Paul Levinson's Blog: Levinson at Large, page 281

Excellent, McLuhanesque Hillary Clinton Announcement Video

I thought Hillary Clinton's announcement video was just outstanding - it not only touched all the bases, but showed a powerful, understated restraint, with Hillary not coming into the picture until well into the video.

Marshall McLuhan talked about the power of cool, understated media presentations.    When less rather than more is offered on the screen, this draws the viewer in to complete the picture.  And this in turn involves the viewer in the story.

Everyone already knows who Hillary is.   Her video did a masterful job of inviting the viewer to learn even more about her.

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Outlander 1.10: A Glimmer of Paradox

Hey, I really enjoyed Outlander 1.10 last night.  It had that glimmer of paradox that I always seek in my time travel stories.  Not that I didn't like the romp in bed at the beginning, and the nearly duel in the middle.  But, for me, it's the paradox that's the thing.

It happened with the arrogant toad, the Duke of Sandringham.  Jamie's hoping the Duke can be his ticket to getting the price removed that is hanging over his head.  Sandringham's name, however, rings a bell for Claire, and here's where the paradox begins.  She recalls her historian husband in her 1940s future mentioning that Sandringham was in some kind of league with Black Jack, which would mean the Duke certainly is not likely to do Jamie any good.

And, indeed, the Duke nearly, indirectly, gets Jamie killed.  But this seems to have nothing to do with Black Jack.   In fact, it doesn't seem that the Duke has much of a relationship with Black Jack at this point.  So here's where the paradox comes in:  will something Claire did, in what she said to Jamie, and something Jamie in turn did, as a result, now propel the Duke to say something to Black Jack and develop some kind of important connection between them?

Such possibilities are at the heart of many a time travel story, and they're always fun to think about. The basic form is: someone appears at your door, an older version of you, with information about how to build a time machine.  You employ this information to build a time machine, and, eventually, in the future, you travel back to you earlier self to provide him or her with this information.  So, the question is ... where did this information come from in the first place?

Of course, the time travel in Outlander is not via any invented machine, but via some kind of paranormal mystical spot in a forest.   Indeed, when Claire heard the baby crying in this episode, I thought maybe it was a cry from the future.   This primordial time travel does have its charms, and I'm looking forward to more.

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


podcast review of the first half season

 
Sierra Waters series, #1, time travel

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Bones 10.13: The Almost Serial Killer

A good Bones 10.13 on Thursday - appealing because it showed restraint in setting up a story about a serial killer, with a religious motivation and all, but capturing him at the end of the episode.   Booth doesn't kill him - indeed, feels bad about wounding him, because he's an ex-con who seemed to be on the road to rehabilitation - and this leaves open the possibility that we'll see this killer again.  But credit to Bones for the twist of not leaving the serial killer on the loose at the end.

Meanwhile, there's a strong Aristoo story going on, too, with the news that his brother back in Iran is seriously ill, Aristoo planning on going home to see him, and the strain and trauma that puts on his relationship with Cam.   As Bones sometimes does, it presents this story at just the right time in terms of our real world, off-screen.   As Cam and Aristoo come to terms with his leaving, we the viewers can take some comfort in the announcement last week or so that Iran and the U.S. may be on the path to a treaty that stops Iran's development of nuclear weapons and in general thaws the relationship between our two countries.

And it was also a good episode for Aubrey, who is working great with Booth now.  They complete each other's lines, play off each other's sarcastic humor, and are becoming one of the best cop partnerships on television.  Good performance by John Boyd to complement David Boreanaz.

You know what I miss, though?   Hodgins and Angela, both together and separately in their professions.   In this episode we get some nice banter about Hodgins enjoying tying Angela up in bed, but I can't remember the last time an episode revolved around either of them at the center of a case.

No problem, though - we have plenty of episodes left this season for that to happen - maybe in a story line in which a new serial killer, or someone nefarious across episodes, is introduced.


