[Spoilers ahead ... ]
That was a quite a good kiss between Spock and Chapel. Never mind that it was planned and feigned to fool Captain Angel. Spock and Chapel clearly both enjoyed it. They got a lot out of it.
Now, if you compare that with the way Spock and T'Pring later kiss, well, that was pale in comparison. I suppose that could be explained as when Spock was kissing Chapel, he was kissing with his human side, whereas when Spock was kissing T'Pring, he was Vulcan. That would be the logical explanation. But since I'm only human, I found Spock and Chapel much more powerful than Spock and T'Pring.
Of course, Chapel has to tell Spock the kiss didn't really affect her. But we saw her face after the kiss, and she clearly was affected. But she knows and we know and very likely Spock knows she's lying -- Spock knows because he's likely feeling the same way -- so we're left with a simmering erotic attraction and that's a fine place to be.
Meanwhile, Captain Angel is a clever character (good job Jesse James Keitel), and I hope and assume we'll be seeing her again. She and Spock's half-brother have the makings of important long term characters, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of him, too.
About the only thing that I thought was dumb in 1.7 was the successful mutiny that Pike instigates on the pirate ship over ... food? Look, eating is certainly important, but it just didn't work in that context, and the whole segment was another example of why humor isn't Strange New Worlds' strong suit.
But the kiss made this a highly memorable and important episode, and I'm looking forward to next week.
See also Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1.1-1.2: Great Characters, Actors, Stories ... 1.3: "Instead of terraforming planets, we modify ourselves ..." ... 1.4: The Gorn and the Wub ... 1.5 Going to the Chapel ... 1.6: Two Stories
Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 317, in which Captain Phil on WUSB-FM Radio (Stony Brook, New York) interviews me about the January 6 House Committee Hearings. (This interview was conducted the Sunday after the first hearing on June 9, 2022, but we discussed issues pertaining to the continuing hearings. We talk for the first 13 minutes about science fiction on television -- one of our usual topics of discussion -- and then begin to discuss the House Committee Hearings).
Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 316, in which I review the seventh episode of The Man Who Fell to Earth on Showtime.
Written blog post review of this episode of The Man Who Fell to Earth
podcast reviews of The Man Who Fell to Earth 1.1 ... 1.2... 1.3... 1.5-1.6
Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 315, in which I review the fifth episode of The Time Traveler's Wife on HBO.
written blog post review of this episode
Podcast reviews of The Time Traveler's Wife 1.1... 1.2... 1.3... 1.4
[Spoilers ahead ... ]
The biggest reveal is Faraday's realization that Newton's ultimate plan is not to get help to the inhabitants of Anthea back home, but rather to bring the Antheans here to Earth. This sounds like the makings of an interstellar invasion, which would completely change the contours of this story.
We also learned a lot more about who Spencer is. He's the son of a Russian terrorist -- his mother -- here in the United States, and he was brought up and raised under the wing of Finch, whom Spencer now turns on in a crucial scene. Suddenly, Spencer seems and indeed has become much more powerful. He's more than the CIA. I wouldn't be surprised if somewhere down the line he's had more to do with the Antheans than we already know.
Meanwhile, Josiah is in the process of becoming an Anthean. And this provides a significant counterweight to Faraday, who in effect is becoming human. He's now come to believe that his best defence against the CIA is to become famous. In a vivid moment, he realizes that the CIA thrives in darkness, and the light of publicity is the best defense. That's a human insight, if ever there was one.
I really like the fact that, at this point in the story, the end of the seventh episode, I really have no idea how this story is going to turn out. That's an indication of a carefully crafted narrative, with complex characters and agendas, that is being unpacked with precision.
I'll see you back here next week, with my review of the next episode, and my sense of where we then stand in this fascinating story.
