Homeland Season 5 Finale: RIPs

Homeland wrapped up its 5th season last night with a surprisingly low key episode - in view of what we saw last week - and which was rather, well, grim.

[Spoiler ensue ... ]

First and foremost in the downers was the (apparent) death of Quinn, at the hands of Carrie in a mercy killing.  I suppose there was no place left for Quinn to go in the story, but, still, it have would been better to see him go in a more dynamic way. (I say "apparent" because I guess there's always a chance that he could bounce back after flatlining.)

Allison got what she deserved, but was killed all but offscreen, as bullets riddled the trunk of the car in which she was being driven to Russia.  There was some satisfaction in Saul being the one to finally get her, but her death seemed oddly anti-climactic, too.

And then there was Carrie, who of course didn't die, but swears she can longer work for the agency, because she's not the person she used to be.   Haven't we seen that very storyline before?  And isn't it as much a set-up as it always was, and always will be, as long as Homeland continues, because the essence of Homeland always was and always will be what Carrier does best, super, inspired spying?

And so this very uneven season of Homeland concludes.  It started out slowly, had some brilliant episodes leading up to last night, but I found the finale weak and disappointing.

With all that's going on in the world, Homeland fortunately or unfortunately has an ideal backdrop for its 6th season next year, which I'm very much looking forward to seeing.

See also Homeland 5.1: Moving into the Age of Snowden ... Homeland 5.2: Who Wants to Kill Carrie ... Homeland 5.3: Carrie and Kerry ... Homeland 5.5: All Quinn ... Homeland 5.6: Saul Wises Up ... Homeland 5.7: Tough to Watch ... Homeland 5.9: Finally! ... Homeland 5.10: Homeland and Homeland ... Homeland 5.11: Allison as Primo Villain

And see also Homeland 4.1-2: Carrie's State of Mind ... Homeland 4.3: Quinn and Carrie ... Homeland 4.4: Carrie's Counterpart ... Homeland 4.5: Righteous Seduction ... Homeland 4.6: The Biggest Reveal ... Homeland 4.7: The Manifestation ... Homeland 4.8: Saving Someone's Life ... Homeland 4.9: Hitchcock Would've Loved It ... Homeland 4.10: The List ... Homeland 4.12: Out of this Together

And see also Homeland 3.1: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 3.2: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 3.3: Two Prisons ... Homeland 3.4: Twist! ...Homeland 3.6: Further Down the Rabbit Hole ... Homeland 3.7: Revealing What We Already Knew ... Homeland 3.8: Signs of Life ...Homeland 3.9: Perfect Timing ... Homeland 3.10: Someone Has to Die ... Homeland 3.11: The Loyalist ... Homeland Season 3 Finale: Redemption and Betrayal

And see Homeland 2.1-2: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 2.3-5: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 2.6: What Brody Knows ... Homeland 2.7: Love Me Tinder ... Homeland 2.8: The Personal and the Professional ...Homeland Season 2 Finale: The Shocker and the Reality

And see also  Homeland on Showtime ... Homeland 1.8: Surprises ... Homeland Concludes First Season: Exceptional

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  different kind of espionage

The Affair Season 2 Finale: No One's Fault

A stunningly good finale to season 2 of The Affair on Showtime tonight, in which we finally find out who killed Scotty and--  [big spoilers ahead]

Like in an Agatha Christie novel - such as Murder on the Orient Express - it turns out that Scotty died from more than one hand.  But unlike in Agatha Christie, none of perpetrators intended to hurt Scotty, and his death was really none of their faults.

Alison pushes Scotty out into the road, where he's hit by the car.  But she's doing this to fight Scotty off, as he's trying have unconsensual sex with her, i.e., rape her.

Helen, drunk, is the driver.  But she didn't want to be driving in that condition - she was driving only because Noah, also drunk, gave her no choice.  And even if she had been cold sober, there was no likely way she could have swerved out of the way and not hit Scotty, given that he was pushed right in front of the car.

