Paul Levinson's Blog: Levinson at Large, page 4

Dexter: Resurrection 1.4: The Nefarious Club

Well, we finally get to know Peter Dinklage as Leon Prater in the fourth episode of Dexter: Resurrection, and it had lots of other appealing and important elements:

[And there will be spoilers ahead ... ]

1. My favorite was the romantic spark between Dexter (posing as the ersatz Dark Passenger) and Mia aka Lady Vengeance (good job Krysten Ritter), an elegant, erudite, attractive, and (by her own account) highly effective serial killer. She invites Dexter to her apartment, leaves the door ajar and begins undressing for her shower-- and Dexter leaves! He has a killing of his own to attend to. Too bad. I would have followed Mia into the shower, but, then again, I'm not a serial killer myself.

2. Romance was in the air in this episode. Harrison tries to kiss Elsa, she says no, but looks a little like she might regret that so ... I'd say they have some kind of future. Meanwhile, Batista's talk with Harrison has shaken him up, and based on the last scene, I'd say Harrison has a future with his father. All things considered, he has to be happy, deep down, that he didn't kill Dexter at the end of New Blood.

3. Back to Prater: As I said, I'm happy to see the chemistry between Dexter and Lady Vengeance, and I'm glad Dexter found a victim for his table, and has others to choose from. The idea of a serial killers club or association or whatever you want to call it is promising. But in this first meeting, the villains (other than Mia) struck me as an unimpressive, even innocuous bunch. We'll see.

4. And a final word for now: I'm really enjoying Dexter in Manhattan. Maybe because I've lived and worked in or very close to New York City all my life, but Dexter looks very much at home here.

Reviews of Season 2: Dexter's Back: A Preview and Dexter Meets Heroes and 6. Dexter and De-Lila-h and 7. Best Line About Dexter - from Lila and 8. How Will Dexter Get Out of This? and The Plot Gets Tighter and Sharper and Dex, Doakes, and Harry and Deb's Belief Saves Dex and All's ... Well

See also about Season 1: First Place to Dexter

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Published on July 26, 2025 11:08

Foundation 3.3: Dawn and the Mule

Foundation 3.3 on Apple TV+ continues to very much please, as the TV series progresses on its course of being much closer to Asimov's trilogy, with the addition of the clonal Cleon triumvirate, now aka Empire.

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

Dawn's role is especially pivotal and powerful this season. His meetings with Gaal and his growing interest in The Mule are beginning to point to some very exciting possibilities. One of the weakest parts of the otherwise masterful Second Foundation in Asimov's trilogy is the hokus pokus way Preem Palver beats The Mule, distracting the arch manipulator so Palver could turn the tables and manipulate The Mule himself. I'm thinking Dawn could play a crucial role in ultimately bringing down The Mule, either with or without Palver.

Speaking of The Mule, in addition to being able to rearrange people's minds, he's a sadistic piece of work, isn't he, on the screen. Which gets me to another divergence from the trilogy, which could be significant. In Asimov's books, Magnifico the clown was The Mule in disguise. On the screen, Magnifico and The Mule are clearly two people. The Mule of course could easily manipulate Magnifico, but could The Mule in effect teleport his mind into Magnifico, so the "clown" could do the damage he does in the Asimov trilogy?

What I'm also very much continuing to really enjoy is the ambience and the pacing of the third season Foundation on the screen. The first twos seasons just didn't feel to me like I was watching anything approaching an enactment of what I've read three times already in my life on paper pages. But watching episode 3.3 on my laptop last night, I really felt like I was in Asimov's universe, watching his story play out -- albeit in a different way than Asimov had it -- and that was a fine nearly hour to savor, indeed.

See you back here next week.

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Published on July 25, 2025 08:00

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 3.1-3.3: Gorn, Spock & Chapel, and The Walking Dead

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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is back for its third season. I watched its first three episodes tonight, and I'd say it's better than ever. The series has really found its footing. Or better, it already had its footing, but really took off in all kinds of gratifying ways in this third season.

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

Episode 3.1 was really the second part of the fierce battle with the Gorn that began in the final episode of the second season. The battle scenes were sharp, and it was good writing to find that the price that Ortegas paid to beat the Gorn is she's not quite the same. That bore fruit in episode 3.3 and has yet to be resolved. (As I side note, it was also good to see Uhura's new hair.)

Episode 3.2 was my favorite of these first three episodes of this new season. Readers of my reviews of the first two seasons will know I've been a big fan of Spock and Chapel, and it was fun seeing them waking up in bed together, even if it was the result of someone on the Q level (figuratively not literally) having the ability to change almost everyone's reality. But why couldn't the two have really been together? Well, once again, we see the stern taskmaster that a prequel is always subject to: it's governed by what happened in the earlier broadcast series that told the story of a later time. To which I say to the writers: figure out a way to make Spock and Chapel a real reality. Hey, Star Trek is science fiction, that shouldn't be so hard to make happen. (In the meantime, there's a hint of something happening between Spock and La'an.)

