Paul Levinson's Blog: Levinson at Large, page 297

Photography Flips into Snapchat

One of the joys of understanding McLuhan is how his insights can leap forth at unexpected times to supply us with a connection or a new insight about a matter - or medium - at hand.  About six months ago, I came to realize that the photograph has flipped into the selfie in our own day and age.  Just yesterday, I did a little podcast on this subject - in which I also pointed out that radio has flipped into the podcast. And today, just a few hours ago, I realized that photograph has also flipped into Snapchat.

One of the best things about McLuhan's tetrad or four laws of media is that a given medium can enhance, obsolesce, retrieve, and flip into multiple media.  In case you'd like a quick refresher on the tetrad, it is an exploratory tool that McLuhan developed to help us make sense out of the emergence of media.   Take radio, for example:  It (1) enhances or amplifies sound (speech, music, etc) sent instantly across great distances simultaneously to lots of people; (2) obsolesces the written word as in newspapers as a mode of news delivery; (3) retrieves the spoken word that of course never really went away but was eclipsed to some extent by the products of the printing press; and radio, when it is pushed to its limits, (4) flips into television, which broadcasts like radio but re-inserts the visual into the mix.   And, radio, the professional mass medium, also flips into podcasting that anyone with a microphone and a connection to the Internet can do.    More on the tetrad in my book, Digital McLuhan, pictured below.

But back to photography: its flip into Snapchat is profound indeed, because permanency has always been one of photography's hallmarks.  As Andre Bazin so aptly noted, a photograph rescues an image from "its proper corruption in time".  In contrast, the Snapchat photo is deliberately intended to corrupt over time - and very quickly.  Because the essence of Snapchat is that you send someone a photograph that you want him or her to see only when they receive it, and not any time after.  If only former Congressman Anthony Weiner had known about Snapchat!

So we can now add Snapchat to the selfie as one of the media that photography has flipped into.   Like a reflection in a pool of water, which can also be a selfie and also can disappear as soon as the person staring into the pool walks away, Snapchat epitomizes the ever percolating evolution of media to forms that are at once both new and well established in our past.

See also Marshall McLuhan and the Kindle and Tetrad on Eyeglasses Flipping into Google Glass 



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The Walking Dead 5.3: Meets Alfred Hitchcock and the Twilight Zone

Cannibalism is a tough theme to get right on television - probably in any medium - and The Walking Dead has done a pretty good job of it this season.   Not quite as good, though, as Alfred Hitchcock, in his masterful television series, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, on around the same time as The Twilight Zone, in the late 50s through the 60s.

One episode, in particular, provides a template for how to do cannibalism just right on television.  In "Specialty of the House" (1959), a man yearns to join an exclusive dining club, whose specialty of the house is a dish reputed to be unbelievably tasty.  You have to be vetted to be admitted to the Club.   Our man eventually is, keeps pestering the maitre-d' about when the special dish will be served, and is eventually called with the good news that he should come over to the Club.  In the very last scene, as the man tucks in his napkin at the table, we see an axe wielded over his head: he is the specialty of the house to be served this month.

A few years later, in 1962, The Twilight Zone took a crack at cannibalism with its excellent "To Serve Man," based on Damon Knight's 1950 story by the same name.   Actually, the eaters were aliens, so it wasn't quite cannibalism, but the story had the same flavor.  The aliens have a book, "To Serve Man," which foolish humans at first assume is a manifesto about helping and improving the human condition.  They find out too late that it's a cook book.

The best of Walking Dead 5.3 had elements of both of these classics.   In particular, the ring leader's disquisition to Bob about what people taste like - "pretty people taste better" - was a chillingly brilliant advancement of the cannibalism theme, reminiscent of the Morlocks eating the Eloi in The Time Machine by H. G. Wells.   In both cases, cannibalism is brought on by apocalypse.

Of course, in The Walking Dead, the zombies have been eating humans from the very beginning.   What's made this season different was humans eating humans.   Interestingly, since Bob had been bitten, the consumption of him was almost a case of humans eating a zombie, or at least a proto-zombie.    If only they'd cut off his infected shoulder, he might have survived, as Hershel did before the Governor did him in.