We finally learn the meaning of what Noah has been seeing in his dreams or visions all season: he was been seeing Alison on the road, because he in fact saw her there on that fateful evening.

Noah's character is also handled exceedingly well.  For most of the season and most of tonight, he was a selfish, not very sympathetic character.  But in the last scene, forced to choose between Helen the mother of  his children and Alison not the mother of his daughter but someone he nonetheless truly loves, he chooses to save them both, and confess to a crime he didn't commit.

Earlier, in his 30-minute story, he's furious at Alison about her sleeping with Cole, the height of hypocrisy, given that he twice was on the verge of sleeping with his pretty publicist - and didn't only because she pulled back the first time and Noah encountered his daughter the second time.

But you couldn't ask for a better redemption than we saw at the end tonight, and I'm looking forward to season 3 next year, in this drama that is unique on television.

PS - One final point: Scotty deserves a big round applause for his rendition of "House of the Rising Sun," a powerful swan song for his character.

See also The Affair 2.1: Advances ... The Affair 2.2: Loving a Writer ... The Affair 2.3: The Half-Wolf ... The Affair 2.4: Helen at Distraction ... The Affair 2.5: Golden Cole ... The Affair 2.6: The End (of Noah's Novel) ... The Affair 2.7: Stunner ... The Affair 2.8: The Reading, the Review, the Prize ...The Affair 2.9: Nameless Hurricane ... The Affair 2.10: Meets In Treatment ... The Affair 2.11: Alison and Cole in Business

And see also The Affair Premiere: Sneak Preview Review ... The Affair 1.2: Time Travel! ... The Affair 1.3: The Agent and the Sleepers ... The Affair 1.4: Come Together ... The Affair 1.5: Alison's Episode ... The Affair 1.6: Drugs and Vision ... The Affair 1.7: True Confessions ... The Affair 1.8: "I Love You / I Love You, Too" ... The Affair 1.9: Who Else on the Train? ... The Affair Season 1 Finale: The Arrest and the Rest

podcast review of every 2nd season episode


podcast review of every 1st season episode

the Sierra Waters time-travel trilogy

Touching the Face of the Cosmos just published

Click here, and then on Look Inside, to see Table of Contents

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right after my interview John Glenn, appearing in the anthology

#7 on Amazon Kindle Top 100 Science and Religion a day after publication

Childhood's End 1.3: Literally

There's no denying that Childhood's End, which concluded its mini-series on SyFy last night, is a masterful rendition of Arthur C. Clarke's 1954 novel, which was itself a masterpiece.  Indeed, the story rendered on the screen in many scenes had more power than the novel.

But as I said in my review of the first episode, I didn't like the ending when I first read the novel in the late 1950s, and I felt the same, maybe even more so, when I saw it on television last night.

[Spoilers ensue ... read on only if you've already seen the third episode, or don't care ... ]

We learn in the third part of the mini-series, as in the novel, that the reason that Karellen doesn't want Ricky and his current wife to have children is he wants to spare them the exquisite pain of losing them.   This is an inevitable part of the literal ascension of humanity into a higher stage of evolution, in which human children become no longer children but the first expressions of this new species.

As such, this childhood's end is, in effect, a brief on behalf of children becoming liberated from and superior to their parents.  I have no problem with that at all - in fact, it's already our way of life.  But why can they never see their parents again - why is the ascension of the children mutually exclusive to continuing their relationship with their parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and adult members of their families?  That's the part I've always had a problem with - first, as a boy in the 1950s, and now as a parent myself.

The reason in the narrative, of course, is that the Earth itself is ending.  But why must that be?  Why couldn't humans continue on Earth, even as their children went out into the cosmos as a higher power?

Well, Clarke wrote the story, I didn't, and he's more than entitled to write the story he wanted to write.   And as I said, he did it masterfully, as did the makers of this mini-series.   So, by all means see it, but don't look for me to recommend it and its profoundly unhappy ending.