Bones 100 and 200 podcast reviews

See also Bones 10.1: The Fulcrum Changes ... Bones 10.2: J. Edgar and the DNA Confession ... Bones 10.3: Meets Rush and a Dominatrix ... Bones 10.4: Brennan and Angela on a Bench in the Playground ... Bones 10.5: Two Jokes and Three Times ... Bones 10.6: A Thousand Cuts ... Bones 10.7: The A-Word and Quarks ... Bones 10.8: Daisy's Doula ... Bones 10.9: The Milgram Experiment and the Birds ... Bones 200: 10.10: Just like Bogey and Bacall ... Bones 10.11: Life after Death, and Sweets in Wonderland ... Bones 10.12: The Digital Revolution
And see also Bones 9.1: The Sweet Misery of Love ... Bones 9.2: Bobcat, Identity Theft, and Sweets ... Bones 9.3 and NCIS 11.2: Sweets and Ziva ... Bones 9.4: Metaphysics of Death in a Television Series ... Bones 9.5: Val and Deep Blue ... Bones 9.6: The Wedding ... Bones 9.7: Watch Out, Buenos Aires ...Bones 9.8: The Bug in the Neck ... Bones 9.9: Friday Night Bones in the Courtroom ... Bones 9.10: Horse Pucky ... Bones 9.11: Angels in Equations ... Bones 9.12: Fingernails ... Bones 9.13: Meets Nashville, and Wendell ... Bones 9.14: "You Cannot Drink Your Glass Away" ... Bones 9.15: Hodgins' Brother and the Ripped Off Toe ... Bones 9.16: Lampreys, Professors, and Insurance Companies ... Bones 9.17: Spartacus in the Kitchen ... Bones 9.18: Meets Day of the Triffids ... Bones 9.19: The Cornucopic Urn ... Bones 9.20: Above the Law ... Bones 9.21: Freezing and Thawing ... Bones 9.22: Promotion ... Bones 9.23: The New Intern ... Bones Season 9 Finale: Upping the Ante

And see also Bones 8.1: Walk Like an Egyptian ... Bones 8.2 of Contention ... Bones 8.3: Not Rotting Behind a Desk  ... Bones 8.4: Slashing Tiger and Donald Trump ... Bones 8.5: Applesauce on Election Eve ... Bones 8.6: Election Day ... Bones 8.7: Dollops in the Sky with Diamonds ...Bones 8.8: The Talking Remains ... Bones 8.9: I Am A Camera ... Bones 8.10-11: Double Bones ...Bones 8.12: Face of Enigmatic Evil ... Bones 8.13: Two for the Price of One ... Bones 8.14: Real Life ... Bones 8.15: The Magic Bullet and the Be-Spontaneous Paradox ... Bones 8.16: Bitter-Sweet Sweets and Honest Finn ... Bones 8.17: "Not Time Share, Time Travel" ... Bones 8.18: Couples ... Bones 8.19: The Head in the Toilet ... Bones 8.20: On Camera ... Bones 8.21: Christine, Hot Sauce, and the Judge ... Bones 8.22: Musical-Chair Parents ... Bones 8.23: The Bluff ... Bones Season 8 Finale: Can't Buy the Last Few Minutes

And see also Bones 7.1: Almost Home Sweet Home ... Bones 7.2: The New Kid and the Fluke ...Bones 7.3: Lance Bond and Prince Charmington ... Bones 7.4: The Tush on the Xerox ... Bones 7.5: Sexy Vehicle ... Bones 7.6: The Reassembler ... Bones 7.7: Baby! ... Bones 7.8: Parents ...Bones 7.9: Tabitha's Salon ... Bones 7.10: Mobile ... Bones 7.11: Truffles and Max ... Bones 7.12: The Corpse is Hanson ... Bones Season 7 Finale: Suspect Bones

And see also Bones 6.1: The Linchpin ... Bones 6.2: Hannah and her Prospects ... Bones 6.3 at the Jersey Shore, Yo, and Plymouth Rock ... Bones 6.4 Sans Hannah ... Bones 6.5: Shot and Pretty ... Bones 6.6: Accidental Relations ... Bones 6.7:  Newman and "Death by Chocolate" ...Bones 6.8: Melted Bones ... Bones 6.9: Adelbert Ames, Jr. ... Bones 6.10: Reflections ... Bones 6.11: The End and the Beginning of a Mystery ... Bones 6.12 Meets Big Love ... Bones 6.13: The Marrying Kind ... Bones 6.14: Bones' Acting Ability ... Bones 6.15: "Lunch for the Palin Family" ...Bones 6.16: Stuck in an Elevator, Stuck in Times ... Bones 6.17: The 8th Pair of Feet ... Bones 6.18: The Wile E. Chupacabra ... Bones 6.19 Test Runs The Finder ... Bones 6.20: This Very Statement is a Lie ... Bones 6.21: Sensitive Bones ... Bones 6.22: Phoenix Love ... Bones Season 6 Finale: Beautiful

