus more than he hates Walter, as Walter ingenuously puts to Tio - and there ensues one of the darkly funniest and breath-taking sequences in the series, as Walter gets his man.   The last we see of Gus is his face falling off, like a scene from The Walking Dead, except, barring a cross-over over between the two series, Gus is really dead dead.  (The Walking Dead does start its second season next week ... nah, only joking about the cross-over.)

Meanwhile, Jesse's released by the cops, because it turns out his girlfriend's little boy was poisoned by a chemical found in lilies of the valley, in berries that little kids sometimes eat.   It was touch and go in the hospital, but the boy will survive.

Walter and Jesse go on to blow up the lab under the laundry,  Walter tells Skyler he's won, and Walter, noting with satisfaction Gus's car, still in the hospital parking lot, drives home.

That was the point where I realized what we would see back at Walter's premises.  Gus had insisted last week that he had no connection to the boy's poisoning.  Walter had convinced Jesse otherwise, getting Jesse to believe that Gus poisoned the boy to turn him against Walter.  It was a clever piece of reasoning, and it convinced us in the audience (or, at very least, me) as well as Jesse.

But in the twist of twists we find that Walter poisoned the boy after all, in order to enlist Jesse in Walter's plan to kill Gus.  We see a pot of lilies of the valley by Walter's pool.

Should we be stunned that Walter would do such a thing - endanger a child's life like that?  No.  And not because we know Walter is so ruthless.  Rather, Walter was willing to play the apparently good odds that the boy could be saved if brought to the hospital, soon enough.   (Maybe he even called in the correct diagnosis, once Gus was safely dead.)

I guess that does make Walter pretty damn ruthless.   But it's been clear since almost the beginning of the series that Walter is not your typical high school chem teacher, that he'd do almost anything necessary for his family to survive, and maybe all we learned tonight is that Walter is willing to go a little further than we thought.  That, and confirmation that Breaking Bad is one of the most remarkable stories ever to be told on television.

See also My Prediction about Breaking Bad ... Breaking Bad Season 4 Debuts ... Breaking Bad 4.2: Gun and Question ... Breaking Bad 4.11: Tightening Vice ... Breaking Bad 4.12: King vs. King

---

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

---

---

---

The Plot to Save Socrates


"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

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

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

---

---

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

The Playboy Club Closes on NBC

Nervous NBC, never one to stay with a series that shows any signs of weakness, has canceled The Playboy Club after three episodes.

The series did have plenty of weaknesses -

• no nudity - NBC, like all networks, still marches in lockstep to the FCC's unconstitutional restrictions -  The Playboy Club would have done better on a premium cable station, with no restrictions on dress or language
• no great acting from most of the bunnies, who tended to rattle off their lines
• a gay story that made no sense (unlike the way it was treated on Mad Men)

On the other hand, the music was appropriate and fabulous.  The third episode featured someone who sounded and looked like Leslie Gore singing "It's My Party" (probably the singer and the actress were two different people).  You don't see or hear Leslie too often these days.

And the political story - the lead male running for State Attorney, and having his sights on higher office - was pretty good.  As was the mobster story.

But the Parents Television Council - self-appointed guardians of our welfare - launched a campaign against the show.  And with ratings not the greatest to start with, advertisers were happy to leave the show, and NBC, as per usual, almost eager to admit to poor judgment in programming (not poor moral judgment, but mistaken programming because the show was floundering in the ratings).

And so it goes.   The course of true television programming never did run smooth.

See also The Playboy Club

---

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

---

---

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

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

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

---

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

Fringe 4.3: Sanity and Son

Fringe 4.3 tonight gave us another good, classic science fiction story about a fungus among us that's not only a killer, but connected to a boy.  He's bright, articulate, but in the end the mystery of the fungus is less important than his conversations with Walter, which tell us exactly how he lost Peter (alternate Peter from the other side) in this reality in which Peter never existed.

In our reality, Walter lost his original Peter the same way as always - Peter succumbed to that deadly illness as a boy.  Water crosses over into the other reality to take alternate Peter back with him - just as in Walter's original history - but this time, Peter dies when the ice cracks on the lake as the two are crossing.

So now we know the moment that our original and original alternate realities diverged from the new dual realities with no Peter that we've been seeing this season.  (See, I told you this was more important and interesting than the fungus.)   Knowing this moment allows us to fine tune the question of what happened to alt-Peter-the-boy when he "drowned" in lake.