See also Childhood's End 1.1: Familiar Territory ... 1.2: Losing My Religion



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Childhood's End 1.2: Losing My Religion

A really good episode of Childhood's End last night - 1.2 in the three day mini-series - which dealt with the impact of aliens on Earth on our terrestrial religions.

The first episode, and part of this second episode, focused on the impact of the Overloads on Earthling science.   The vastly superior tech of the aliens makes our science unnecessary and obsolete.   The impact on religion is even more destructive.

Religion is more than unnecessary in light of the Overloads.  Their presence here on Earth is incompatible with the very bases of most of our religions.  Karellen says this quite clearly near the end, when he points out that we already knew that all of our religions, with their competing views of existence and the universe, could not be right.  But now we see that none could be right.

This, by the way, could well happen as humans go out into the cosmos as encounter alien intelligences - we don't have to be invaded to come upon this challenge to religion.  Some of the essays and stories in Touching the Face of the Cosmos: On the Intersection of Space Travel and Religion delve into this issue.

It was portrayed cogently and beautifully in Childhood' End last night.  The ending was also powerful, when Karellen reveals why he prevented our leading human couple from having children. It was to save them the pain that would ensue.

Tonight we'll see exactly what he was alluding to.  In the meantime, hats off to Charles Dance for his customarily superb performance, and to Childhood's End for now breaking some powerful new ground on television.

See also Childhood's End 1.1: Familiar Territory and Childhood's End 1.3: Literally

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Childhood's End 1.1: Familiar Territory

The first of the three-part Childhood's End mini-series began on the SyFy Channel tonight with a statement that Arthur C. Clarke's 1954 novel of that name changed and influenced science fiction for decades.   That's true.   When I read the novel a few years after its publication, it certainly changed my view of science fiction, making it more relevant to human life than even the great works by Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein, which I still enjoyed more.  But the quietly breathtaking revelations of Childhood's End and the questions they raised were not to be matched.

The problem, though, as far as tonight's mini-series is concerned, was the pervasiveness of the influence of Childhood's End and its story of an alien visitation on Earth - a pervasiveness in all forms of science fiction, but especially on the television screen.  Damon Knight's "To Serve Man" on The Twilight Zone a few years later, The Invaders with Roy Thinnes the next decade, V at its beginning and best in decades after that, all drew upon the story of Childhood's End in different and memorable ways.   And that, inevitably, makes Childhood's End on television tonight less original, and therefore a little less compelling than it was as a novel in 1954.

Still, it was pretty good.  I knew the truth of what the Overlords looked like, but their unveiling was still a strong moment, and I'd imagine especially so and more so for anyone who hadn't read the novel.   I'm interested enough to see where this goes, and if the mini-series diverges in any way from the novel, whose ending was something that I didn't much like back then.

But it will be tough going.  Unlike The Man in the High Castle, whose daring, stunning alternate history was something we haven't seen at all on any television screen, Childhood's End is too familiar, too reminiscent of too many science fiction motifs, to be great - at least, so far.  And we'll see how the next two days go.

See also Childhood's End 1.2: Losing My Religion and Childhood's End 1.3: Literally



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Homeland 5.11: Allison as Primo Villain

Allison has graduated into a really first-class, high octane villain on Homeland 5.11.   I mean, shooting yourself in a perfect way - to do plenty of damage, but not yourself - that's an impressive move in any double-agent's handbook.  I was impressed.

Saul, of course, is slow on the uptake, as he's been most of the season.  But he finally sees what's going on, and in enough time to make what will happen next week really up from grabs.

There are crucial possibilities on all sides of the equation.  The terrorist with a conscience, along with Carrie at the train station, may well save the day.  (My wife wondered, though, why the Germans didn't deploy some heavy security at the train station, in view of the perceived threat to the airport. Doesn't security up all antes at every vulnerable place, when they receive a threat to any one place?)

