Chuck Todd interviews me about alternate histories

Saturday, February 15, 2020

Outlander 5.1: Father of the Bride




Here's a sneak preview review of Outlander 5.1, available now on Starz on Demand.

Most of it was devoted to Brianna and Roger's wedding, good to see after all they and Brianna's parents have been through.  Lots of kissing and love-making, between couples of all ages.  Brianna's baby has been born, and it was heartwarming to see Roger take him fully as his own.

But beneath the surface, Brianna is of course deeply apprehensive about this, and Jamie gets no peace, either, given the redcoat's insistence that he find Murtagh.  Jamie last words to Murtagh, that make himself "hard to find," pretty much says it all.  Jamie might be able to close his eyes to Murtagh, but for not too long.  And what happens if someone else finds Murtagh?

Not much mention or indication of time travel in this episode, but what there was was good.  It was fun to see Claire and Brianna and Roger at various times talking about Elvis, the mashed potato, and the twist, and Claire's trials and tribulations with the medicine available to her in this time are always interesting to see.

As for actual time travel, a brief conversation shows Roger wants to go back to their present, and Brianna does not.  To do that, the two would have to first go back to Scotland ... or maybe not.  If I recall correctly, there was some possible indication that maybe a set of stones exist right here in America.   If so, that would certainly open all kind of possibilities for our characters - including possibly Murtagh, if he needed a quick way out of colonial America, which he probably does not.

In the meantime, the scenery is lush, the accents are great, and I'll see you back here next week.

See also Outlander 4.1: The American Dream ... Outlander 4.2: Slavery ...Outlander 4.3: The Silver Filling ... Outlander 4.4: Bears and Worse and the Remedy ... Outlander 4.5: Chickens Coming Home to Roost ... Outlander 4.6: Jamie's Son ... Outlander 4.7: Brianna's Journey and Daddy ... Outlander 4.8: Ecstasy and Agony ... Outlander 4.9: Reunions ... Outlander 4.10: American Stone ... Outlander 4.11: Meets Pride and Prejudice ... Outlander 4.12: "Through Time and Space" ... Outlander Season 4 Finale:  Fair Trade

And see also Outlander Season 3 Debut: A Tale of Two Times and Places ...Outlander 3.2: Whole Lot of Loving, But ... Outlander 3.3: Free and Sad ... Outlander 3.4: Love Me Tender and Dylan ... Outlander 3.5: The 1960s and the Past ... Outlander 3.6: Reunion ... Outlander 3.7: The Other Wife ... Outlander 3.8: Pirates! ... Outlander 3.9: The Seas ...Outlander 3.10: Typhoid Story ... Outlander 3.11: Claire Crusoe ...Outlander 3.12: Geillis and Benjamin Button ... Outlander 3.13: Triple Ending

And see also Outlander 2.1: Split Hour ... Outlander 2.2: The King and the Forest ... Outlander 2.3: Mother and Dr. Dog ... Outlander 2.5: The Unappreciated Paradox ... Outlander 2.6: The Duel and the Offspring ...Outlander 2.7: Further into the Future ... Outlander 2.8: The Conversation ... Outlander 2.9: Flashbacks of the Future ... Outlander 2.10: One True Prediction and Counting ... Outlander 2.11: London Not Falling ... Outlander 2.12: Stubborn Fate and Scotland On and Off Screen ... Outlander Season 2 Finale: Decades

And see also Outlander 1.1-3: The Hope of Time Travel ... Outlander 1.6:  Outstanding ... Outlander 1.7: Tender Intertemporal Polygamy ...Outlander 1.8: The Other Side ... Outlander 1.9: Spanking Good ... Outlander 1.10: A Glimmer of Paradox ... Outlander 1.11: Vaccination and Time Travel ... Outlander 1.12: Black Jack's Progeny ...Outlander 1.13: Mother's Day ... Outlander 1.14: All That Jazz ... Outlander Season 1 Finale: Let's Change History

 


The Sinner 3.2: The Contactor and the Contactee



The plot thickened in The Sinner 3.2, as of course it always does in this deep, multi-layered well of a mystery.   We learn, for example, that Jamie initiated the recent contact with Nick, which, after who know what else happened, culminates with Jamie letting Nick bleed out and die after the car accident.

