Paul Levinson's Blog: Levinson at Large, page 366

The Closer Opens into Major Crimes

A very smooth and satisfying segue last night as The Closer closed for good and Major Crimes opened for business.

The best part, for me, is that Gabriel is ok.  He won't be on Major Crimes not because anything bad happened to him, but because Brenda took him with her to her new position in the LA DA's office.

Which, of course, is good news about Brenda for us, too.  Contrary to a lot of what's been said or implied in cast interviews, Brenda could indeed come back for a guest appearance - just as Fritz in fact did last night in Major Crimes.

But the new show will significantly different in tone and storyline from the original, if only because Raydor is so different from Brenda.   The Captain speaks softly, is much of a team player than Brenda, but gets things done and has a heart of gold, too.  She doesn't have Brenda's sweet tooth, but seems every bit as good as Brenda in sweet talking.

The kid who was with Brenda when she shot Stroh - in self defense, and whom Brenda promised about finding his mother - will continue in Major Crimes, indeed under the same domestic roof as Raydor, who also promises to find his mother.  Rusty (the kid's name) looks to be a good addition to the mix.

Beyond that, the emphasis of the new show and remade unit will be not on getting not confessions but convictions.  We'll likely see more courtrooms than in The Closer, and of course more lawyers.

Law and Order: LA had a tough time of it.  I expect Major Crimes with its lighter touch to fare much better.

See also:  The Closer 7.2: Pope ... Who's The Leak on the Closer? ... Who's The Leak on The Closer, Part 2 ... Penultimate Closer

And  The Closer 6.1: The New Building ... The Closer 6.2: Fun Bumps ... The Closer 6.11: Andy Flynn

And from Season 5:  The Roots of Testimony on The Closer and Finding Killers vs. Hearts on The Closer and Brenda Leigh's Niece and Libby from Lost on The Closer and Tom Skerritt on The Closer and Det. Richard Tracy on The Closer and Pres. Laura Roslin vs. Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson  and The Closer Closes on a Fine Note for the Season



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The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ... Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music

The Romney Cylonic VP App

Mitt Romney announced Paul Ryan with a spiffy VP app, available to anyone who wanted it on social media.  This announcement came a little past 7am New York time, a few hours before the two appeared together on television.  But this was hours after Chuck Todd had said on MSNBC that three very reliable sources had confirmed  Ryan as the choice.

Obama tried something similar for the Biden VP announcement in 2008, but word was leaked beforehand to mainstream media.   Bottom line: social media are just not that important when it comes to VP announcements.  But unlike in 2008, both Republicans as well as Democrats are now adept at using them.

Aside from the app, what does the Ryan do for the Romney ticket?  It certainly humanizes the robotic Romney, who I've been saying since 2007 may be a Cylon.  But, politically, it puts Romney hand-in-hand with the man who wants to undermine social security, and whose calls for cuts in government spending for the poor have been condemned by the US Council of Catholic Bishops - which is saying a lot, since Ryan is also an opponent of abortion.

I think this is a very good development for our political process - whether you're a progressive like me or otherwise - because it puts before us in this election some remarkably clear choices.




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The Newsroom and The Hour

I just saw the first season - or, first series, as the say in the U.K. - of The Hour, the 2011 BBC2 show about a news show struggling to be news worthy, during the Suez Crisis and the Soviet Union's invasion of Hungary (to crush its attempt to leave the Soviet block) in the Fall of 1956.  The show, which has been renewed for a second season, is superb on many levels, including a primer on the self-destructiveness of any democratic government trying to regulate its media.  The United Kingdom has no First Amendment, as was made clear regarding coverage of the Suez War in 1956 and the Falklands War in 1992, when the British government, well, dictated what UK media could report and criticize about those war efforts.

That makes England a very different news environment than what we have here in the United States, where the Supreme Court has by and large struck down any attempt on the part of the government to muzzle reporting (not so much when it comes to perceived "indecent" language).  But the dynamics of news shows striving to be cutting edge, aiming at the ideal of presenting the truth to the people, regardless of what the government (or, in the U.S., corporate masters) may want, is much the same, and makes The Hour a great older sibling to The Newsroom.

And there are other family resemblances, including love affairs between the dynamic female producer and the male anchor (played by Dominic West of The Wire in The Hour), and their ability to put on a great show despite or maybe in part because of this.  Are such relationships a staple of news rooms in real life, or were Abi Morgan (writer of The Hour) and Aaron Sorkin (The Newsroom) just similarly inspired?

Since The Hour was on last year - or a year before the debut of The Newsroom this year - there is a fair likelihood that Sorkin was inspired by The Hour, and that's ok.  The Hour, taking place in the 1950s, could be seen as inspired by Mad Men, and that's just the way television works.  There is sufficient difference between the two series.   The Newsroom, currently situated in 2011 in its story, addresses a wider array ethical issues, including the quintessentially 21st century problem of the anchor as bully (not as in bully pulpit, but in bullying guests on the shows).