Allison, though, to get back to the possibilities on both sides, is an amazing piece of villainous work. She leaves the hospital before Saul can stop her, and even in her weakened condition is still a serious threat with her quick and ruthless thinking.

The Russians who are now 100% directing Allison are not quite believable in their zeal to see the Berlin airport ravaged by sarin gas.  The stated reason is that Putin wants Obama and the West to wake up to the threat of ISIS - that's certainly true - but would the Russians be willing to kill so many lives in Berlin to make this happen?  I don't know, I'm no expert in counter-terrorism geopolitics, but that seems a little much.

Homeland, though, has really woken up in the past few episodes.  I'm looking forward to the season finale next week!

See also Homeland 5.1: Moving into the Age of Snowden ... Homeland 5.2: Who Wants to Kill Carrie ... Homeland 5.3: Carrie and Kerry ... Homeland 5.5: All Quinn ... Homeland 5.6: Saul Wises Up ... Homeland 5.7: Tough to Watch ... Homeland 5.9: Finally! ... Homeland 5.10: Homeland and Homeland

And see also Homeland 4.1-2: Carrie's State of Mind ... Homeland 4.3: Quinn and Carrie ... Homeland 4.4: Carrie's Counterpart ... Homeland 4.5: Righteous Seduction ... Homeland 4.6: The Biggest Reveal ... Homeland 4.7: The Manifestation ... Homeland 4.8: Saving Someone's Life ... Homeland 4.9: Hitchcock Would've Loved It ... Homeland 4.10: The List ... Homeland 4.12: Out of this Together

And see also Homeland 3.1: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 3.2: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 3.3: Two Prisons ... Homeland 3.4: Twist! ...Homeland 3.6: Further Down the Rabbit Hole ... Homeland 3.7: Revealing What We Already Knew ... Homeland 3.8: Signs of Life ...Homeland 3.9: Perfect Timing ... Homeland 3.10: Someone Has to Die ... Homeland 3.11: The Loyalist ... Homeland Season 3 Finale: Redemption and Betrayal

And see Homeland 2.1-2: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 2.3-5: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 2.6: What Brody Knows ... Homeland 2.7: Love Me Tinder ... Homeland 2.8: The Personal and the Professional ...Homeland Season 2 Finale: The Shocker and the Reality

And see also  Homeland on Showtime ... Homeland 1.8: Surprises ... Homeland Concludes First Season: Exceptional

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  different kind of espionage

The Affair 2.11: Alison and Cole in Business

An unexpected development in The Affair 2.11 last night - Alison and Cole are going into business together, as joint owners of The Lobster Roll.

I get Cole's motivation, sort of.   He wants to stay in Montauk, is happy with Luisa, sees no threat from Alison.  But Alison's, I don't get so much.  Surely she sees that Noah will be threatened by this, as indeed he is, and all but tells her. And how could she be comfortable partnering in business with Cole?

At this point, she surely knows Joanie is Cole's not Noah's.   Is her motive for going into business with Cole that she's hoping they will also reunited as a couple, and raise Joanie together?  That's certainly possible, but Alison doesn't overtly seem to want this - at least, not as yet - either.

Of course, what we saw of Alison was from Noah's point of view, which has always been insecure about how much Alison really wants him, and the two of them as a couple.  Since we didn't see Alison's point of view last night, we can't be sure what she was really thinking and feeling.  Indeed, the glow she had about going into business with Cole was from Cole's point of view, and may not necessarily be hers, either.

Back to the killing of Scotty: as I said last week, I think Luisa now has to be considered a prime suspect.   Scotty has come close to telling Cole what he knows.   Should Luisa find out what Scotty knows, she would have a powerful motive to get rid of Scotty before he tells Cole that he's Joanie's father.

On the other hand, we may see Scotty spill the beans to Cole in the very next scene, as he opens his eyes and talks in the car.  We'll find out more next week - and my only regret is I wish that episode was on tonight.