This is important.  It shows, in case we had any doubt, that Jamie's letting Nick die was far more than just letting an old friend or accomplice die, after he showed up unexpectedly at Jamie's door, implicitly threatening Jamie and his pregnant wife.  Jamie's prior recent contact with Nick tilts the balance towards Jamie being the really bad guy in this story.  Which should not be all that surprising, since Ambroise is investigating Jamie.

Jamie's earlier contact of Nick even suggests that Nick may be more of a victim of Jamie than at first we thought.   Who else was or is a continuing victim of Jamie?  Likely Sonya the artist whose house Jamie and Nick were near, and whose property Jamie goes back to visit, looking for his cellphone.  Though I suppose there's a chance she also is some kind of accomplice.

It also just occurred me to that maybe there's more of a connection between Nick and Leela than at first seemed the case.  For all we know, Leela could have been faking her lack of knowledge of Nick, for Jamie's sake.  Hey, for all we know, Nick could be the father of Leela's baby - though that's likely going too far, even for The Sinner.

But you just never know, is the whole point of The Sinner.  As Ambroise investigates, he always discovers things that were right in front of him, and therefore us, all along.  Which is what makes The Sinner such good television, and I have to say I'm so far enjoying this season more than season 2, jand ust as much as season 1.

See also The Sinner 3.1: Second Degree Murder, First Degree Detective

And see also The Sinner 2.1: The Boy ... The Sinner 2.2:  Heather's Story ... The Sinner 2.3: Julian's Mother ... The Sinner 2.5: The Scapegoat ... The Simmer 2.7: Occluded Past Unwound - Mostly ... The Sinner Season 2 Finale: The Ambiguity of Harry


Vikings 6.10: The Conversations



Catching up with a review of the momentous mid-season finale of Vikings - 6.10 - and what an episode it was, replete with superb battle scenes and some notable and at least one highly regrettable death.

Season 6 already had its momentous death - Lagertha.  I could have lived without another.  But Bjorn dies at the end of the battle between the Rus and our Vikings, which is also the end of the episode.  The presentation of this death is very effective.  Throughout the battle, we see Bjorn and Ivar, sitting on the beach, in conversation.  They're not really there - they're actually in battle.  So I guess it's their spirits who are conversing.  The denouement comes when Bjorn admits to failures in the past, but vows to succeed in repulsing Ivar and the Rus.  Ivar, remarkably calm and composed in this conversation, tells Bjorn that he failed a long time ago.  (Maybe this conversation of spirits is actually in the future?)  And, sure, enough, Bjorn is killed when he leads a last, desperate charge against the invaders, with no one behind him.

The other notable conversation is earlier, between Ivar and Hvitserk, who surprises Ivar when he says his joining Ivar is an expression of Hvitserk's embracement of evil.  Ivar, significantly, looks a little surprised at this admission.  Ivar likely considers what he does right and destined, not evil.

Meanwhile, on the death toll, Harald also dies, after raping Bjorn's lover (but not because of that).  I'm actually glad to see him go.  Not only because of the rape, but because of the way he in effect stole the kingship from Bjorn.  But one last proviso about the deaths:  my general principle of unless you see their heads blown off or chopped off comes into play, and this applies to both Bjorn and Harald.   Their heads were intact, on the beach, last we saw them.

Well, we'll find out when this final season resumes, and I'm sure much more, including how close Ubbe and Torve get to America.  See you back here then.

See also Vikings 6.1-2: Russia! ... Vikings 6.9: Othere = ?