Episode 3.3 could well have titled, Star Trek meets The Walking Dead. Right, it had zombies. But it also had another true love story, Pike and Batel, and was a good piece of biological science fiction, in which moss played a role as well as the Klingons. Biology means that M'Benga also played an important role. He's been one of my favorite characters from the get-go of Strange New Worlds.

Good to see everyone back in such good form, and TOS's Scotty doing so well. And I'll be back soon with another review of this fine new season.

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Published on July 24, 2025 21:57

Ballard: Something New and Compelling in the LAPD

Well, it's no Bosch -- nothing else could be -- but Ballard, all ten episodes of which debuted on Amazon Prime early this month, certainly is a notable, compelling new LA cop series, with some unique, unusual, and worthy aspects.

First, Ballard is very much in the Bosch universe. Detective Renée Ballard was introduced in the most recent (and apparently final) season of Bosch: Legacy late last year. Bosch himself serves a small but crucial role in what I hope will be just the first season of Ballard, which has not yet been renewed. Crate & Barrel, Honey Chandler, J. Edgar, and Mo all put in appearances in Ballard, and they're good and fun to see.

[Some spoilers ahead ... ]

The story itself is pretty close to the opposite of fun, which I guess a cold-case unit, which Ballard is consigned to head, is bound to be. Her rag-tag team seems to have an impossibly uphill job on its hands, which only gets worse as they discover they're not only looking for a serial killer, but a different monster who's a serial rapist, two of whose victims are actually in the unit.

Ballard and her cohort soon discover they're not only investigating bad guys, but people in the LAPD, who not only have disdain for Ballard, but some of whom may be bad guys themselves. The series in many ways is a testament to female intelligence, determination, and resilience in what is still an intensely male chauvinistic world: the police.

There are more than one good detective story that play out in this series, with a resolution that manages to surprise and even shock, even in this well-trodden territory. And there's a stunning ending that cries out for a another season, which I'll certainly be watching as soon as its up.

Good job by Maggie Q in the title role, and in fact everyone in the series.

another kind of police story
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Published on July 23, 2025 21:53

Superman: Foe of Musk and Putin

I've been following and enjoying Superman's exploits since I started watching him played by George Reeves on television when I was a kid in the 1950s, and started reading the comic book a few years later, created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster way back in 1938. And as an adult I even contributed an article about The Man of Steel -- “Superman, Patriotism, and Doing the Ultimate Good” (which explored why Superman didn't just wipe out Hitler and the Nazis in World War Two) in The Man from Krypton -- an anthology published in 2006.

I think I've also seen most of the movies. Like the TV series and the comics, they were all immensely entertaining. But none packaged that with the political acumen and clout that James Gunn invested in the new Superman movie that my wife and I just saw in the LOOK Dine-In Cinemas in Dobbs Ferry. Andrew Slack and Jose Antonio Vargas nailed in their guest column in The Hollywood Reporter, "Yes, Superman Has Always Been an Immigration Story," what Gunn did in his movie. Superman has always been the ultimate alien -- literally, he came from outer space. And just as people from other countries helped build and protect America from day one, so Superman has done the same since he started growing into adulthood in Kansas.

The movie also gets all the related political travesties and depredations that currently afflict our country and thereby the world right on target, too. Lying buffoons on a Fox-like "news" channel, a fickle populace gobbling down fake news like it was cotton candy, a Putin-like character invading a neighboring country just as Hitler did in the 1930s, and most important, making Lex Luthor, Superman's brilliant, demented arch-enemy who first appeared in the comics in 1940 into someone we all know all too well.

My nine-year-old grandson called it when he saw Superman with my son a couple of days ago and told him: "Lex Luthor is Elon Musk". I don't know if Musk is as smart or as evil Luthor, but he's certainly done plenty of damage. Among the many reasons to cheer what Gunn has done in this movie is the way he put up Musk in Luthor.

And there are indeed many other reasons. Superman is not only powerful but vulnerable and amazingly admirably sweet and good -- he takes the time to save a squirrel. David Corenswet (who was in one episode of House of Cards) was excellent in the title role. So were Rachel Brosnahan (Mad Men, Mrs. Maisel ) as Lois Lane, Edi Gathegi (For All Mankind, StartUp) as Mr. Terrific, and Nathan Fillion (The Rookie, Castle) as Green Lantern. In fact, everyone was in fine form, including the super heroes I didn't know, the robots, and especially the dog.