See also The Man Who Fell to Earth 1.1: Great Provenance and Excellent Start ... 1.2: The Ending We Needed ... 1.3: "I've come with a prototype ... " 1.4: "Tell my wife I love her very much ... " ... 1.5: Co-Mingling ... 1.6: Music of the Spheres
***
[Spoilers ahead ... ]
No deaths, though Henry, arriving through time naked, is beaten by bikers and rescued by Gomez. It just occurred to me that Henry arriving with no clothes at all on when he time travels is akin to how we non-time-travelers all come into the world, naked.
I guess the most significant event is Henry becoming his older self -- the Henry Clare fell in love with -- not by living through time and aging, but by Clare's younger sister cutting his hair. That was a nice touch.
As to the dinner with Clare's family, I'm getting a little tired of dinners being such a central means of exposition in this story. And Clare's family is no great shakes either. The parents are close to cliches and Clare's brother is annoying and annoyingly predictable. Only Clare's younger sister Alicia (Taylor Richardson) is interesting, and she does a good job cutting Henry's hair, as I said, and fixing up the bruises from those bikers. I would have liked the hair cutting even better, though, had we actually seen that happen.
Looking ahead, the season finale is next week. And that's only episode 6! There's a lot more story to tell here, and one would expect at least a second season, but HBO hasn't announced that yet either. I sure hope they do. Despite the uneven pace, there's a lot of beauty and profundity in this story, it's an excellent exposition of time travel, and I'd like to see where it goes.
As I said in an earlier review, I haven't read the book, but I've seen the movie. At this point, the TV series has more than a few elements that are better than the movie, but if the series ends with one more episode, it will be far weaker and unsatisfying than the story told in the movie.
Emon Hassan is a gifted photographer and movie maker. I didn't know that he is also a gifted composer. He combines all three in Everyday 21, a short film of hauntingly beautiful and profound photographs -- one for every day of the year of 2021 -- backed by quietly breathtaking music that brushes against the edge of your soul.
Hassan's goal was to "find the story" in each day of 2021, and capture that story in a photograph. The result defies literal summary, because it cuts so keenly, to a part of the brain that is moved by the music in songs, the deeper almost inchoate part that lives below and soars above the words.
But to give you a hint of what you'll find here in this 13 minute and 33 second short movie that is short on nothing: a flower growing in a hole in a wall, lots of cracks in structures, words that exist in signage that tell a story that transcends any wordsmith or poet.
Is it a coincidence that the year being so chronicled is 2021, which began with the attack on the U.S Capitol and continued the decimation and fear engendered by COVID-19? Probably not. Hassan is a sensitive being, and decisions as to where he pointed his camera, what to include and not include in this tableau, the order of the photographs, all were made by someone who has a golden unflinching antennae to what is going on in the world.
There are very few human faces in this documentary. And I'd guess that's because Hassan is more interested in the results of what people do, than who they are, or look like. I've been watching and reviewing a lot of science fiction of late -- though I guess I've been doing that for years -- and Everyday 21 has what feels to me like an interstellar quality, even though all the photographs are from Earth (and I think, but don't know for sure, that they all were taken in New York City). It's almost as if Hassan is an interstellar anthropologist, tasked with reporting back home to what's going on here on Earth. Not news events. Artifacts. Produced by our species. Reality. And captured by one of our most luminous members.
See the movie, anytime, here, for free.
Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 314, in which I review For All Mankind 3.1 on Apple TV+.
Blog post written review of this episode
Podcast reviews of prior seasons: Season 2 ... Season 1
Further reading:
For All Mankind is back on Apple TV+ with the first episode of its third season and an exciting, harrowing reminder that space is still a very dangerous place.
[Spoilers follow ... ]
First, the alternate history: The 1992 Presidential election features Ellen running as a Republican against the Democratic candidate, Governor Bill Clinton. (In a nice touch, Gary Hart has previously been President.) All four Beatles are alive and well (see my "It's Real Life" for a completely different alternate history story in which John Lennon is not killed).
Next, our fictional characters: Ed and Karen are divorced, she's married to Sam, and the two are running an orbital hotel. Danny (the late Gordo and late Tracy's oldest son) is getting married up there. Of course Ed and his new wife attend. Everyone's having fun -- well, not quite everyone, Danny's younger brother gives a toast in which he lambasts the space program for killing his parents -- and then things get really bad.