See also: The Walking Dead 5.1: The Redemption of Carole

And see also The Walking Dead 4.1: The New Plague ... The Walking Dead 4.2: The Baby and the Flu ... The Walking Dead 4.3: Death in Every Corner ...The Walking Dead 4.4: Hershel, Carl, and Maggie ... The Walking Dead 4.6: The Good Governor ... The Walking Dead 4.7: The Governor's Other Foot ... The Walking Dead 4.8: Vintage Fall Finale ... The Walking Dead 4.9: A Nightmare on Walking Dead Street ... The Walking Dead 4:14: Too Far ... The Walking Dead Season 4 Finale: From the Gunfire into the Frying Pan


And see also The Walking Dead 3.3 meets Meadowlands ... The Walking Dead 3.4: Going to the Limit ... The Walking Dead 3.9: Making Crazy Sense ... The Walking Dead 3.10: Reinforcements ... The Walking Dead 3.11: The Patch ... The Walking Dead 3.12: The Lesson of Morgan ... The Walking Dead 3.13: The Deal ... The Walking Dead 3.14: Inescapable Parable ... The Walking Dead 3.15: Merle ... The Walking Dead 3.16: Kill or Die, or Die and Kill
And see also The Walking Dead Back on AMC ... The Walking Dead 2.2: The Nature of Vet  ... The Walking Dead 2.3: Shane and Otis ... The Walking Dead 2.4: What Happened at the Pharmacy ... The Walking Dead 2.6: Secrets Told ... The Walking Dead 2.7: Rick's Way vs. Shane's Way ...  The Walking Dead 2.8: The Farm, the Road, and the Town  ... The Walking Dead 2.9: Worse than Walkers ... The Walking Dead 2.11: Young Calling the Shots ... The Walking Dead 2.12: Walkers Without Bites ... The Walking Dead Season 2 FinaleAnd see also The Walking Dead 1.1-3:  Gone with the Wind, Zombie Style ... The Walking Dead Ends First Season#SFWApro


no cannibalism but at least a plague in The Consciousness Plague


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Homeland 4.5: Righteous Seduction

Homeland continued percolating on all fronts tonight, with especially good action for Carrie and Saul, in two separate but, of course, related stories, because all stories are intertwined in this series.

Carrie's seduction of Aayan progresses and expands.   She wisely pulls back the day after their first bedding, when he tells her that sleeping with her goes against his faith and makes him ashamed.  But she knows he wants her, and wants more of her, not only because he slept with her in the first place, but because she catches him looking at her body, under the cover, when she's waking up in the morning.  So she confides in him about her baby to win his confidence, draws on her own real pain to make her presentation believable, all with the goal of getting Aayan to take her in his arms and then back to bed, which he in fact does.   He wants to pleasure Carrie - it's unclear if he does, but she's again able to draw on real emotion to make the moment convincing.

As I've been saying in my reviews this year, I like this new Carrie, much more in control of herself and therefore able to play a better game of spying, much better than the wounded bird of the previous seasons.   I've seen reviews of the show that find her seduction of Aayan disturbing - taking advantage of a boy - but she's always done what's necessary, and correctly views saving of American lives as more important than other kinds of ethics.    That's why she was able to sleep with Brody in the first place.

Quinn, for obvious reasons, is the voice of prudish concern on the show.   Clearly, he loves Carrie, and that's what's moving him.  Meanwhile, Saul, who loves Carrie in a different way - as a fatherly figure - got into the thick of spying himself tonight.  Except, it turns out that everything he did at the airport, in one of the best sequences of action scenes for Saul, was all a plan from the ISI brunette agent to kidnap him.

As always, Homeland is nearly unpredictable, and I've got to say I'm enjoying this season a lot more than last year's.

See also Homeland 4.1-2: Carrie's State of Mind ... Homeland 4.3: Quinn and Carrie ... Homeland 4.4: Carrie's Counterpart
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

#SFWApro  #SHO_Homeland


  different kind of espionage

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The End of Boardwalk Empire

I was sorry to see Boardwalk Empire end tonight, not only because I generally really enjoyed the series, but because the ending was so obvious and, sad to say, shabby.