And see also Bones: Hilarity and Crime and Bones is Back For Season 5: What Is Love? and 5.2: Anonymous Donors and Pipes and 5.3: Bones in Amish Country and 5.4: Bones Meets Peyton Place and Desperate Housewives and Ancient Bones 5.5 and Bones 5.6: A Chicken in Every Viewer's Pot and Psychological Bones 5.7 and Bones 5.8: Booth's "Pops" and Bones 5.9 Meets Avatar and Videogamers ... Bad Santa, Heart-Warming Bones 5.10 ... Bones 5.11: Of UFOs, Bloggers, and Triangles ... Bones 5.12: A Famous Skeleton and Angela's Baby ... Love with Teeth on Bones 5.13 ... Faith vs. Science vs. Psychology in Bones 5.14 ... Page 187 in Bones 5.15 ...Bones 100: Two Deep Kisses and One Wild Relationship ... Bones 5.17: The Deadly Stars ...Bones Under Water in 5.18 ... Bones 5.19: Ergo Together ...  Bones 5.20: Ergo Together ... Bones 5.21: The Rarity of Happy Endings ... Bones Season 5 Finale: Eye and Evolution

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12 Monkeys Season 1 Finale: "Time Travel to Create Time Travel"

"Time travel to create time travel," Ramse says, back in 2015, having lived in real time in the past for decades since he arrived in Japan, and that's as good a paradoxical description as any of how time travel works in general and what we've seen in this series.

Significantly, Jones has despaired of time travel in 2043, and its ability to change the past, which she now thinks for an awful moment is inalterable.  But Cassie's arrival from the past will change her mind.   I've been saying from the beginning that there's some connection between Cassie and Jones - maybe they're not the same person, maybe Cassie's not Jones's daughter, but Cassie is now about to play a profound role in Jones' life and work, rekindling her commitment to time travel and what it can do. Good thing there's a next season to see at least part of this out.

Cassie had a great evening tonight, across the board and across time.  Back in 2015, it was a real pleasure to hear her call out Jennifer on her "crazy bullshit," and not let Ramse off the hook, either.   Shooting Ramse in that time and place was the right thing to do.

Killing him would not, though, and it's down to Cole to pull his friend away from death, with Cole's stubborn insistence that nothing is permanent in a world rent by time travel, including death itself. Cole in that moment ratifies and reiterates what I said in a review some episodes back about 12 Monkeys providing substance - and drama - to Shelley's proclamation that Keats was not dead after he died, that it was death that's dead, not he.

Several other points.  For some reason, I've come to like that slightly mad scientist technician in 2043, who not only keeps the time machine in as tip top shape as possible under the circumstances but comes through with the savvy observation at just the right time.   On the other hand, the preponderance of villains in the present and future seem rather wooden, and I hope we can a subtler species of evil doer in the future - that is, in our future, with any luck fatally-virus free next year in 2016, at least on this side of the television or whatever-you're-seeing-this-on screen.

And I'll be back here with  reviews of the second season for your screen next year.

See also this Italian review, w/reference to Hawking and my story, "The Chronology Protection Case"

And see also 12 Monkeys series on SyFy: Paradox Prominent and Excellent ...12 Monkeys 1.2: Your Future, His Past ... 12 Monkeys 1.3:  Paradoxes, Lies, and Near Intersections ... 12 Monkeys 1.4: "Uneasy Math" ... 12 Monkeys 1.5: The Heart of the Matter ... 12 Monkeys 1.6: Can I Get a Witness? ... 12 Monkeys 1.7: Snowden, the Virus, and the Irresistible ... 12 Monkeys 1.8: Intelligent Vaccine vs. Time Travel ... 12 Monkeys 1.9: Shelley, Keats, and Time Travel ... 12 Monkey 1.10: The Last Jump ... 12 Monkeys 1.11: What-Ifs ... 12 Monkeys 1.2: The Plunge

podcast review of Predestination and 12 Monkeys



 three time travel novels: the Sierra Waters trilogy


What if the Soviet Union survived into the 21st century,
and Eddie and the Cruisers were a real band?