I'd bet he didn't drown, but was whisked away by the Eternal Bald Observers who are keeping him in some meta or third universe now - the universe from which the ETOs derive.  Maybe Peter's not being kept there, but is playing some kind of more active role.   We do know that Walter and Olivia have been seeing him in reflective surfaces (Walter) and dreams (Olivia).

Walter's situation was especially poignant tonight, as he tries to resist the notion that his seeing and hearing Peter - whom Walter doesn't quite yet know is Peter - means Walter is losing his mind.  Dr. Sumner's back with his doubting of Walter's sanity - in our world with Peter, Sumner opposed Peter's attempts to get Walter released from Sumner's German psych hospital - and in the current world without Peter, Walter is more vulnerable to Sumner's pressure.

Which brings home a point we saw many times, and in fact got so used to that we took it for granted, in the Fringe of the first three seasons:  Peter was Walter's protector and champion, and gradually helped Walter regain many facets of his sanity.   Now Walter will have to rely on Olivia - who's dreams of Peter, told to Walter, confirm his sanity, for now -  and whatever inner strength he can muster.   Powerful stories lurk ahead in Walter's dual quest for his son and his sanity.

Hey, check out my essay The Return of 1950s Science Fiction in Fringe in this new anthology ...




See also Fringe Returns for Season 4: Almost with Peter ... Fringe 4.2: Better and Worse Selves

See also Fringe 3.1: The Other Olivia ... Fringe 3.2: Bad Olivia and Peter ... Fringe 3.3: Our/Their Olivia on the Other Side ... Fringe 3.5: Back from Hiatus, Back from the Amber ... Fringe 3.7: Two Universes Still Nearing Collision ... Fringe 3.8: Long Voyages Home ... Fringe 3.10: The Return of the Eternal Bald Observers ... Flowers for Fringenon in Fringe 3.11 ... Fringe 3.12: The Wrong Coffee  ... Fringe 3.13: Alternate Fringe ... Fringe 3.14: Amber Here ... Fringe 3.15: Young Peter and Olivia ... Fringe 3.16: Walter and Yoko ... Fringe 3.17: Bell, Olivia, Lee, and the Cow ... Fringe 3.18: Clever Walternate ... Fringe 3.19 meets Inception, The Walking Dead, Tron ... Fringe 3.20: Countdown to Season 3 Finale 1 of 3 ... Fringe 3.21:  Ben Frankin, Rimbaldi, and the Future ... Fringe Season 3 Finale: Here's What Happened ... Death Not Death in Fringe 
 
See also reviews of Season 2: Top Notch Return of Fringe Second Season ... Fringe 2.2 and The Mole People ... Fringe 2.3 and the Human Body as Bomb ... Fringe 2.4 Unfolds and Takes Wing ... Fringe 2.5: Peter in Alternate Reality and Wi-Fi for the Mind ... A Different Stripe of Fringe in 2.6 ... The Kid Who Changed Minds in Fringe 2.7 ... Fringe 2.8: The Eternal Bald Observers ... Fringe 2.9: Walter's Journey ... Fringe 2.10: Walter's Brain, Harry Potter, and Flowers for Algernon ...  New Fringe on Monday Night: In Alternate Universe? ... Fringe 2.12: Classic Science Fiction Chiante ... Fringe 2.13: "I Can't Let Peter Die Again" ... Fringe 2.14: Walter's Health, Books, and Father ... Fringe 2.15: I'll Take 'Manhatan' ... Fringe 2.16: Peter's Story ... Fringe 2.17: Will Olivia Tell Peter? ... Fringe 2.18: Strangeness on a Train ... Fringe 2.19: Two Plus Infinity ... Fringe the Noir Musical ... Fringe 2.21: Bring on the Alternates ... Fringe 2.22:  Tin Soldiers and Nixon Coming ... Fringe Season 2 Finale: The Switch

See also reviews of Season One 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 ... 15: Fringe is Back with Feral Child, Pheromones, and Bald Men ... 17. Fringe in New York, with Oliva as Her Suspect ... 18. Heroes and Villains across Fringe ... Stephen King, Arthur C. Clarke, and Star Trek in Penultimate Fringe ... Fringe Alternate Reality Finale: Science Fiction At Its Best

---

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

---

---

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

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

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

---

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

my quote about Larry King in 2011 EMMY AWARDS booklet

This is a page from the 32nd Annual News and Documentary EMMY AWARDS booklet, from The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. I'm quoted in Allison J. Waldman's article about Larry King - who was given the LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD in 2011 - right after the quote from Bill Cosby.

---