North Korean space junk -- even in this alternate reality they're causing big problems -- hits the hotel. The result is gravity is increasing, to the point where it can tear the orbiter apart. Ed's leg gets fractured as part of the hotel comes apart. And before Danny can heroically fix the problem, Sam has been killed.
Actually, I think that's a very good thing, dramatically. Now Karen is free to get back with Ed (his marriage doesn't seem to be the greatest), or who knows who else. The damaged orbiter reminds us, to get back to the beginning of this review, that we can never be complacent about about moves into space.
As the poster for this new season shows, the goal has now shifted from the Moon to Mars, that much further from Earth, with commensurately more dangers. But humans getting to Mars was the natural progression which should have happened had the space program not been stalled for political and other reasons in our own reality (see my free article, The Missing Orientation, for more). It's gratifying to see how this alternate reality, which maybe should have been our reality, plays out.
I'm looking forward to another great ride this season, and I'll see you back here with my next review.
See also For All Mankind, Season 1 and Episode 2.1: Alternate Space Race Reality ... For All Mankind 2.2: The Peanut Butter Sandwich ... For All Mankind 2.3: "Guns to the Moon" ... For All Mankind 2.4: Close to Reality ... For All Mankind 2.5: Johnny and the Wrath of Kahn ... For All Mankind 2.6: Couplings ... For All Mankind 2.7: Alternate History Surges ... For All Mankind 2.8: Really Lost in Translation ... For All Mankind 2.9: Relationships ... For All Mankind 2.10: Definitely Not the End
Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 313, in which I review episode 3.2 of The Orville on Hulu
Written blog post review of this episode
Podcast reviews of The Orville third season: 3.1
Wanna know why I enjoy The Orville so much?
In episode 3.2, Lt. Keyali tells those creatures from the black lagoon-like monsters, "Come and get me ..."
[Spoilers ahead ... ]
Ok, that's the not the complete quote. In fact, Keyali tells the creatures "Come and get me, assholes".
And that's a large part of what makes The Orville so good. It's not just humor. It's humor that is realistic. The people on The Orville speak like real people do.
And the plots are good. In 3.2, The Orville is beset by those monsters, which can start as humans or another sentient species, who are then beset by a microbial infection that turns them into creatures.
There's even a bit of COVID humor in this episode. Dr. Finn discovers that while the microbes are transforming their prey into monsters, the immune systems of the emerging monsters are down. This means they can be killed by a common cold-like virus, which will give the humans on the ship who have not yet been attacked ... the sniffles. Sound familiar?
The doc overall has an excellent episode. Her relationship with Paul (thanks for using my name) enables her to effectively talk to the monsters, because there's still enough of him in the monster he became to respond to her. And there's more good humor in her story too, when Isaac starts telling Paul (when he's still human, before he's attacked) about her sexual preferences. You just can't trust a robot to be discreet.
So, hey, I'm happy to see The Orville off to such a good third season, and I'll see you right back here, I hope, next week.
See also The Orville 3.1: Life and Death
And see also The Orville 2.1: Relief and Romance ... The Orville 2.2: Porn Addiction and Planetary Disintegration ... The Orville 2.3: Alara ... The Orville 2.4: Billy Joel ... The Orville 2.5: Escape at Regor 2 ... The Orville 2.6: "Singin' in the Rain" ... The Orville 2.7: Love and Death ... The Orville 2.8: Recalling Čapek, Part 1 ... The Orville 2.9: Recalling Čapek, Part 2 ... The Orville: 2.10: Exploding Blood ... The Orville 2.11: Time Capsule, Space Station, and Harmony ... The Orville 2.12: Hello Dolly! ... The Orville 2.13: Time Travel! ... The Orville Season 2 Finale: Alternate History!