The Chronology Protection Case movie 

~~~ +++ ~~~

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Thomas Maier: Masters of Sex and Biography Come to Life

I had the pleasure of seeing Thomas Maier - author of the Masters of Sex biography upon which the Showtime drama of the same name is based - interviewed at Fordham University tonight.  This is becoming a delightful and informative regular occurrence here at Fordram - interviews of people behind great contemporary television - and thanks go to my colleague Beth Knobel, who several weeks ago arranged for House of Cards creator Beau Willimon and tonight Thomas Maier  (a Fordham alumnus - it was also great to see some of my former students at this event) at our Lincoln Center Campus.  Thanks as well to our Department's Artist-in-Residence Jim Jennewein, who twice conducted excellent interviews - i.e., interviews that  allowed their subjects to really expound upon significant facets of their work.

Let me say, right up front, that my wife and I are devoted fans of the Showtime series, set to begin its third season this July, even though I haven't reviewed it here or anywhere.   Why not, if I like it so much?   Good question and I'm not sure sure of the answer.  It's almost and maybe that I like Masters of Sex a little too much to focus on reviewing it, though loving a series hasn't stopped me from copiously reviewing Dexter, Homeland, Ray Donovan, The Affair, and other notable Showtime shows.  But something about Masters of Sex has bid me so far to keep it a guilty pleasure.  Hey, maybe it's the sex - but who really knows, I'm after all no Freud.

Speaking of whom, Maier's description of the real Virginia Johnson really struck me - "Freud meets Ava Gardner".  In other words,  Lizzy Caplan's excellent portrayal of Johnson is visually as well as emotionally and intellectually on target - something you can't always say about portrayals of real characters, in which the performance can be much more compelling than the original.

Maier's description of the real William Masters also rang true.  As we've seen in the series, Masters portrayed by the masterful Michael Sheen was not happy or comfortable with publicity.   The real Masters, Maier mentioned, would likely have done everything in his power to squelch the series and not cooperate with Maier's biography before it

But my favorite moment in the interview came in Maier's response to a question about how it felt to see his words come to life on television, when he spends most of his time writing them for print on paper and screens. Maier said he loved it!   This was a great corrective to something one of my science fiction editors had told me, years ago, about the "soul deadening" impact of Hollywood on a writer.   There's nothing like hearing an assessment such as Thomas Maier's - from someone who's been there, done it, and finds it one of the glorious experiences of his life.

See also Beau Willimon at Fordham Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music

Vikings 3.8: The Battle for Paris

A cinematically splendid Vikings 3.8 last night, with a vividly rendered complex siege of Paris by the Norse that rivaled The Two Towers in Lord of the Rings.

If you think about it, our heroes from Scandinavia has had it relatively easy so far with the people and installations they've conquered in the West.   Lindisfarne was manned by monks, and lots of the rest of England fortified by leaders who barely knew their arses from their elbows when it came to military strategy.

Paris is another matter.  Although the grandson of Charlemagne is no military genius, his army benefits from three generations of organization and weaponry that conquered most of Europe.  Thus, although Ragnar's attack was mighty and well-planned, its narrow repelling by the French and their rapid firing crossbows and other techniques was not implausible, stunning as it was.

As I mentioned last week, true history records Viking failures both before and after a successful sacking of Paris in Ragnar's time.   In retrospect, Ragnar's appointment of Floki to lead the attack may have been made by the show's producers to keep this failed attack in accordance with history - the Vikings failed here, but not directly under Ragnar.   And if the coming attractions are any indication, the Vikings will do better next time.

It's not that Ragnar just watched from a safe distance, this time, which he might have done had the battle gone his way.   But once it began turning, he entered fray, climbed up the ladder, and with Rollo put in some of the very best scenes of the evening and the series, almost wresting victory from the jaws of defeat after all.   Indeed, the single best scenes were the locking of eyes between Rollo and the French princess Gisla, who inspired the French defenders to success at the crucial moment in the battle.   It was Rollo, looking at the princess, and she at him, from afar, that galvanized him to run up the ladder, and then Ragnar, which makes me think we may see something more between Gisla and Rollo in times to come.