So, if you're a fan of Superman, you can't go wrong with this movie. And if you're a fan of democracy and a foe of fascism, you can go wrong with this movie. either.

more about this anthology here

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Published on July 22, 2025 19:31

Untamed: Twisted Past in Breathtaking Beauty

My wife and I saw Untamed, a six-episode mini-series on Netflix the past few nights. The scenery was breathtaking -- the narrative takes place in Yosemite National Park, and as the protagonist Kyle Turner points out, most visitors get to see no more than ten percent of it -- the acting was excellent, and the plot pretty good, too, slow winding but deep, and coming together memorably in the end.

[Slight spoilers ahead ... ]

Kyle, played by Eric Bana, is a National Parks Agent, investigating what could be the murder of a young woman who falls off a mountain to her death. He has a troubled past -- a lot of the residents of the Park, legal and otherwise, do -- but the investigation would have been difficult even if he was the happiest guy in the world. He has a newbie as a partner, Naya Vasquez (played by Lily Santiago), Paul Souter (played by Sam Neill) is his boss, and Jill Bodwin (played by Rosemarie Dewitt) is his former wife, with whom he shares a very tragic past. It's always good to see Bana and Neill on the screen, Dewitt was excellent (she was in Mad Men), and the strong performance by Santiago (whom I recall seeing in La Brea) indicates a fine career ahead.

As I said, just about every major character in this story has a troubled past, which of course influences and spills into the investigation, and also can sometimes be a bit too much and unclear if you're intent on following what could be a murder investigation. Some of the characters are villains who may not be murderers. Others work for the law and can be just the reverse. Although some of this flirts with confusion, the ending is both shocking and satisfying, and well worth the short six-episode wait.

But as I said at the outset, the biggest takeaway of Untamed is the spectacular scenery and cinematography. The series was so well photographed, you could practically breath it through the screen.

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Published on July 20, 2025 11:47

The Waterfront: Emmy-Worthy Star Power and Hard-Hitting Story

Animal Kingdom, originally on TNT (now on Netflix), is easily in the Top 10 of all-time best television dramas. Jake Weary as Deran was one of the reasons, and for that reason alone, my wife and I had to watch The Waterfront, also on Netflix and no doubt the reason that Animal Kingdom is now there as well. But Holt McCallany from Lights Out and Topher Grace in anything were other good reasons, and the acting in The Waterfront is first class all the way.

[Spoilers ahead ...]

And the plot is compelling, often thrilling and surprising, too. McCallany's Harlan Buckley is head of a North Carolina family fishing business that's declining, in part because because Harlan has pulled it away from the lucrative smuggling that the business used to abet, after his father who was deeply involved in the smuggling part of the fishery was murdered. Weary's Cane is Harlan's son, who has gotten the business back into smuggling, on a hopefully temporary basis, to get the business to make ends meet -- actually, to avoid a looming foreclosure -- until the fishing can get the company back on its feet.

Meanwhile, Topher Grace gives a tour-de-force performance as an au-currant, fast-talking, veering on demented new drug-smuggling lord. He's the most potent danger to the Buckley hegemony, but they're also beset by other criminals, the DEA, and discord in the family, which includes Melissa Benoist as Cane's sister Bree, and Maria Bello as Harlan's wife, who is also trying to save the business.

After a relatively slow, talky start in the first episode (at least to me), The Waterfront takes off with a series of surprises and twists, which arrive like gut punches which leave you black and blue and wanting for more. Highly recommended, hats off to creator Kevin Williamson, and if you're ever in North Carolina visit the Fishy Fishy Cafe, which apparently was the template for the Buckley fish restaurant.

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Published on July 19, 2025 10:23

Dexter: Resurrection 1.3: Killers and Prey

Whew, a powerhouse Dexter: Resurrection 1.3, with at least three things that I really loved:

[Spoilers ahead]

1. Harrison getting out of that murder rap (for now) with that clever Detective Wallace boxing him in with that no sign of him leaving the hotel. He had the perfect answer to her -- that he's sleeping in the hotel, not paying for a room, and he didn't tell Wallace that sooner because he was protecting Elsa, the woman who is letting him stay in the hotel. Nice piece of work, Harrison! Your father (and grandfather) would be proud of you.

2. Dexter not falling prey to his prey -- the other Dark Passenger -- by wearing that metal collar around his neck. Dexter hasn't lost his edge. He always knew how to protect himself even when he was first starting out -- well, not always, but in Dexter: Original Sin he was quickly learning how -- and getting the jump on Red as Red was trying to do the same to him was also a fine piece of work in the Dexter corpus.

3. But of course my favorite was Batista retiring and Masuka and Quinn saying goodbye to him. The last two were in great shape, and so is Batista, as I mentioned in my review of the first two episodes of Resurrection last week.