The series has always been fast and loose with history.  But the finale did that with a vengeance, in little and major ways.  Joe Kennedy, one of the best historical characters in the series, just introduced this season, knows that the polls that show Hoover beating Roosevelt are wrong, because only the very rich were polled.  Actually, the polls which were notoriously wrong would be conducted four years later, when FDR was shown losing to his Republican challenger big time.   It was realized only years later, in astute historical analysis, that the Literary Digest poll made the mistake of conducting itself via telephone, which of course only the very rich had in their homes at that time.  (I have a 1931 New York City phone book which is thinner than today's New York Times.) No way Joe Kennedy could have realized this four years earlier, as smart as he was.

But the big historical discrepancy was the killing of Nucky at the end.  In our history, the real Nucky Johnson (that was his name, not Thompson) died decades later, in 1968.   Yeah, I know this story from the very beginning was fictionalized - including the change in last name - but to differ so drastically on such a major point undermines the story.  Maybe it's just me, but I always like my historical dramas to stick to the major facts.   Show Marc Antony with as many women on the side as you like, but don't leave out that he was Cleopatra, or that he lost the Battle of Actium.   Rome, still one of the best historical dramas ever on television - also on HBO - walked that line beautifully. Boardwalk Empire looked like it was doing that for much of the series, but fell out of step in the end.

Still, if the ending of Boardwalk Empire was disappointing and even trite, that was only because so much of the show previously was so good.  The series gave us riveting story lines,  brilliant acting, and brought a somewhat unexplored part of history to life.   I've seen dramas about Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky lots of times.  Boardwalk Empire was one of the very best.  R. I. P.

See also Boardwalk Empire 5.1: Lucky Rising ... Boardwalk Empire 5.2: Joe Kennedy ... Boardwalk Empire 5.3: Veal Parmagian and Family ...Boardwalk Empire 5.4: Margaret and Nucky ... Boardwalk Empire 5.6: The Skipping Record ... Boardwalk Empire Penultimate: Taking Care of Business

And see also Boardwalk Empire 4.1: Sneak Preview Review ... Boardwalk Empire 4.2: Sneak Preview Review ... Boardwalk Empire 4.2: J. Edgar ...Boardwalk Empire Sneak Preview Review 4.3: Honey, Sunny ...Boardwalk Empire 4.3: Nucky, Sunshine, and Heroin ... Boardwalk Empire Sneak Preview Review 4.4: Downfalls ... Boardwalk Empire 4.4: Bullies and Betrayals ... Boardwalk Empire Sneak Preview 4.5: The Gift of Rage ... Boardwalk 4.5: Two Deaths ... Boardwalk Empire Sneak Preview 4.6: Good Lovin' ... Boardwalk Empire 4.6: Sally and Margaret ... Boardwalk Empire Sneak Preview 4.7: Beds, Promotions, Surprises ... Boardwalk Empire 4.7: Family and History ... Boardwalk Empire Sneak Preview 4.8: The Blues ... Boardwalk Empire 4.8: Knives in the Back ... Boardwalk Empire 4.9: The Imbecile ...Boardwalk Empire 4.10 Sneak Preview Review: Unholy Alliances ...Boardwalk Empire 4.10: Family Treachery ... Boardwalk Empire 4.11: Nucky on the Beach

And see also Boardwalk Empire 3.1: Happy News Year 1923  ... Boardwalk Empire 3.2: Gasoline and the White Rock Girl ... Boardwalk Empire 3.3: The Showgirl and The Psycho ... Boardwalk Empire 3.5: "10 L'Chaim" ... Boardwalk Empire 3.7: Deadly Gillian ... Boardwalk Empire 3.8: Andrew Mellon ... Boardwalk Empire 3.9: Impaired Nucky

And see also Boardwalk Empire 2.1: Politics in an Age Before YouTube  ... Boardwalk Empire 2.2: The Woman Behind the Throne ... Boardwalk Empire 2.3: Frankenstein and Victrola ... Boardwalk Empire 2.4: Nearly Flagrante Delicto ... Boardwalk Empire 2.5: Richard's Story ... Boardwalk Empire 2.6: Owen and Other Bad News for Nucky ... Boardwalk Empire 2.7: Shot in the Hand  ...Boardwalk Empire 2.8: Pups with Fangs ... Boardwalk Empire 2.9: Ireland, Radio, Polio ...Boardwalk Empire 2.10: Double Shot ... Boardwalk Empire 2.11: Gillian and Jimmy  ... Boardwalk Empire Season 2 Finale: Stunner!