And the topic of news show fighting to be free is so important, so crucial to our democracy, that it more than deserves two superbly written, superbly acted shows on both sides of the Atlantic.

See also The Newsroom and McLuhan Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music

Penultimate Closer

And in the next-to-last ever Closer, we find out who the leak was: Gabriel's fiance.

The big advantage of this solution is that it explain how Gabriel - who we know was deeply disturbed about how Brenda Leigh left Terrell Baylor to die, but who we also know is loyal to her to the core - could have been the source of the leak.  He didn't know that he had leaked anything.  He expressed misgivings about the fate of Baylor to the woman Gabriel loved, and never imagined she would pass that and much more that Gabriel told her over to Goldman.

The one weakness in this otherwise fine and satisfying resolution to the central mystery of The Closer is that the fiance was a rabbit pulled out of a hat, first introduced just a few episodes ago.  This gave the viewers no chance to include her in the realm of suspects for the leak until very recently.  Had we seen her, even briefly, around the time Baylor met his end,  then her perfidy would have a thoroughly great - and fair -  twist.

But it was still effective, and the scenes with her and Gabriel, with Gabriel and Brenda, with Gabriel and the squad, were among the best in the series.  Predictably and powerfully, Sanchez is the only one who doesn't forgive him.  Provenza is the first to accept Gabriel's apology - Provenza has been there as far as talking too much to women in his life.   Flynn is the last to accept Gabriel's apology, but still holds Gabriel responsible, and suggests he put in for a transfer.

Gabriel attempts to resign outright, but Brenda won't have it.  So what will be Gabriel's fate?  He's apparently - based on the coming attractions - not in Major Crimes.  I hope he at least survives the final Closer, and puts in an appearance from time to time in its successor show.

See also:  The Closer 7.2: Pope ... Who's The Leak on the Closer? ... Who's The Leak on The Closer, Part 2

And  The Closer 6.1: The New Building ... The Closer 6.2: Fun Bumps ... The Closer 6.11: Andy Flynn

And from Season 5:  The Roots of Testimony on The Closer and Finding Killers vs. Hearts on The Closer and Brenda Leigh's Niece and Libby from Lost on The Closer and Tom Skerritt on The Closer and Det. Richard Tracy on The Closer and Pres. Laura Roslin vs. Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson  and The Closer Closes on a Fine Note for the Season


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The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...
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Breaking Bad 5.3: Deal with the Devil

The show, after all, is called Breaking Bad.  Which means just about new venture goes very badly, much worse than expected, at first and throughout most of the season.   Walt did his best to entice Mike into Walt and Jesse's new business.  Mike said no.  But with Gus's people vulnerable to DEA pressure, and Mike standing to lose big if they break, he decides to go in with Walt and Jesse, to get money sufficient to pay off his people.  Good news for Walt?

Not exactly.  Mike was in many always more dangerous than Gus - perhaps not as brilliant strategically, but not as subject to emotional rampages which could come back to hurt him.  Mike's view of what his business expenses entail - big payment to all of Gus's now Mike's people to make them "whole" i.e., keep them quiet - of course makes Walt unhappy, and puts the two on a collision course which promises to be at least as explosive as Gus and Walt's.   Jesse tries to make a little peace, and we all know that this won't last long.

Meanwhile, my favorite part of Breaking Bad 5.3 is the new lab that Walt decides upon - not a single lab, but multiple, rolling labs, in which homes scheduled for exterminator treatment get commandeered for blue meth production.  It's a brilliant idea.  The home owners have to leave their home for a few days.  The home is draped, so no one can see what's going on.  The extermination will leave a bit of a strange smell anyway.  So what better place to do a little cooking?

We had a new roof put on our home a few months ago.   We didn't have to leave, but might have, given the noise.  The house was mostly draped.   I didn't see anyone who looked like Walt and Jesse walking around, but was that smell really from the fertilizer my neighbor was putting in?

See also Breaking Bad Season 5 Premiere: Riveting Entropy

And see also My Prediction about Breaking Bad ... Breaking Bad Season 4 Debuts ... Breaking Bad 4.2: Gun and Question ... Breaking Bad 4.11: Tightening Vice ... Breaking Bad 4.12: King vs. King ... Breaking Bad Season 4 Finale: Deceptive Flowers



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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...

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MSNBC's Olympic Gamble

MSNBC has already begun its Olympic programming, with pre-Olympic coverage for most of the day prior to 6pm this week.  When the actual games start, there will be no regular MSNBC programming until Rev. Al Sharpton at 6pm and then continuing with Hardball, Ed, Rachel Maddow, and The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell for the rest of the evening.