And see also Vikings 5.1-2: Floki in Iceland ... Vikings 5.3: Laughing Ivar ...Vikings 5.4: Four of More Good Stories ... Vikings 5.5: Meet Lawrence of Arabia ... Vikings 5.6: Meanwhile, Back Home ... Vikings 5.7: A Looming Trojan-War Battle, Vikings Style, and Two Beautiful Stories ...Vikings 5.8: Only Heahmund? ... Vikings 5.9: Rollo ... Vikings 5.10: New and Old Worlds ... Vikings 5.11: Rollo's Son ... Vikings 5.12: "The Beast with Two Backs" ... Vikings 5.13: The Sacrifice ... Vikings 5.14: Fake News in Kattegat ... Vikings 5.15: Battle ... Vikings 5.16: Peace and War ... Vikings 5.17: No Harmony in Iceland ... Vikings 5.18: Demented Ivar ... Vikings 5.19-20: Endings and Beginnings

And see also Vikings 4.1: I'll Still Take Paris ... Vikings 4.2: Sacred Texts ...Vikings 4.4: Speaking the Language ... Vikings 4.5: Knives ... Vikings 4.8: Ships Up Cliff ... Vikings 4.10: "God Bless Paris" ... Vikings 4.11: Ragnar's Sons ... Vikings 4.12: Two Expeditions ... Vikings 4.13: Family ... Vikings 4.14: Penultimate Ragnar? ... Vikings 4.15: Close of an Era ... Vikings 1.16: Musselman ... Vikings 1.17: Ivar's Wheels ...Vikings 1.18: The Beginning of Revenge ... Vikings 4.19: On the Verge of History ... Vikings 4.20: Ends and Starts

And see also Vikings 3.1. Fighting and Farming ... Vikings 3.2: Leonard Nimoy ...Vikings 3.3: We'll Always Have Paris ... Vikings 3.4: They Call Me the Wanderer ... Vikings 3.5: Massacre ... Vikings 3.6: Athelstan and Floki ...Vikings 3.7: At the Gates ... Vikings 3.8: Battle for Paris ... Vikings 3.9: The Conquered ... Vikings Season 3 Finale: Normandy

Science Fiction and Fantasy Songs: Newly Expanded Spotify Playlist


Monday, February 10, 2020

Homeland 8.1: Lost Time



Homeland was back tonight for its eight and final season, with a strong episode, situated mainly in Afghanistan, that fired on all cylinders.

The main, nearly choking vice that Carrie finds herself in this time is the months of missing time - time she can't remember - inside a Russian prison.  This is a theme we've seen on spy shows before - Howard Gordon was a mover of 24 and does much the same for Homeland - so it's not surprising that Jack Bauer and Carrie Mathison have been in similar situations.  But Carrie's is more laden with danger than even Jack's, given her bipolar disorder.

In episode 8.1, Carrie worries that she may have revealed information about her source in Afghanistan that got him killed.  Seeing Yevgeny in Kabul amplifies those fears - she had come to rely upon him in the Russian prison, and who knows what she may have said to him.   But I have to say, maybe it's something about Costa Ronin's manner - he played a sympathetic Russian in The Americans - that makes hope that he's not the bad guy.  In fact, he'd actually make a good partner for Carrie, but that's not likely to happen, either.  We'll just have to see.

Back to our reality, I'm also wondering if this final season of Homeland will deal in any way with Trump in the White House?  Like 24, the Presidents in Homeland have pretty much avoided any parallels to Presidents actually in office (Elizabeth Keane might have been like Hillary, but the Electoral College decreed otherwise).  But here's a thought: Homeland will be over before Americans have a chance to vote Trump out of office.   The producers had to know this when they were making this final season.  They surely must have been tempted to put something of our reality into this narrative.   It will be fun to see how much.







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


Sunday, February 9, 2020

The Stranger: Tight As A Drum, Surprising Heroes and Villains



My wife and I binged The Stranger on Netflix, mostly last night, and last two of the eight episodes, today.  It's based on Harlan Coben's novel. and it's intricately plotted, with tight as a drum resolutions, just as you'd expect from a Coben work.  Indeed, even more.  Which makes it about the best detective mystery series we've seen on any kind of television in years, maybe ever.

All I'll tell you about the plot is that a husband (Adam Price) is told a secret about this wife, which, when he confronts her about it, leads to her disappearance.  That happens in the first episode.  The rest of the series shows us the husband in search of his wife.  The search leads to all kinds of stunning surprises about his family and neighbors, all of which, though seemingly beyond the most dogged detective work, tie together plausibly in the end.