The next time will be next week, and I'm looking forward.

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

And see also Vikings 2.1-2: Upping the Ante of Conquest ... Vikings 2.4: Wise King ... Vikings 2.5: Caught in the Middle ... Vikings 2.6: The Guardians ...Vikings 2.7: Volatile Mix ... Vikings 2.8: Great Post-Apocalyptic Narrative ... Vikings Season 2 Finale: Satisfying, Surprising, Superb

And see also Vikings ... Vikings 1.2: Lindisfarne ... Vikings 1.3: The Priest ... Vikings 1.4:  Twist and Testudo ... Vikings 1.5: Freud and Family ... Vikings 1.7: Religion and Battle ... Vikings 1.8: Sacrifice
... Vikings Season 1 Finale: Below the Ash

 
historical science fiction - a little further back in time

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Sinatra: All or Nothing at All: Review: About All You Could Ask For

I saw all of Sinatra: All or Nothing at All - all of four hours - last night on HBO, and found it excellent.

In addition to the great music, I learned the following from this documentary -

Sinatra was a fierce advocate for FDR (I knew about JFK) and for equal treatment of African Americans in this country - at a time, the 1940s and 50s, when few others in Sinatra's positions were out there.   He then tarnished this a little with stupid racist humor at Sammy Davis Jr's expense in the Rat Pack (not that Sammy ever complained).The oft-told tale of how Sinatra landed a crucial part in a movie with the mob's help - dramatized in The Godfather - is an urban legend.  What really happened is Ava Gardner went to bat for him.Sinatra hated rock 'n' roll, Elvis, and the Beatles - I already knew some of this - but it was great to see Sinatra nonetheless do a fine duet with a young Elvis on television.Sinatra did use mob connections to help JFK win in the crucial states of West Virginia and Illinois - this was pretty well known already - but the depth of Sinatra's hurt when Joe Kennedy through Bobby cut Sinatra out of Camelot was a sight to behold in the documentary.Back to Ava Garder - she had a caustic tongue, to say the least, and assuming those words attributed to her were really spoken by her - the documentary had someone else render her voice - we get a lesson in the language used behind the scenes in these supposedly slightly more genteel times in show business.The singing, which was all Sinatra, was just wonderful, as I said.  My wife and I saw him in a concert in Westchester in the late 1970s, and have always admired his work - even though, unlike Frank, we love the Beatles, and I (not my wife) love Elvis, too.

There was one thing lacking in the movie - at least a minute or so of Frank and Nancy's "Something Stupid" duet in the mid-1960s would've been nice to hear - and I caught one little error on the screen (the election in which Sinatra helped JFK was listed as 1963 when it course took place in 1960).  But, overall, I highly recommend this movie to Sinatra fans or anyone who's heard of him and has wondered what all the fuss was about.   In an age before social media and cable TV, Sinatra catapulted to the top via the media at his disposal - band tours, concert halls, radio, motion pictures, and network television - and became a towering icon we have yet to see duplicated.


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Mad Men 7.8: Don, Rachel, and the Waitress

Mad Men was back for its final half-season bow - episode 7.8 tonight - with a fine surrealistic, watercolor story, suitably blurred by longings for what was lost and cannot be regained.

Rachel was one of the best characters in that first season that seems so long ago now, in that summer right after The Sopranos had ended.  Maggie Siff's character didn't work out, and she went on to portray Tara in a brilliant performance on Sons of Anarchy.  It was great to see Rachel back tonight, if, sadly but significantly, only in Don's dream.

She can never be in more than a dream now because, as Don soon learns, she died last week.  This is a crucial moment not only for Don's character, but the story as a whole, because it makes the point yet again, having been made so many times already on this show, that you can't go home again.  Don couldn't go home to his earlier pseudo-life, nor could any of the other characters, having realized they wrongly discarded something earlier, ever been able to double back and be happy.   Maybe human beings can, sometimes, but not those who build dreams for others in advertising.   Maybe that's because their own lives are in large part dreams, which evaporate all too fast in the light of new days.