And see also The Orville 1.1-1.5: Star Trek's Back ... The Orville 1.6-9: Masterful ... The Orville 1.10: Bring in the Clowns ... The Orville 1.11: Eating Yaphit ... The Orville 1.12: Faith in Reason and the Prime Directive
Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 312, in which I review the sixth episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds on Paramount+
Written blog post review of this episode
Podcast reviews of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1.1-2 ... 1.3... 1.4... 1.5
[Spoilers ahead ... ]
1. Pike and Alora: Good to see Pike find some happiness, even if it didn't work out all right in the end. The kiss, their time in bed, was a good humanizing experience. Unlike Kirk, who had lots of romantic interludes, this is the first we've seen with Pike in SNW. And although the First Servant story (well played by young Ian Ho, as was Lindy Booth as Alora) kept them apart, their interlude now offers Pike and us a possible alternate ending to what we saw in "The Menagerie" all those years ago, and Pike himself saw much more recently in television history. But, you might ask, since that history already happened -- we indeed saw that future of Pike in "The Menagerie" in the 1960s -- doesn't that mean that it can't be changed, whatever Pike might want and try to do in the next ten years of his life? The answer would be yes, were this not science fiction. But in science fiction, the impossibility of a new life for Pike in which he avoids the disfigurement can be avoided by anything that flips him and our viewing into an alternate reality. And alternate realities have been a staple not only of science fiction, but Star Trek over the years.
2. Rukiya: The other story does end on a definitely hopeful note. The First Servant's biological father and de facto protector may have the knowledge, or know of the knowledge, that can cure Rukiya of her illness. This is just what Dr. M'Benga was hoping for. He's been keeping Rukiya in transporter limbo, waiting for the time when the Enterprise's visit to some strange new world will provide the knowledge needed to save her. He may now, it seems, finally be on that path.
This episode vividly represents how Strange New Worlds is unrolling its narrative. Standalone adventures in each episode, that tie into underlying themes that are slowly developing. In that sense, Strange New Worlds may be a little more moored in continuing stories than either TOS and TNG. But that's ok with me. As I keep saying after almost every episode, SNW is becoming my favorite Star Trek.
See also Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1.1-1.2: Great Characters, Actors, Stories ... 1.3: "Instead of terraforming planets, we modify ourselves ..." ... 1.4: The Gorn and the Wub ... 1.5 Going to the Chapel
[Spoilers follow ... ]
Music of the spheres -- the idea since at least the time of Pythagoras in Ancient Greece that the mathematically describable motion of the planets describe a kind of music, if not necessarily hearable, definitely knowable by the soul -- has given rise to all manner of philosophic speculation since then. I'm neither astronomer nor mathematician, but the idea has always appealed to me in some fuzzy, consoling way.
And it provides the solution to the problem vexing Faraday and his allies -- how to turn those equations into a workable energy generator. And that solution is: music, or, more precisely, jazz. The essence of jazz, as everyone knows, is improvisation. Josiah turns out to have been a jazz man -- literally, in this case -- via the infusion of Faraday's Anthean DNA.
Let's rewind a little. Faraday cured Josiah, made him whole, by giving Josiah some of Faraday's DNA. Josiah always loved and gravitated to jazz. But with Faraday's DNA, Josiah's music, fed into a computer, is able via Faraday's and Justin's brilliant orchestration to implement Newton's vision.
Now, I doubt that's quite what Pythagoras had in mind, but his whole theory, after all, is a kind of magnificent science fiction. Meanwhile, this episode was also animated by Faraday's video letter to his Anthean wife, which provided a droll and incisive commentary on human nature and custom.
The episode ends with Spencer in maximum threatening mode, and, frankly, given the luminescence of the rest of this narrative, I'm beginning to find Spencer and his threats more of an annoyance than anything. But such is the nature of even cable television these days, and the rest of The Man Who Fell to Earth, especially this past Sunday, was so sublime, I'll take Spencer and his irritations.
Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 310, in which I review the fourth episode of The Time Traveler's Wife on HBO.
written blog post review of this episode
Podcast reviews of The Time Traveler's Wife 1.1... 1.2... 1.3
Further reading:
A wittier than usual episode 1.4 of The Time Traveler's Wife on HBO last night, and the dialogue in the series has been pretty witty so far.