That's no small feat in a genre in which far fewer twists and turns are left not fully explained.  And The Stranger does this with surprising villains and heroes at almost every turn, and moral ambiguities swirling around just about every scene.  In that sense, The Stranger is but a canvas in which the complexities of life in this world are writ large on the screen.

I haven't read Coben's novel, but I understand it takes place in America.  The Stranger unfolds in England, and feels perfectly situated there. It's peopled by top-notch British actors, including MI-5's Richard Armitage (who plays Adam Price in The Stranger) and Siobhan Finneran (DS Johanna Griffin in The Stranger) from Downton Abbey.  But everyone else in this series puts in some great acting, too, including Jacob Dudman as Adam's eldest son Thomas, and the always excellent Stephen Rea as the pivotal Martin Killane.

But I may have said too much already, and, if I were you, I'd stop reading about The Stranger, and snap it up asap.

 



Saturday, February 8, 2020

Welcome Up: Songs of Space and Time









Thursday, February 6, 2020

The Sinner 3.1: Second Degree Murder, First Degree Detective



The Sinner was back tonight for its third season, which, at first blush, looks to be more of a straight-up whodunnit than the first two seasons, or at least the second season, which is fine in my book,

Harry Ambroise is in pretty good shape, suffering mainly from an intermittent sciatica.   Bill Pullman, as always, is perfect for this role, with just the right mix and degree of savvy and vulnerability. He's suspicious of the passenger survivor of a car crash which killed the driver.  As ever, Harry is right.

The survivor is some kind of psycho, a high school teacher in upstate New York, Jamie, well played by Matt Bomer.  His wife is very pregnant.  His college buddy Nick shows up, apparently unannounced, and references some kind of unexplained things they did together in college.

Those things were presumably not good, and at least in part involved a woman who now lives in some kind of driving distance from Jamie.  Nick wants to pay her a visit, Jamie does not. Nick refuses to listen, Jamie pulls the emergency break on the car which causes it to crash.   Jamie is relatively unhurt, and refuses to call 911.  That act, according to Harry, would constitute second degree murder.

But how will Harry prove that, and what else will he find in Jamie's past and present?  I don't think we knew so much about the killer in the first two seasons, this soon in the narrative, and that makes this season of The Sinner especially interesting.  See you back here next week.

See also The Sinner 2.1: The Boy ... The Sinner 2.2:  Heather's Story ... The Sinner 2.3: Julian's Mother ... The Sinner 2.5: The Scapegoat ... The Simmer 2.7: Occluded Past Unwound - Mostly ... The Sinner Season 2 Finale: The Ambiguity of Harry


Monday, February 3, 2020

Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.3: Garbage Cans and Apples



Among the many hilarities of Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.3 are garbage cans and apples.

Things - natural, produced, customs - not being used the way they're supposed to has long been a staple of Curb.  Or, to be more precise, Larry's frustration sometimes fury about things not being allowed to have the proper function is a persistent theme.  The key is Larry is right, but over-reacts (to some extent), and therein resides the hilarity.

Take garbage cans, for instance.  They're supposed to be for garbage - a place to throw in what you are discarding- but Larry finds that's not the case, at least twice.  The first time is an apple that Larry was eating - "nonchalantly" - in his lawyer's office, until the lawyer objected (the same lawyer, of course, who didn't let Larry use his bathroom last week).  Larry compounds his lawyer's objections by throwing the half-eaten apple into a wastebasket.  But it has "no lining," so the lawyer doesn't like that, either.  Next, Larry tries to throw a scone unliked by cousin Andy into a garbage receptical in the kitchen, and gets told by Andy's wife that they dispose of their garbage in the pantry (which made me think of Paul Simon's "Mrs. Robinson").

But the apple was centerpiece of another example in this episode of things being misused.  Larry also encounters decorative apples in several places.  Some look so real that - of course - Leon and Larry both bite into them, and chip their teeth.  The decorative fruit that looks too real is a longstanding grievance of likely millions of people in this world, but most of them don't chip their teeth on them.