But Don does manage to capture something of Rachel, in a waitress who looks a lot a like her, and whom Don manages to sleep with, in part because she's grateful that Roger, now sporting a mustache, left her a hundred dollar tip the night before.  (The waitress's looking like Rachel is no doubt what triggered Don's dream.  Roger's mustache had nothing to do with that, but this seemed the best place in the review to work that in.)   Possibly Don will initiate a long range affair with this waitress, and the two will live happily ever after - nah, that's not likely to happen, it's too much even for a dream.

The other big news involves Ken Cosgrove aka Ben Hargrove, who is fired from Don's firm by Roger, and who may be taking up his calling to become a renown science fiction writer, like Alfred Bester, who also had a career in advertising.   But that dream was also not to be, and, instead, Ken winds up putting one over on Roger and Pete - something is always being put over on Pete - when Ken becomes the very client over whom he was fired.

We're not out of the age of blatant male chauvinism on Mad Men yet by any means - some would say we're not in 2015, either - and Joan gets a  taste of it from clients who are more interested in her "pair" than anything she or Peggy have to say.  Interestingly, Peggy is not very sympathetic, later in the elevator, prompting a great comeback by Joan that Peggy could never understand what Joan has to go through with men.   Meanwhile, Peggy's love life verges on a dream - or a day dream - to complete the arc of bubbles that explode in daylight.

I'm going to really miss this series when it's over - there's been nothing like it on television, and not likely ever to be.

See also Mad Men 7.1: Vignettes and Playboy ... Mad Men 7.2:  Flowers and the Hung-Up Phone ... Mad Men 7.3: "Lunch with Rod Serling" ... Mad Men 7.4: Computer! ... Mad Men 7.5: Retrofit Paranoia ... Mad Men 7.6: The Dance ...  Mad Men Mid-Season 7 Finale: Telescope vs. Television

And see also Mad Men 6.1-2: The Lighter and the Twist ... Mad Men 6.3: Good Company ... Mad Men 6.4: McLuhan, Heinz, and Don's Imagination ... Mad Men 6.5: MLK ... Mad Men 6.6: Good News Comes in a Chevy ...  Mad Men 6.7: Merger and Margarine ... Mad Men 6.8: Dr. Feelgood and Grandma Ida ... Mad Men 6.9: Don and Betty ... Mad Men 6.10: Medium Cool ... Mad Men 6.11: Hand in the Cookie Jar and Guy de Maupassant ... Mad Men 6.12: Rosemary's Baby, Dick Cheney, and Sunkist ... Mad Men Season 6 Finale: Beyond California

And see also Why "You Only Live Twice" for Mad Men Season 5 Finale ... Mad Men Season Five Finale

And see also Mad Men Season 5 Debut: It's Don's Party  ... Mad Men 5.3: Heinz Is On My Side ... Mad Men 5.4: Volunteer, Dream, Trust ... Mad Men 5.5: Ben Hargrove ... Mad Men 5.6: LSD Orange ... Mad Men 5.7: People of High Degree ... Mad Men 5.8: Mad Man and Gilmore Girl ...Mad Men 5.9: Don's Creativity  ... Mad Men 5.10: "The Negron Complex" ... Mad Men 5.11: Prostitution and Power ... Mad Men 5.12: Exit Lane

And from Season 4: Mad Men 4.1: Chicken Kiev, Lethal Interview, Ham Fight ... 4.2: "Good Time, Bad Time?" "Yes." ... 4.3: Both Coasts ... 4.4: "The following program contains brief nudity ..." 4.5: Fake Out and Neurosis ... 4.6: Emmys, Clio, Blackout, Flashback  ... 4.7: 'No Credits on Commercials' ... 4.8: A Tale of Two Women ... 4.9: "Business of Sadists and Masochists" ...4.10: Grim Tidings ... 4.11: "Look at that Punim" ... 4.12: No Smoking!  ... Mad Men Season 4 Finale: Don and -

And from Season 3: Mad Men Back for 3 and 3.2: Carvel, Penn Station, and Diet Soda and 3.3: Gibbon, Blackface, and Eliot and 3.4: Caned Seats and a Multiple Choice about Sal's Patio Furniture and 3.5: Admiral TV, MLK, and a Baby Boy and 3.6: A Saving John Deere and 3.7: Brutal Edges ... August Flights in 3.8 ... Unlucky Strikes and To the Moon Don in 3.9 ... 3.10: The Faintest Ink, The Strongest Television ... Don's Day of Reckoning in Mad Men 3.11 ... Mad Men 3.12: The End of the World in Mad Men ... Mad Men Season 3 Finale: The End of the World

And from Season Two: Mad Men Returns with a Xerox and a Call Girl ... 2.2: The Advertising Devil and the Deep Blue Sea ... 2.3 Double-Barreled Power ... 2.4: Betty and Don's Son ... 2.5: Best Montage Since Hitchcock ... 2.6: Jackie, Marilyn, and Liberty Valance ... 2.7: Double Dons... 2.8: Did Don Get What He Deserved? ... 2.9: Don and Roger ... 2.10: Between Ray Bradbury and Telstar ... 2.11: Welcome to the Hotel California ... 2.12 The Day the Earth Stood Still on Mad Men ... 2.13 Saving the Best for Last on Mad Men

And from Season One: Mad Men Debuts on AMC: Cigarette Companies and Nixon ... Mad Men 2: Smoke and Television ... Mad Men 3: Hot 1960 Kiss ... Mad Men 4 and 5: Double Mad Men ...Mad Men 6: The Medium is the Message! ... Mad Men 7: Revenge of the Mollusk ... Mad Men 8: Weed, Twist, Hobo ... Mad Man 9: Betty Grace Kelly ... Mad men 10: Life, Death, and Politics ...Mad Men 11: Heat! ... Mad Men 12: Admirable Don ... Mad 13: Double-Endings, Lascaux, and Holes