See also The Affair 2.1: Advances ... The Affair 2.2: Loving a Writer ... The Affair 2.3: The Half-Wolf ... The Affair 2.4: Helen at Distraction ... The Affair 2.5: Golden Cole ... The Affair 2.6: The End (of Noah's Novel) ... The Affair 2.7: Stunner ... The Affair 2.8: The Reading, the Review, the Prize ...The Affair 2.9: Nameless Hurricane ... The Affair 2.10: Meets In Treatment

And see also The Affair Premiere: Sneak Preview Review ... The Affair 1.2: Time Travel! ... The Affair 1.3: The Agent and the Sleepers ... The Affair 1.4: Come Together ... The Affair 1.5: Alison's Episode ... The Affair 1.6: Drugs and Vision ... The Affair 1.7: True Confessions ... The Affair 1.8: "I Love You / I Love You, Too" ... The Affair 1.9: Who Else on the Train? ... The Affair Season 1 Finale: The Arrest and the Rest

podcast review of every 2nd season episode


podcast review of every 1st season episode

the Sierra Waters time-travel trilogy

The Good Wife 7.10: Selfish Eli

Well, The Good Wife wrapped up the first part of Season 7 - 7.10 - with an episode which could blast everything apart.   Actually, not the episode as a whole, but just the last few minutes - which, if you're going to put in a bombshell, is always the best place.

Eli, despondent over losing his nascent love, unburdens to Alicia and tells her he erased Will's confession of love to Alicia, lodged on her cell phone a few years back, before she had a chance to hear it.  Alicia is justifiably beyond furious.

Make no mistake about it.  This is not a magnanimous act by Eli.  His confession can do Alicia no real good, seeing as how Will is dead.  Yes, it should gladden her heart that Will did love her, but she already knew this.  So the gist of what this will bring to Alicia is heartbreak, over what could have been, what we/she really wanted, and now it turns out Will wanted as well.

Eli's confession helps him, in unburdening his conscience.  But his relationship with Alicia, rocky already, will never be the same.   And up in the air now is what Alicia will be willing to do for Peter in his campaign for the Presidency (hey, I wouldn't mind seeing him take some shots at Donald Trump).

Kudos to Alan Cumming for a tour-de-force performance as Eli.  He's always excellent.  But the expressions on his face, the almost tears in eyes, were just perfect as he made his guilty declaration to Alicia.

Looking forward to the continuing story, back on the air in early January.


See also The Good Wife 7.1: Shake-Up ... The Good Wife 7.6: Hillary, Trump, and Alicia

And see also The Good Wife 6.4: Run-up to Running ... The Good Wife 6.10: Cary's Fate ... The Good Wife 6.11: Kalinda for Cary

See also I Dreamt I Called Will Gardner Last Night

And The Good Wife 5.1: Capital Punishment and Politicians' Daughters ... The Good Wife 5.5: The Villain in this Story ... The Good Wife 5.9: Reddit, Crowd Sourcing, and the First Amendment on Trial ... The Good Wife 5.11: Bowling Bowls and Bogdanovich ... The Good Wife 5.13: NSA on Television ... The Good Wife: 5.15: Stunner! ... The Good Wife 5.19: Tying Up Loose Ends ... The Good Wife Season 5 Finale: Musical Chairs

And see also The Good Wife 4.1 Meets Occupy Wall Street ...  The Good Wife 4.2: Reunited ... The Good Wife 4.3: "Template-Based Link Analysis Algorithm" ... The Good Wife 4.5 Meets The Sopranos ... The Good Wife 4.20: Anonymous ... The Good Wife Season 4 Finale: Good Twist!