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



deeper history

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Loose Ends award-nominated novella now on Kindle

Happy to announce that my 1997 award-nominated time-travel novella,  "Loose Ends," is now available on Kindle.   As always, you don't need a Kindle to read it - you can download a free-app for your laptop, tablet, or phone, right there at the top of the "Loose Ends" Kindle page.

The novella was actually triple nominated, for what may be considered the triple crown in science fiction awards.  "Loose Ends" was a Hugo nominee, a Nebula nominee, and on the short list of 1997 stories for the Sturgeon Award.

The story introduces Jeff Harris, who goes back in time to stop the Challenger disaster, but finds himself in November 1963, on the eve of the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Michael Burstein, reviewing the novella in Tangent, observed that "Paul Levinson has taken the brilliant step of combining the emotional impact of two tragic American events ... But Levinson does much more. He creates a love story set against the evocative portrait of New York City."

If you're a devotee of time travel, you might also enjoy my Sierra Waters time travel trilogy, published by JoSara MeDia:




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The Affair 1.2: Time Travel!

No, there wasn't any actual time travel in last night's The Affair 1.2, but Noah was sure talking about it to Allison in a pivotal scene, and he got the multiple worlds solution to the grandfather paradox just right, kudos to the writers.  (See my 2-minute explanation of this business on Vidoyen earlier this year.)

Meanwhile, there was an important convergence of the Noah and Allison renditions of the story of their affair near the end, when, for the first time, it's clear that Allison is as attracted to Noah as he is to her.  When he tells her he's been thinking about her all week, and asks if she's been going through the same, she replies, in a sultry, vulnerable voice, "Of course."  Two crucial words in this ongoing story.

The overarching mystery of the death - not only who did the murder, if that's what it was, but who was murdered - continues to loom menacingly in the background.  I was pretty sure after the first episode that it was Cole - Allison's husband - but now I'm not so sure.  Maybe it was one of Cole's brothers - perhaps the one who was on the verge of doing something with Noah and Helen's underage daughter - but who knows.  It could also be Helen's father, played as a consummate a-hole by John Doman (his specialty, I mean that as a compliment), who clearly has a list of enemies, with Noah on the list.  Or it could be Cole after all.

But the slowly unfolding story of Noah and Allison, and their attraction to each other, remains the appealing centerpiece of this series, beautifully played and evocatively photographed, and shown at the perfect time, when the summer has just gone from North America, and with it the sand and the water and the sun all above it which is shown to such good effect on The Affair.

See also The Affair Premiere: Sneak Preview Review



some real time travel 

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Boardwalk Empire Penultimate: Taking Care of Business

Well, in its next to last episode, Boardwalk Empire served up the most powerful episode of the season - one of the most powerful of the entire series - in which all kinds of business was taken care of and closed.

First, though, I've got to say that the meeting between Nucky and Lucky, and all the guns on either side, was handled incredibly ineptly by Nucky's side.   He allowed himself to be out-argued, out-maneuvered, and out-gunned.  And the truth was that there was no reason that Lucky wouldn't have killed Nucky's nephew even after Eli led the assault and killed Maranzano.  Lucky had already demonstrated his lack of concern for bargains struck, when he declined to relinquish the nephew even after Nucky had returned Bugsy Siegel to Lucky and Meyer.

Still, it was great to see Eli and Nucky back together.   And Bugsy Siegel was given a virtuoso performance by Michael Zegen, with a verbal double fistful of Yiddishisms my own grandmother never heard.

But where does this leave Nucky?  His giving up Atlantic City and even his interests in Cuba are no surprise, given what we know of actual history.   This leaves the finale open for the wrapping up of some personal business, which we get a strong glimpse of tonight.

That business would be Gillian, whose message to Nucky, rendered in a spoken montage of overlapping phrases from her letter, has to be a highpoint in television dialogue presentation.   What we the audience of course know all too well is that Nucky killed Jimmy, Gillian's beloved son.  How there can ever be a meeting of Gillian and Nucky, based on any kind of truth, with this fact of the series hanging in the air, and surely on Nucky's mind, should in itself be worth the price of admission for the finale next week.   I'll be sad to see this series go.