So, Harrison is free (for now), Dexter has taken care of Red, but he's set to get involved with the serial killers club, because how could he not, it's a perfect hunting ground for him. But Batista is no doubt on his way to New York to nab Dexter as the Bay Harbor Butcher, so in that important way Dexter is still someone's prey.

And let me also say: excellent directing by Monica Raymund, whom we know from her acting in Chicago Fire and Hightown! See you back here next week.

Reviews of Season 2: Dexter's Back: A Preview and Dexter Meets Heroes and 6. Dexter and De-Lila-h and 7. Best Line About Dexter - from Lila and 8. How Will Dexter Get Out of This? and The Plot Gets Tighter and Sharper and Dex, Doakes, and Harry and Deb's Belief Saves Dex and All's ... Well

See also about Season 1: First Place to Dexter

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Published on July 18, 2025 16:36

Foundation 3.2: "The Fault, Dear Brutus, Is Not in Our Stars"

Well, as I said last week, this third season of Foundation on Apple TV+ is a much leaner, tauter, truer telling than the first two seasons of Isaac Asimov's indelible, incredible trilogy, and thus -- though it still is markedly different from the trilogy in all kinds of ways, though the triad Cleon "Empire" would be more than enough to make the screen version very different from Asimov's -- much more fun, at least for me, to see.

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

I couldn't help but chuckle when Hari Seldon, not quite alive, but much more alive than Seldon as hologram in the trilogy, remarks to Gaal that, other than the Mule, Gaal and Hari brought the evolution of the galaxy pretty much back on track after it had veered far off course. And whose fault was that, that humankind had gone so far astray? Well, not Hari's and not the Mule's, not any character in the narrative on the screen. No, the blame resides with the writers and people who dreamed up this retelling of the Foundation story on television.

But now they're now they're working hard to get it straight. A significant part of Asimov's story of The Mule and The Second Foundation's attempt to stop him in Asimov's telling of his story concerns the planet Tazenda, which name sounds like Star's End, where rumor has it that the Second Foundation is headquartered, wherever exactly that is. The Mule, misled into thinking he's wiping out the Second Foundation, blasts that planet of our existence with his fleet. That Star's End business was so important, there's even a superb podcast with that name, where I was fortunate to be a guest some two years ago. And if I remember correctly, someone wrote a piece in some academic journal decades ago which argued that Asimov was immoral to have his Second Foundation set up an innocent planet to be destroyed in its fight against the Mule. But I'm mentioning the destruction of a whole planet in this review of Foundation 3.2 because one of its most significant elements has Empire Dusk planning on giving Dawn a way to erase a planet.

The Dawn-Day-Dusk triumvirate has been the best part of the first two seasons of Foundation on TV, and its good to see their story continuing so well as the rest of the galaxy veers ever more significantly back to the story Asimov and Hari wanted to tell. Including, I would add, hearing the name Bayta!

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Published on July 17, 2025 22:50

Song of the Unsung Mushroom by Sarah Clarke Stuart

Coming January 2026 -- a new novel from Connected Editions! Song of the Unsung Mushroom by Sarah Clarke Stuart!After a hurricane strikes a small Florida town, young Claire is never the same. Years later, her brother, Gunther, is still haunted by the suspicion that she was taken and replaced by something not quite human. Set in the wild landscapes of northern Florida and Western Appalachia, this eco-fiction (cli-fi) story is a lyrical, genre-blurring novel about loss, identity, and the hidden intelligence that pulses beneath our feet. Nature and technology dissolve into one, reshaping what it means to be human.About Sarah: Sarah Clarke Stuart is a Professor of Communication at Florida State College at Jacksonville where she teaches literature, film, composition, and emerging technologies. Author of Literary Lost: Viewing Television Through the Lens of Literature (Bloomsbury) and Into the Looking Glass: Exploring the Worlds of Fringe (ECW Press), her nonfiction work explores the intersection of narrative, culture, and media. Song of the Unsung Mushroom is her debut novel; her previous fiction includes short stories such as “Immaculate,” which received Editor's Choice Award in the literary journal Fiction Fix. She contributed for many years to First Coast Magazine and Flamingo Magazine with articles grounded in a curious appreciation for the natural landscapes and stories of the region. Both Sarah’s fiction and current research are rooted in ecological interests and a deep sense of place and physical embodiment. Sarah is the creator and host of two podcasts: Lifeyness, which examines embodied mental health through storytelling, and AI Goes to College, a series about artificial intelligence and the evolving nature of education. "I See Trees Differently" by ‪ Dahlia Dumont (aka The Blue Dalia) from La tradition americaine, 2018.Pre-sale on Amazon of Song of the Unsung Mushroom by Sarah Clarke Stuart coming soon!

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Published on July 17, 2025 19:15