If you like a little more surreal, step into "The Other Car"#SFWApro

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Outlander 1.9: Spanking Good

Outlander returned for the second half of its first season last night with a raunchy episode 1.9 that was just what was needed to kick off this second act.

The best strategic part of the episode happened at the very beginning, when Jamie rescues partially naked Claire from the grip of Black Jack with a cleverly unloaded gun - unloaded, that is, because a gunshot would attract too much attention, and then Jamie is hoping Jack gets the gun from him, turns it on him, which gives Jamie the chance to overpower Jack.  Good quick thinking, and it works. Well, of course it works, we're not going to see Jamie shot by Jack at this point, and forced to witness Jack's rape of Claire if Jamie's conscious.

Less believable is why Jamie spares Jack's miserable life.   Jamie says he doesn't believe in killing someone like that - even someone as bad as Jack - when he's down.   But clearly the narrative needs Black Jack far too much at this point for him to be dispatched.

The rest of the episode could be considered the schooling of Jamie in the art of marriage, even though he's the one who spanks Claire's unclothed bottom (I'm getting far too courteous in my language, that's what happens from watch a show from this age.)   Though, actually, Claire, not from this age, does call Jamie a "fucking bastard," which is probably the first time I've ever heard that on television. Jamie claims never to have heard that expression at all, and Claire helpfully explains what it means, as the two cuddle together at the end.

But back to the schooling:  Jamie thinks he has to spank his wife, for disobeying him, which he does. I guess we're supposed to get from this that Jamie, as decent a man as he is, can't escape completely the male brutality towards women in this time in history.   Were there no men back then who didn't believe in spanking their wives?  Who knows, this is, after all, fiction.   I was sort of surprised, though, that Claire allowed this to happen - even though she did show her disapproval, first by not sleeping with him the next night, and then putting a knife to his neck and warning him never to hit her again when they do make love at last.

Good to back in the mists and earthy aromas of Scotland.


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


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Bones 10.12: The Digital Revolution

Bones has had a long flirtation with social media.   As I talked about in my book, New New Media

On the love or appreciation side, we have another example in the case of “The Glowing Bones in the Old Stone House,” or Episode 20 in the second season of “Bones” on Fox TV in the spring of 2007. The murder victim, a chef, had a MySpace page with videos of her restaurant, and this figures in the investigation. In the special commentary on the DVD that was later released, Stephen Nathan (writer), Caleb Deschanel (father of the lead actress, Emily Deschanel, and director of this episode) and Emily explain that the producers uploaded the restaurant videos to MySpace five weeks before the episode, as a way of generating interest in the episode. This was a savvy move—what better way of creating buzz than putting elements of a fictional television story on a real social medium and in turn presenting that social medium as part of the story.

Bones returned to social media in a big way in episode 10.12 this week, in which Twitter comes in for a round of opining from all sides.  Bones starts off an opponent, but then decides to follow her publisher's advice to get active on Twitter, as a remedy for her lagging book sales, and the ignominy of finding her book in the cut-price remainder section of the bookstore in the opening setting scene. But she remains delightfully clueless about how to use it, ranging from linking to arcane scientific papers - hey, I occasionally do that myself - to having an unerring knack for clunky hashtags.

Fortunately, she has great support from Booth, who's surprisingly savvy about Twitter - I'm not sure why I say surprisingly, but I guess Booth is usually a bit more behind the times in media trends - and excellent practical advice from her intern, who understands Twitter at least as well as any of you reading this right now.   On the other side, we get a scathing critique from Angela, who offers the tired view that Twitter is somehow dehumanizing. (I'm disappointed in you, Angela!)

In the end, Bones becomes adept, attaining a decent number of followers, a good short-form technique, and a sense of how to best use photos.   In a way, this whole story is a parable for Bones in every social situation: she starts out awkward but lovable, and, in the end, finds a way to master it and make it all her own.   Much like the evolution of Twitter itself, where I'll now be posting a link to this very review.