[Spoilers ahead ... ]
Grey haired, short haired Henry is with long haired young Henry at a dinner party with 19-year old Clare and some significant friends. Before the evening is over, we have older Henry from 2021 sharing stock tips with the group in 2008. Buy Netflix and face masks are noted by Gomez, and from here in 2022 they are interesting choices. In 2021, both were riding high. A year later, Netflix posted some big losses, and face masks have gone out of favor. (Not be me, by the way, and I also still think Netflix has a great future.)
But the even deeper question is one which has challenged medical ethicists for who knows how long. Do you tell a person who's going to die that that's going to happen? The current thinking is yes. But there's an argument that a white lie is better -- let the person enjoy whatever life they have left, to the max. (See Sissela Bok's Lying for more on this, which I recommended in my review of TTW 1.3 just last week.) Henry, under pressure, tell's a character she's going to die, and that she doesn't have much time left, but refuses to tell her exactly when. That's a sensitive choice.
I think the best part and deepest value of The Time Traveler's Wife is how it handles such ethical issues. They arise all the time in our off-screen real world where time travel is almost certainly impossible (it engenders too many paradoxes). But time travel puts them in high relief, and it's both fun and mind-charging to see how well they're handled in this series.
See also The Time Traveler's Wife 1.1: Off to a Fine, Funny, Complex Start ... 1.2: Fate ... 1.3: Lies and Love
Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 309, in which I review episode 3.1 of The Orville on Hulu
Written blog post review of this episode
Well, I said in my review of the fifth episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds that its attempts at humor paled in comparison to the funny stuff in The Orville. I watched the debut episode of the long awaited third season of The Orville last night, and although there was a funny line here and there, there wasn't much occasion to laugh in this episode which was as profound and philosophically probing as any episode I've ever seen in any Star Trek series.
[Spoilers ahead ... ]
The story picks up in the aftermath of the battle with the Kaylons that lit up the last part of the second season. Although Isaac the robot came through for The Orville in the end, he facilitated the attack in the first place, and was responsible for a lot human deaths. Most of the crew hates him, including Dr. Finn's older son Marcus and an ensign we haven't seen before, Charly (well played by Anne Winters). Even Captain Mercer has his concerns about reinstating Isaac, only Finn's younger son Ty still likes him, and eventually Marcus tells Isaac he'd like to see him dead. Isaac soon implements this suggestion, and commits robotic hara kiri.
This raised a whole series of important questions: Can someone or something which was never biologically alive commit suicide? But maybe Isaac was alive, which raises the question of what does it mean to be alive? Does life have to be biological? Such questions, of course, have long been addressed in Star Trek via Data (The Orville is most based on Star Trek: TNG). Every time Data's existence was in danger, the crew and we the viewers felt the cold grip of that possible loss, and it was very deep. Maybe life is at least in part in the eye of the beholder.
And speaking of life and death, it was good and sad to hear the late Norm Macdonald's voice again as Yaphit, the intelligent slime who was one of the funniest best characters in The Orville. The episode noted his loss at the very beginning, and that set the tone for a lot of what came after.
In case you haven't seen this episode but you nonetheless have read this far, I won't tell you whether The Orville's people are able to bring Isaac back to "life". I will tell you this was one excellent episode, and I'll be here with reviews of every episode on Hulu every week.
See also The Orville 2.1: Relief and Romance ... The Orville 2.2: Porn Addiction and Planetary Disintegration ... The Orville 2.3: Alara ... The Orville 2.4: Billy Joel ... The Orville 2.5: Escape at Regor 2 ... The Orville 2.6: "Singin' in the Rain" ... The Orville 2.7: Love and Death ... The Orville 2.8: Recalling Čapek, Part 1 ... The Orville 2.9: Recalling Čapek, Part 2 ... The Orville: 2.10: Exploding Blood ... The Orville 2.11: Time Capsule, Space Station, and Harmony ... The Orville 2.12: Hello Dolly! ... The Orville 2.13: Time Travel! ... The Orville Season 2 Finale: Alternate History!