See also Boardwalk Empire 5.1: Lucky Rising ... Boardwalk Empire 5.2: Joe Kennedy ... Boardwalk Empire 5.3: Veal Parmagian and Family ...Boardwalk Empire 5.4: Margaret and Nucky ... Boardwalk Empire 5.6: The Skipping Record

And see also Boardwalk Empire 4.1: Sneak Preview Review ... Boardwalk Empire 4.2: Sneak Preview Review ... Boardwalk Empire 4.2: J. Edgar ...Boardwalk Empire Sneak Preview Review 4.3: Honey, Sunny ...Boardwalk Empire 4.3: Nucky, Sunshine, and Heroin ... Boardwalk Empire Sneak Preview Review 4.4: Downfalls ... Boardwalk Empire 4.4: Bullies and Betrayals ... Boardwalk Empire Sneak Preview 4.5: The Gift of Rage ... Boardwalk 4.5: Two Deaths ... Boardwalk Empire Sneak Preview 4.6: Good Lovin' ... Boardwalk Empire 4.6: Sally and Margaret ... Boardwalk Empire Sneak Preview 4.7: Beds, Promotions, Surprises ... Boardwalk Empire 4.7: Family and History ... Boardwalk Empire Sneak Preview 4.8: The Blues ... Boardwalk Empire 4.8: Knives in the Back ... Boardwalk Empire 4.9: The Imbecile ...Boardwalk Empire 4.10 Sneak Preview Review: Unholy Alliances ...Boardwalk Empire 4.10: Family Treachery ... Boardwalk Empire 4.11: Nucky on the Beach

And see also Boardwalk Empire 3.1: Happy News Year 1923  ... Boardwalk Empire 3.2: Gasoline and the White Rock Girl ... Boardwalk Empire 3.3: The Showgirl and The Psycho ... Boardwalk Empire 3.5: "10 L'Chaim" ... Boardwalk Empire 3.7: Deadly Gillian ... Boardwalk Empire 3.8: Andrew Mellon ... Boardwalk Empire 3.9: Impaired Nucky

And see also Boardwalk Empire 2.1: Politics in an Age Before YouTube  ... Boardwalk Empire 2.2: The Woman Behind the Throne ... Boardwalk Empire 2.3: Frankenstein and Victrola ... Boardwalk Empire 2.4: Nearly Flagrante Delicto ... Boardwalk Empire 2.5: Richard's Story ... Boardwalk Empire 2.6: Owen and Other Bad News for Nucky ... Boardwalk Empire 2.7: Shot in the Hand  ...Boardwalk Empire 2.8: Pups with Fangs ... Boardwalk Empire 2.9: Ireland, Radio, Polio ...Boardwalk Empire 2.10: Double Shot ... Boardwalk Empire 2.11: Gillian and Jimmy  ... Boardwalk Empire Season 2 Finale: Stunner!

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




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Homeland 4.4: Carrie's Counterpart

Two especially important developments in Homeland 4.4:

First, we meet Carrie's counterpart in the Pakistani Intelligence.  She's beautiful, intelligent, and clearly archly manipulative - just like Carrie, except she has a thick head of black rather than blonde hair.   We can surmise that later this season, the two will have a confrontation.  And this season will animated by their moves and countermoves.   For now, Carrie's opposite has expertly blackmailed the professor who's the American ambassador's husband.   A good opening move in the chess game.

Meanwhile, Carrie has moved into full seduction of the nephew whose uncle - the terrorist - was killed in the opening episode.  Except he wasn't killed - we'll get to that in a moment.  But, as I said last week, it's good to see Carrie so much in control of herself and at the top of her game.  It's refreshing after what we've seen in all the past seasons.  If that includes sleeping with a teenaged boy to win his trust, hey - it's for a good cause, to ultimately save American lives and make the world safer.   And the kid, if he survives, will have pretty good  bragging rights for the rest of his life.

Now about the uncle not being killed.  That's  a pretty startling revelation, the biggest we've seen so far in Season 4.  It suggests, since it's arriving so early in the season, that this will be a year a surprises on Homeland.   They actually began with the killing of the CIA operative in Islamabad and who was behind it.   Now it's moved to discovery that the apparent killing of the uncle was a set-up designed to keep him safe from his American hunters for at least a little while.