I'm pretty sure almost no one chips their teeth on garbage cans, but now's as a good a time as any to mention the paradox of the garbage can, that I discovered decades ago.  It arises from the problem of how do dispose of a garbage can?  Think about it.  If you leave an empty garbage can in your driveway, the sanitation crew won't take it away, they'll just think someone else already took away the garbage in the can that was never there.  We recently got semi-automated garbage pick-up in our area, and that would make the paradox even worse.  If you left a note on the can saying "please dispose of me," the automated arm wouldn't be able to read it.

Anyway, you can read more about the paradox of the garbage can here, and I'll be back one of these weeks with another review of Curb.

See also:  Curb Your Enthusiasm 10.1: Reunited!

See alsoCurb Your Enthusiasm 9.1: Hilarious! ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.2: Wife Swapping ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.3: Benefits ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.4: "Hold You in his Armchair" ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.5: Schmata At Large ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 9.8: The Unexpected Advocate ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 1.9: Salmon Discretion ... Curb Your Enthusiasm 1.10: Outfit Tracker


just releasing:  Welcome Up: Songs of Space and Time  - digitalCDvinyl

Sunday, February 2, 2020

The Outsider 1.5: The Tear-Drinker



Ok, here, are best I can tell, is where we are with The Outsider, as of tonight's episode 1.5 on HBO:

At least three murders of children have been committed by doppelgangers.   Molly, who seems to be the most knowledgeable about is going on, thinks that some kind of evil entity is at work - a bogeyman, is the least arcane name for it.   More important, he or whatever it is feeds on people's grief - drinks their tears, as our saner characters are coming to realize.  ("Tear Drinker" is the title of this episode.  I rarely use the given titles in my reviews, but this was too apt to pass up.)

There aren't too many of them on hand, by the way.  Molly, a private investigator with a taste for the evil supernatural, seems to be in her right mind.  Her logic is leading her to supernatural conclusions.  Ralph is also rational, and not quite yet ready to accept what Molly is telling him.  But he's becoming a believer.   The stripclub owner and the other cop - the one who wants back into police work - I'm not too sure about.  I'm not even sure they're two different people.  At least one of them, I think, has that half-eaten neck - that is, his neck looks half eaten.  Presumably that's the work of the bogeyman?

Meanwhile, the bogeyman is upping his game.  He's not only lurking around under a hoodie, but he's warning Ralph's wife Jeannie, telling her that Ralph and she will die unless Ralph drops the case.  Assuming that guy is the bogeyman, and not some other kind of spirit trying to help.  Nah, I think he's the tear-drinking bogeyman.

So there you have it.  This is a noir detective into horror story to the max, all the more intense because the depredation is as much psychological as physical, and the scenery is somehow pastoral and horrific at the same time.  I have no idea how this will end, which is why I'll keep watching.

See also The Outsider 1.1-2:  Two Places at the Same Time

Vikings 6.9: Othere = ?



Catching up with Vikings, now at episode 6.9 (I've been busy with my music, which you can see/hear a bit more of here, if you're interested).  It's an unusual and excellent season, to say the least.  And 6.9 had what could be a real shocker.

Ubbe and Torvi get to Iceland, in search of Floki, who hasn't appeared at all yet this season.  They meet a very familiar face - familiar because he's played by Ray Stevenson, who's played major roles in Rome and so much more - who is legendary Viking explorer by the name of Othere.  He's legendary, because he claims to have sailed to a "golden" land in the West, which I assume is America not Greenland.  Ubbe's inspired, but Othere has another revelation: he says his original name was Athelstan, a Christian monk!

Now, back in season 3, we saw Athelstan beaten to death, by none other than Floki, later the discoverer of Iceland, and also a keen object of Ubbe's interest.  I should mention that I have a policy when it comes to death in non-science-fiction television and movies.  If a character's head is not blown off, cut off, or shot, I think there's always a chance he's still alive.  And, although Athelstan certainly appeared dead, I'm pretty sure his head was still attached and more or less intact after Floki's beating.

So, this means, at least by my standard, that Othere could indeed be our original Floki, whom Ragnar so loved.  And the episode is entitled "Resurrection".  On the other hand, Othere could have had a conversation with Floki, somewhere further west, in which Floki "confessed" what he did to Athelstan, which prompted Othere to take on Athelstan's identity.   For all we know, Othere/Athelstan killed Floki - indeed, a conversation with Othere out of Ubbe's presence suggests that something untoward happened to Floki, perhaps something more than what we already know.