And see also The Orville 1.1-1.5: Star Trek's Back ... The Orville 1.6-9: Masterful ... The Orville 1.10: Bring in the Clowns ... The Orville 1.11: Eating Yaphit ... The Orville 1.12: Faith in Reason and the Prime Directive
Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 308, in which I review the fifth episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds on Paramount+
Written blog post review of this episode
Podcast reviews of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1.1-2 ... 1.3... 1.4
[Spoilers follow ... ]
Here is what I most liked in this fine episode (probably in descending order):
1. Spock and Nurse Chapel. I like the way she looks at him and thinks about him. That final scene in which she doesn't (yet) want to tell anyone about this is an indication of how important this is and is going to be for her (and therefore us).
2. The mind swapping between Spock and T'Pring was nice, and done in classic Star Trekian fashion. It worked up until the two tried to reverse it, and then it took a medical intervention to do that. McCoy would've been pleased.
3. Pike's realization of what it would take to get those characters into the Federation was good to see, and also classic Star Trek, which more than anything was an unending chess match between we humans and the interstellar intelligences we encountered.
4. I liked that little piece of the hull that dated back to the original Enterprise, and had some notable signatures on it. Literally a cool touching base with history.
And, ok, here's what I didn't much like:
That whole Noonian-Sing and Chin-Riley thread. I'll be watching the first episode of the new season of The Orville later today, in which comedy is more deftly embedded and executed. In Strange New Worlds 1.5, it felt more like comedy for comedy's sake, which meant it wasn't all that funny, and was mostly an unneeded distraction from the main agenda. But I did like those signatures on the hull.
And I'll see you back here next week with review of the next episode.
See also Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1.1-1.2: Great Characters, Actors, Stories ... 1.3: "Instead of terraforming planets, we modify ourselves ..." 1.4: The Gorn and the Wub
Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 307, in which Captain Phil on WUSB-FM Radio (Stony Brook, New York) interviews me about what must be done to stop the continuing slaughter of children in America by weapons designed for war. The interview begins with 15 minutes of a much lighter discussion about The Beatles and science fiction, and then proceeds to 90 minutes about what must be done about guns.
[Spoilers ahead ... ]
Earth and Anthea have had some kind of co-mingling in the distant past. Antheans carry with them some element of humanity deep inside, and presumably vice versa. This explains why Faraday, despite his linguistic and cultural faux pas (I mean that as a plural), is ultimately so sympatico in his understanding of we human beings. And it may explain why Justin is so understanding of Faraday, and more than that, as her daughter Molly asks Justin if the Anthean is her boyfriend.
Digging deeper, the relationship of the two planets may explain why the Antheans chose to come to Earth for help. They certainly didn't pick our planet randomly, or even just because the Antheans reckoned we had the degree of technology necessary to save them. It now seems that Earth and Anthea are two brethren or at least cousin worlds, that go back a long way.
With that mind, Molly's question takes on a more profound light. Could Faraday and Molly's mother have children? How about Newton and whomever? Are any of the characters we're now seeing in the story the result of such interstellar unions?
The bad guy in all of this still remains Spencer. He seems to be doing more than just doing his job. So far, he hasn't done any lasting damage that we know of, but he has a lot of venom for the Antheans and their science if they or anyone other than the CIA has any control over it.
Again, we know from the first scene of the very first episode that Faraday will come up on top of all this. I'm sorry we saw that, because if the show has any suspense in the episode that shows us Faraday giving that speech, that would be because something unexpected and bad happens to the Anthean right after.
Which I'm hoping doesn't happen. But I'll see you back here with my review of the next episode next week.
See also The Man Who Fell to Earth 1.1: Great Provenance and Excellent Start ... 1.2: The Ending We Needed ... 1.3: "I've come with a prototype ... " 1.4: "Tell my wife I love her very much ... "
first spaceship to Alpha Centauri from Mars