And see also The Good Wife 3.1: Recusal and Rosh Hashanah ... The Good Wife: 3.2: Periwigs and Skype ... The Good Wife 3.7: Peter v. Will ...  Dexter's Sister on The Good Wife 3.10  ... The Good Wife 3.12: Two Suits  ... The Good Wife 3.13 Meets Murder on the Orient Express ... The Good Wife 3.15: Will and Baseball

And see also  The Good Wife Starts Second Season on CBS ... The Good Wife 2.2: Lou Dobbs, Joe Trippi, and Obama Girl ... The Good Wife 2.4: Surprise Candidate, Intimate Interpsonal Distance ... The Good Wife 2.9 Takes on Capital Punishment ... The Good Wife 2.16: Information Wars 

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                                   the Sierra Waters trilogy

The Affair 2.10: Meets In Treatment

Another fine episode of The Affair tonight - 2.10 - which ends in a cliffhanger, about the results of the paternity test for Joanie, even though it's got to be that the baby is Cole's.

Which leads again to the big question of who ran down Scotty?  Given the ambivalence that Noah has to being a father in a marriage with Alison - and being the "good" not the "great" guy as he put  it (for more of which, see below) - it occurred to me that he now has about the least motive for permanently shutting Scotty up.  If Scotty revealed that Cole not Noah was Joanie's father, that might well give Noah precisely the license to leave Alison that a part of him so much wants.

Alison and Cole still remain the main suspects with Noah out of the scenario.  But there also could be another:  Luisa now also a big motive.  She would be very threatened by the knowledge that Cole is Joanie's father, given that she can't have a baby, and she knows how much Cole wants one.   Would she kill Scotty to keep him quiet?   It's hard to say, because we don't yet know her well enough, but either she or someone else looking out for her interests can't be ruled out.

Noah's segment with Marilyn the shrink was excellent, a case of The Affair meeting In Treatment (which makes sense, since Sarah Treem and Hagai Levi are producers of both).  Noah's wanting to be a good family man, but not at the expense of being a great man - in his case, a great author - but which (on his analysis, at least) comes with the trimmings of "bending" an attractive graduate student over his desk - makes one of the best set-pieces of the series, as Noah comes to realize this and spell it out in Marilyn's office.   The twenty or so minutes provides about as good a probing as you'll get anywhere on television, or in the movies, about what it might personally take to make a big difference in the world. Significantly, Noah thinks it's either good or great, in contrast to Marilyn, who suggests that maybe you can have both, or maybe the two lifestyles have no intrinsic connection to greatness at all.

On thing is certain: Just two episodes left of this great season.

See also The Affair 2.1: Advances ... The Affair 2.2: Loving a Writer ... The Affair 2.3: The Half-Wolf ... The Affair 2.4: Helen at Distraction ... The Affair 2.5: Golden Cole ... The Affair 2.6: The End (of Noah's Novel) ... The Affair 2.7: Stunner ... The Affair 2.8: The Reading, the Review, the Prize ... The Affair 2.9: Nameless Hurricane

And see also The Affair Premiere: Sneak Preview Review ... The Affair 1.2: Time Travel! ... The Affair 1.3: The Agent and the Sleepers ... The Affair 1.4: Come Together ... The Affair 1.5: Alison's Episode ... The Affair 1.6: Drugs and Vision ... The Affair 1.7: True Confessions ... The Affair 1.8: "I Love You / I Love You, Too" ... The Affair 1.9: Who Else on the Train? ... The Affair Season 1 Finale: The Arrest and the Rest

podcast review of every 2nd season episode


podcast review of every 1st season episode

the Sierra Waters time-travel trilogy

Homeland 5.10: Homeland and Homeland

As my wife aptly pointed out earlier this evening, we were going to see two Homelands tonight. That would be Homeland for real, with Obama's 8pm address to the nation, and Homeland on Showtime, at 9pm tonight.

Here's my review of the first:  Obama's speech was ok, but could have been stronger and with more specifics, in the first part, about what we would do to fight terrorism.  It was excellent in the second part, about what we shouldn't be doing, and who were as Americans.

Here's my review of Homeland on Showtime - dynamite, easily the best in this season, which has so far been not the greatest.

But kudos to the show for having Allison actually saying we don't want "another Paris" - her back was to the camera, so that was dubbed in.   I have to hand it to Showtime and the producers of Homeland for having the guts to put that into tonight's show.