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See also Bones 10.1: The Fulcrum Changes ... Bones 10.2: J. Edgar and the DNA Confession ... Bones 10.3: Meets Rush and a Dominatrix ... Bones 10.4: Brennan and Angela on a Bench in the Playground ... Bones 10.5: Two Jokes and Three Times ... Bones 10.6: A Thousand Cuts ... Bones 10.7: The A-Word and Quarks ... Bones 10.8: Daisy's Doula ... Bones 10.9: The Milgram Experiment and the Birds ... Bones 200: 10.10: Just like Bogey and Bacall ... Bones 10.11: Life after Death, and Sweets in Wonderland
And see also Bones 9.1: The Sweet Misery of Love ... Bones 9.2: Bobcat, Identity Theft, and Sweets ... Bones 9.3 and NCIS 11.2: Sweets and Ziva ... Bones 9.4: Metaphysics of Death in a Television Series ... Bones 9.5: Val and Deep Blue ... Bones 9.6: The Wedding ... Bones 9.7: Watch Out, Buenos Aires ...Bones 9.8: The Bug in the Neck ... Bones 9.9: Friday Night Bones in the Courtroom ... Bones 9.10: Horse Pucky ... Bones 9.11: Angels in Equations ... Bones 9.12: Fingernails ... Bones 9.13: Meets Nashville, and Wendell ... Bones 9.14: "You Cannot Drink Your Glass Away" ... Bones 9.15: Hodgins' Brother and the Ripped Off Toe ... Bones 9.16: Lampreys, Professors, and Insurance Companies ... Bones 9.17: Spartacus in the Kitchen ... Bones 9.18: Meets Day of the Triffids ... Bones 9.19: The Cornucopic Urn ... Bones 9.20: Above the Law ... Bones 9.21: Freezing and Thawing ... Bones 9.22: Promotion ... Bones 9.23: The New Intern ... Bones Season 9 Finale: Upping the Ante

And see also Bones 8.1: Walk Like an Egyptian ... Bones 8.2 of Contention ... Bones 8.3: Not Rotting Behind a Desk  ... Bones 8.4: Slashing Tiger and Donald Trump ... Bones 8.5: Applesauce on Election Eve ... Bones 8.6: Election Day ... Bones 8.7: Dollops in the Sky with Diamonds ...Bones 8.8: The Talking Remains ... Bones 8.9: I Am A Camera ... Bones 8.10-11: Double Bones ...Bones 8.12: Face of Enigmatic Evil ... Bones 8.13: Two for the Price of One ... Bones 8.14: Real Life ... Bones 8.15: The Magic Bullet and the Be-Spontaneous Paradox ... Bones 8.16: Bitter-Sweet Sweets and Honest Finn ... Bones 8.17: "Not Time Share, Time Travel" ... Bones 8.18: Couples ... Bones 8.19: The Head in the Toilet ... Bones 8.20: On Camera ... Bones 8.21: Christine, Hot Sauce, and the Judge ... Bones 8.22: Musical-Chair Parents ... Bones 8.23: The Bluff ... Bones Season 8 Finale: Can't Buy the Last Few Minutes

And see also Bones 7.1: Almost Home Sweet Home ... Bones 7.2: The New Kid and the Fluke ...Bones 7.3: Lance Bond and Prince Charmington ... Bones 7.4: The Tush on the Xerox ... Bones 7.5: Sexy Vehicle ... Bones 7.6: The Reassembler ... Bones 7.7: Baby! ... Bones 7.8: Parents ...Bones 7.9: Tabitha's Salon ... Bones 7.10: Mobile ... Bones 7.11: Truffles and Max ... Bones 7.12: The Corpse is Hanson ... Bones Season 7 Finale: Suspect Bones

And see also Bones 6.1: The Linchpin ... Bones 6.2: Hannah and her Prospects ... Bones 6.3 at the Jersey Shore, Yo, and Plymouth Rock ... Bones 6.4 Sans Hannah ... Bones 6.5: Shot and Pretty ... Bones 6.6: Accidental Relations ... Bones 6.7:  Newman and "Death by Chocolate" ...Bones 6.8: Melted Bones ... Bones 6.9: Adelbert Ames, Jr. ... Bones 6.10: Reflections ... Bones 6.11: The End and the Beginning of a Mystery ... Bones 6.12 Meets Big Love ... Bones 6.13: The Marrying Kind ... Bones 6.14: Bones' Acting Ability ... Bones 6.15: "Lunch for the Palin Family" ...Bones 6.16: Stuck in an Elevator, Stuck in Times ... Bones 6.17: The 8th Pair of Feet ... Bones 6.18: The Wile E. Chupacabra ... Bones 6.19 Test Runs The Finder ... Bones 6.20: This Very Statement is a Lie ... Bones 6.21: Sensitive Bones ... Bones 6.22: Phoenix Love ... Bones Season 6 Finale: Beautiful

And see also Bones: Hilarity and Crime and Bones is Back For Season 5: What Is Love? and 5.2: Anonymous Donors and Pipes and 5.3: Bones in Amish Country and 5.4: Bones Meets Peyton Place and Desperate Housewives and Ancient Bones 5.5 and Bones 5.6: A Chicken in Every Viewer's Pot and Psychological Bones 5.7 and Bones 5.8: Booth's "Pops" and Bones 5.9 Meets Avatar and Videogamers ... Bad Santa, Heart-Warming Bones 5.10 ... Bones 5.11: Of UFOs, Bloggers, and Triangles ... Bones 5.12: A Famous Skeleton and Angela's Baby ... Love with Teeth on Bones 5.13 ... Faith vs. Science vs. Psychology in Bones 5.14 ... Page 187 in Bones 5.15 ...Bones 100: Two Deep Kisses and One Wild Relationship ... Bones 5.17: The Deadly Stars ...Bones Under Water in 5.18 ... Bones 5.19: Ergo Together ...  Bones 5.20: Ergo Together ... Bones 5.21: The Rarity of Happy Endings ... Bones Season 5 Finale: Eye and Evolution

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