This would have been a great season of Homeland, and may still be.   And the irony is that what might bring the season down has nothing to do with what is happening on the show.  It's rather what is happening in the world.   It strains belief that we haven't heard a word so far on Homeland about ISIS or ISIL or whatever it's supposed to be called, and what we see reported almost daily about what it's now doing in Syria and Iraq.   I wonder if there's any chance that something about this real threat will be worked into the season by the end?  That would be an ultimate surprise indeed.

See also Homeland 4.1-2: Carrie's State of Mind ... Homeland 4.3: Quinn and Carrie
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

#SFWApro  #SHO_Homeland


  different kind of espionage

Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music

The Cast of The Wire at the Paley Center

Here is a video of a panel that took place the other day at the Paley Center for Media in New York City.  The panel featured prominent cast members from The Wire.  At a little over an hour, this is the best panel I've ever seen - in this case, online - but also in person.



Watching this also cemented my view that The Wire is the single best show ever to have been on television.   I don't say that lightly - in their own ways, The Sopranos, 24, Breaking Bad, other shows including and even Lost in its good moments were superb.   But none quite compare to The Wire, for reasons that become clear, I think, in this panel discussion.  The only proviso is that the panel is replete with spoilers.  So, if you haven't seen The Wire - all five seasons - don't look at this panel video until after you do.

Part of the pleasure of watching this panel is thinking about how all of these stars first became known to me on The Wire, and have gone on to the other memorable roles.  But every time I see one of them, I say to my wife, hey, that guy was on The Wire ... Wendell Pierce in Treme and Ray Donovan, Michael Kenneth Williams in Boardwalk Empire, Lance Reddick (who wasn't on the panel, alas) on Fringe, Dominic West (also not on the panel) in The Affair, Chad Coleman (also not on the panel) in The Walking Dead, and Idris Elba in Luther and great movies such as Long Walk to Freedom, for which he deserved an Oscar but wasn't even nominated.   The list goes on and on - making The Wire a veritable directory of great actors in dozens of shows since then.  The Wire has seeded television with superb acting for almost a decade now.

My reviews of last season of The Wire, usually written shortly after the episodes were aired for the first time, follow ...

The Wire's Back! Review of Season 5 Episode 1 and Episode 2: The Great, Dangling Conversation ... 3. McNulty and Marlo ... 4. One Down ...5. Media Chasing Their Own Tales and Tails ... 6. Superman Omar and Tall Stories ... 7. King of Diamonds ... 8. Two Down ... 9. Cold, Killer Sweetheart ... The Wire Bows Out Gracefully: Kudos to the Cast and David Simon, the Charles Dickens of Television

See also this earlier Looking Back at the Wire

Two podcast episodes about The Wire -


    The Wire without Stringer        |   The Wire Season 4 Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music

Bones 10.4: Brennan and Angela on a Bench in the Playground

My favorite scene in Bones 10.4 is the title of this review: Brennan and Angela on a Bench in the Playground.   It was such a perfect scene that I figured I'd devote most of the review to it.

They're both in fine form, reminiscing about what they used to talk about when they were together like this, and what they talk about now.  It was sex, then - but this gives Bones a chance to pipe up about what a good time she had last night with Booth, in her charming, endearing way.

The kids are in the playground, too - of course they are, that's why Bones and Angela are there. Bones tells Christine to go a little easier on the swing, lest she throw off her "center of gravity," another nice touch.  Angela relates to  Michael in a very different, down-to-Earth way.   The age of the kids shows how far the series has progressed.   But as far as it's gone, its center of gravity is still just two old friends, so different and yet so close, sitting on a bench and talking.

There's a murder to solve, and there always is, but the scene on the bench gets to the heart of the show.  With all the mysteries and the police work, it's always been the relationship of the characters.

The other memorable scene - not as powerful as the park bench, but strong enough - is Booth and Aubrey working together, in particular keeping a puffed-up would-be attacker at bay.   Booth's rehabilitation as far as trusting people is just about complete.

It would be fun someday to see an episode pitched maybe 10 years in the future.   There'd still be a young intern in the lab.  Christine and Michael would be teenagers, and Bones and Angela would be driving them to a dance.   Hmm ... I wonder if they'd be a couple?  But as the kids left the car, Brennan and Angela would start talking ...

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
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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