I'm looking forward to the mid-season finale, which should also tell us more about the impending battle between Norway and Rus, the other great world-changing story this season.

See also Vikings 6.1-2: Russia!

And see also Vikings 5.1-2: Floki in Iceland ... Vikings 5.3: Laughing Ivar ...Vikings 5.4: Four of More Good Stories ... Vikings 5.5: Meet Lawrence of Arabia ... Vikings 5.6: Meanwhile, Back Home ... Vikings 5.7: A Looming Trojan-War Battle, Vikings Style, and Two Beautiful Stories ...Vikings 5.8: Only Heahmund? ... Vikings 5.9: Rollo ... Vikings 5.10: New and Old Worlds ... Vikings 5.11: Rollo's Son ... Vikings 5.12: "The Beast with Two Backs" ... Vikings 5.13: The Sacrifice ... Vikings 5.14: Fake News in Kattegat ... Vikings 5.15: Battle ... Vikings 5.16: Peace and War ... Vikings 5.17: No Harmony in Iceland ... Vikings 5.18: Demented Ivar ... Vikings 5.19-20: Endings and Beginnings

And see also Vikings 4.1: I'll Still Take Paris ... Vikings 4.2: Sacred Texts ...Vikings 4.4: Speaking the Language ... Vikings 4.5: Knives ... Vikings 4.8: Ships Up Cliff ... Vikings 4.10: "God Bless Paris" ... Vikings 4.11: Ragnar's Sons ... Vikings 4.12: Two Expeditions ... Vikings 4.13: Family ... Vikings 4.14: Penultimate Ragnar? ... Vikings 4.15: Close of an Era ... Vikings 1.16: Musselman ... Vikings 1.17: Ivar's Wheels ...Vikings 1.18: The Beginning of Revenge ... Vikings 4.19: On the Verge of History ... Vikings 4.20: Ends and Starts

And see also Vikings 3.1. Fighting and Farming ... Vikings 3.2: Leonard Nimoy ...Vikings 3.3: We'll Always Have Paris ... Vikings 3.4: They Call Me the Wanderer ... Vikings 3.5: Massacre ... Vikings 3.6: Athelstan and Floki ...Vikings 3.7: At the Gates ... Vikings 3.8: Battle for Paris ... Vikings 3.9: The Conquered ... Vikings Season 3 Finale: Normandy

Saturday, February 1, 2020

Vienna Blood 1-2: Demons in the Architecture



Took a few minutes (actually closer to 90) out of everything else to watch the first two episodes (actually, one episode, broken into two parts) of Vienna Blood on PBS (my wife aptly flagged it).
It's an excellent historical detective drama, set in 1906 Vienna, with the likes of Sigmund Freud and Gustav Mahler making cameo appearances, and astute historical details (we see a disk not a cylinder on the phonograph - the disk, invented by Berliner, would indeed have been playing there and then, not Edison's cylinder, invented, earlier, in the US).

Max Liebermann is a young psychologist in the even younger field of Freudian psychology. Oskar Reinhardt is a detective with a difficult even harrowing personal story (his daughter died and his wife left him).  Their superiors in one way or another are all calcified idiots.  The two make an outstanding team.

Other important aspects of the milieu include anti-semitism - Max and his family are Jewish - and a city which, at this time, was one of the most impressive cultural capitals in the world.  Art, music, and angels in the architexture (to quote Paul Simon) are very much at hand.  But this world also contains demons in the form of human murderers, and that's what this little series is all about:  how an early profiler and a more seasoned lawman can solve crimes and bring the bad guy to justice.

Give that this is a mystery, I won't say anything more about the plot.  I will say that it was well developed and resolved.   I did wonder about a few missing historical details - I didn't spot any automobiles or telephones.   There had to be a least a few of them in 1906 Vienna.  But there was a mention of Jung's "shadow self," which tracks perfectly with history, since Jung sent his Studies in Word Association to Freud in Vienna in 1906.

I'll try to be back here in two weeks with a single review of the next two-part episode.




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