Why is MSNBC putting its regular daytime programming - and the superb Up With Chris Hayes and Melissa Harris Perry on weekends as well - on the shelf?  MSNBC expects the Olympics to draw big audiences, as they have in the past.  That's a safe bet.  But MSNBC also has a long range strategy at play here - they're hoping that some of the new viewers who come by to see the Olympics will stay for Rev. Al, Hardball, and the rest of evening.

This could happen.  But the reverse is also already at play.  The Cycle, struggling to find its footing in the afternoon, has not been on MSNBC the past few days.  I watched whatever was on CNN.  How many other news junkies, accustomed to leaning forward on MSNBC, will lean away to another news source during MSNBC's daytime Olympic coverage?   And will those people equal or outnumber the new viewers who come for the Olympics and stay?

It's a gamble.  And were I calling the shots, I wouldn't take it.  MSNBC has struggled long and hard to surpass CNN and get in second place in the 24/7 cable news races.  I would double down on the news, and leave the daytime Olympic coverage to some other NBC division, like NBC itself.

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Thoughts about The Dark Knight Massacre

Some thoughts about the horrendous shootings in the Colorado movie theater showing The Dark Night 3 last night:

1. The single most effective way of preventing such tragedies in the future, or reducing their likelihood, is for President Obama and Congress to step up and restore the ban on assault (semi-automatic) weapons.  No law-abiding citizen should have need for them.  Their banning would not violate the Second Amendment - which, unlike the First Amendment, does not say "Congress shall make no law".  Rather, the Second Amendment says government should not "infringe" upon the rights of people to bear arms.  The banning of a weapon of mass killing would not infringe on the right of citizens to bear other kinds of guns.

2. The notion that violence in the movies or in any medium triggers this kind of real-life violence is not supported by the facts:  Millions and millions of people have watched violent movies and television, and played violent video games - and, thank goodness, mass killings have happened just handfuls of times.  (See my debate with Jack Thompson a few years ago about violent video games for more.)

3. But motion picture theaters need to think of ways to make their premises more safe.  Movies - especially horror movies - have for decades sought to give the viewer tingles of fear by showing people on the screen menaced and killed by monsters and psyschos in the darkness.  With what happened in Aurora, Colorado making this a reality, the motion picture industry may need to rethink such movies, or at very least provide increased means of protection in theaters, such as metal detectors. Motion picture theaters have in effect been on the ropes since the rise of television in the 1950s.  The ease today of also viewing movies on tablets and smart phones is only putting more pressure on theaters.  Unlike schools, where attendance is required, movie-going is strictly optional.  The public needs to feel that exercising this option is safe.

4. The Batman franchise - in particular, The Dark Knight trilogy - will likely forever be associated with the tragedy of Aurora.  The Batman story, at its core, is about the darkness in the human soul (which Batman is able to overcome, or channel into doing good).  The spilling over of this darkness from fiction into our reality - where it of course already exists - is a signal moment in the history of movies, and even story-telling in general.   What impact this will have on Batman's place in our popular culture is hard to say - it will likely make the masked crusader both more and less intriguing - but we can be sure that Batman will never be seen the same.

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The Newsroom and McLuhan

I've seen the first four episodes thus far aired of The Newsroom on HBO, and I think it's the best show on television.

I've heard some people say that The Newsroom, though good, is not in a league with Aaron Sorkin's signature television creation, The West Wing, and of course it isn't - The White House and the issues and lives that move around it are indeed in a different league from any newsroom.  But for a show about the lives of cable news, The Newsroom appears just as strong, so far, as The West Wing was for the life and times of a great President.

And there's this.  If Marshall McLuhan was right that "the medium is the message" - and I think he was - then news media, and the time we spend with them, may have more influence on our opinions than most of the acts even of Presidents.  McLuhan wrote in the 1960s, and we have three 24/7 all news cable stations today in addition to the three networks - as well, of course, as the Internet.

Speaking of which, there's another notion of McLuhan's that helps explain The Newsroom's appeal.  McLuhan observed that as technologies and media get outmoded, they can come to be appreciated as art forms.  As soon as I heard this, I thought of delicatessen - meat at first spiced for preservation, now enjoyed for taste.  Convertible cars are another example - first driven to keep physically cool, now (after the advent of air conditioning) to be socially cool.  Or silent movies - one of which recently won an Oscar for its unspoken art.  The more we get our information and breaking news from Twitter and Facebook, the more cable news is becoming a suitable subject of art, too.