The rest was outstanding too.  Claire Danes gave one of the strongest performances in the series - finally reminiscent of what we saw in the first few seasons - as Carrie reacting to what she thought was Quinn's death.   And Miranda Otto as Allison was excellent, too.

The plot was suitably tense with some nice twists - the best being the guy who saved Quinn being saved, surprisingly, by his cousin.  This gives the forces of good a continued possible hand on the inside, and it looks as if we'll need all the help we can get.

And that's true in real Homeland as well, where the convergence of what we see in drama on our screens and what we in news on that same screen is all too close.  Indeed, Homeland on Showtime had an especially frightening clout tonight because, so far, in our real world, an attack by chemical weapons is about the one thing we have not been subject to in the past few months.

See also Homeland 5.1: Moving into the Age of Snowden ... Homeland 5.2: Who Wants to Kill Carrie ... Homeland 5.3: Carrie and Kerry ... Homeland 5.5: All Quinn ... Homeland 5.6: Saul Wises Up ... Homeland 5.7: Tough to Watch ... Homeland 5.9: Finally!

And see also Homeland 4.1-2: Carrie's State of Mind ... Homeland 4.3: Quinn and Carrie ... Homeland 4.4: Carrie's Counterpart ... Homeland 4.5: Righteous Seduction ... Homeland 4.6: The Biggest Reveal ... Homeland 4.7: The Manifestation ... Homeland 4.8: Saving Someone's Life ... Homeland 4.9: Hitchcock Would've Loved It ... Homeland 4.10: The List ... Homeland 4.12: Out of this Together

And see also Homeland 3.1: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 3.2: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 3.3: Two Prisons ... Homeland 3.4: Twist! ...Homeland 3.6: Further Down the Rabbit Hole ... Homeland 3.7: Revealing What We Already Knew ... Homeland 3.8: Signs of Life ...Homeland 3.9: Perfect Timing ... Homeland 3.10: Someone Has to Die ... Homeland 3.11: The Loyalist ... Homeland Season 3 Finale: Redemption and Betrayal

And see Homeland 2.1-2: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 2.3-5: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 2.6: What Brody Knows ... Homeland 2.7: Love Me Tinder ... Homeland 2.8: The Personal and the Professional ...Homeland Season 2 Finale: The Shocker and the Reality

And see also  Homeland on Showtime ... Homeland 1.8: Surprises ... Homeland Concludes First Season: Exceptional

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  different kind of espionage

The Front-Page Editorial in The New York Times

I was just interviewed on "Breakfast," New Zealand's top morning radio program, about the context and impact of The New York Times' front-page editorial - first since 1920 - urging gun control.

Marshall McLuhan, as his work does so often in our age, captured the importance of the front page of a newspaper when he observed, in The Mechanical Bride in 1951, that you can get a sense of the world just by looking at the front page, as if it were a picture, before and without even reading any of the content.  The front page in effect is a figurative landscape of what's going on, which can be grasped at a glance.

The content of the editorial - which the layout calls such justifiably dramatic attention to - is crucial.   I would like to see, as starters, the government start a buy-out program of all semi-automatic weapons, paying twice their purchase price, after declaring these weapons illegal.  Yes, terrorists and psychopaths can still do plenty of damage with hand-guns and knives, but getting rid of a semi-automatic killing machines would be a good way to save some lives.

So the content of the editorial matters, big time.  But placing it on the front page was a masterstroke. Just glancing at the front page shows that there is a sombre, stark importance to what the words are saying.

Lots has been written, including by me, about how paper newspapers are fading away.  But anything on paper still has advantages not seen on any screen, especially the little ones on our phones. Newspapers left on tables and desks can be seen by anyone who passes by.  The editorial on the front page of a newspaper is thus an intrinsically powerful public statement.

It's good to see The New York Times leading the fight on finally getting something done to limit the deaths by guns which are the scourge of this country.