Life and media are evolving so quickly nowadays, that specific events can become worthy of artistic treatment after just a year or two.  The Newsroom tells real news stories - at this point though 2010 and the beginning of 2011.   This Sunday brought us to The Newsroom on a Saturday in January 2011.  We didn't learn until near the end - unless, maybe, we were consulting a calendar - that the galvanizing news event for this day's story was the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.  Anchor Will McAvoy and his brilliant, dedicated people courageously resist reporting her death, until and unless explicitly confirmed by a physician.  It was a heart rending, enobling moment, because we at home  knew the good truth.  It was also reminiscent of the misreporting by Fox News and CNN, several weeks ago, of the US Supreme Court decision upholding the Affordable Care Act.  Of the three cables, only MSNBC got that right (all three were wrong in their initial reporting of Giffords).

MSNBC is my favorite cable news station in reality.  But I like McAvoy a little better.  He and his cohorts are a little more articulate than anyone on real television. Hey, that's what art and the improved reflection it gives us of reality is all about.

See also Why CNN and Fox News Wrongly Reported the Supreme Court on Health Care









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Political Animals: Alternate Hillary History

Political Animals (6-part mini-series) debuted on the USA Network Sunday night.  The Hollywood Reporter called the 2.6 million viewers "soft ratings"- I disagree, those numbers are pretty decent. I hear tell that the producers say that series was not really inspired by Hillary and Bill Clinton - that's complete nonsense, and another demonstration of literary critic I. A. Richards' admonition that the creator of a narrative is the last person you should go to for an explanation of what it means - the creator could be anything from dissembling to not being in touch with the implications of the work.

Alternate history is a form of story telling well known in science fiction.  How would the world have been different had Lincoln or JFK not been assassinated, had Germany won the Second World War, etc?  I take a similar tack about Socrates and the hemlock in The Plot to Save Socrates.

Political Animals is the story of Elaine Barrish, former First Lady of a popular two-term President (the most popular "since Kennedy") with a southern accent and a penchant for the ladies and affairs.  She loses a close campaign for the nomination for President to a young, well-spoken, dynamic opponent.   So far, the history is not alternate but all but identical to Hillary and Bill's.  But on the night she concedes to her opponent, the divergence from our real world begins:  Elaine wants and gets a divorce from her philandering husband.

So the excellent set-up for this series is: what would have happened had Hillary left Bill after conceding the nomination to Barack Obama in 2008?  One highly significant development stays the same:  President Garcetti (played by Adrian Pasdar, who also played a President in one of the realities in Heroes) makes Elaine his Secretary of State.   And the show if off and running.

There are inevitable minor differences between the reality of Political Animals and ours.  Former President Hammond and Elaine Barrish (who uses her original name, unlike Hillary) have two sons (one gay, the other engaged to a bulimic) and no daughter.  And, at this point, it looks like Obama is a better President than Garcetti (who is Italian American not African American).

But the tableau is easily recognizable as ours, with the twist, and that's its appeal.  What differences will this twist engender? Elaine is free to sleep with other people - though the only man she sleeps with so far is her former husband, at least once, for special emotional support - and she vows to run again for President. The acting is excellent - Signorney Weaver as Elaine and Ciarán Hinds (Caesar in HBO's superb Rome) as her former husband and former ex-President, and I'm looking forward to every episode of this original, courageous, and highly entertaining series.




The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music

Breaking Bad Season 5 Premiere: Riveting Entropy

Breaking Bad, one of the best and most unique series ever to be on television, was back with Season 5 on AMC last night - as good as ever, or superb indeed.

This one begins with a glimpse of the future, and Walter with a head of hair and a life-and-death mission as per usual.  But this one had a special edge to it, likely because of the way Walter looked.

Meanwhile, back to a minute after Season 4 ended - another Breaking Bad technique - Walter's joy at engineering the indestructible Gus's complete death is short lived.  There's always an overlooked detail - another staple of the series - and this time it's a video cam that may have recorded more than Walter wants the police to see about how Gus came to die.

The solution is suggested by Jesse - a magnetic attack on the police evidence locker - and Mike (pretty much recovered) is pulled into this, since the vid on the hard disk of a laptop in the evidence room could well implicate him, too.  An unlikely but necessary alliance at this point.

And, as also always seems to happen on Breaking Bad, even the resolution of this problem with a successful magnetic attack engenders another problem - this time, something written down the good old fashioned way on the back of a picture frame or whatever which is damaged in the magnetic attack so the writing is now visible.

But if Breaking Bad is so predictable, why is it so excellent?  There's a fundamental principle in the universe - entropy - which says that whenever you try to eliminate noise or distortion or error or breakdown, the remedy will inevitably introduce a new noise of its own.  Breaking Bad is great because it embodies this unstoppable reality better than any other narrative I've seen.


See also My Prediction about Breaking Bad ... Breaking Bad Season 4 Debuts ... Breaking Bad 4.2: Gun and Question ... Breaking Bad 4.11: Tightening Vice ... Breaking Bad 4.12: King vs. King ... Breaking Bad Season 4 Finale: Deceptive Flowers


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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ... Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music