Paul Levinson's Blog: Levinson at Large, page 59

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on May 18, 2022 12:30

Podcast Review of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1.1-1.2

Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 300, in which I review the first two episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds on Paramount+

Written blog post review of these episodes

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on May 17, 2022 11:35

The Time Traveler's Wife 1.1: Off to a Fine, Funny, Complex Start

The Time Traveler's Wife debuted on HBO last night. Based on the 2003 novel by Audrey Niffenegger which I haven't read, made into a movie in 2009 which I saw and really liked but didn't review (because I was too busy promoting the first edition my then new book, New New Media), HBO's offering is a brand-new series. I thought the first episode was excellent.

The set up: Henry is the time traveler, pulled into the past, sometimes the future, with nothing but his skin, not of his own volition, usually in the timeframe of his own lifetime. He can meet earlier and later versions of himself, and often does. Clare is the wife. Henry, already a man, meets her as a girl (first time in her life she's seen him, in his later life they are already married). They love each other, but their lives together are certainly not easy. I know some of what will happen in subsequent episodes because I saw the movie, as I said above, but this review will be spoiler-free.

There's probably more humor than heartbreak in this story, but I wouldn't call it a comedy, and it's a frothy mix of frivolity and potentially life-and-death situations and predicaments at hand. Henry and Clare are both highly intelligent, which makes the challenges they encounter, together and separate, a lot of fun to see. Also, intellectually provocative.

The acting in the lead roles is great, just what you'd want in narrative like this. Theo James, last seen and missed now as Sidney in Sanditon, is perfect as Henry, irreverent, fast thinking and fast acting, and pretty good in a fight. Rose Leslie, who lit up the screen as Ygritte in Game of Thrones, ranges as required from spitfire to vulnerable, as good at strategizing as Henry, and at least as important a mover of events in the story as Henry.

So we're off to fine start with our central couple. We'll meet other characters, of course, as well as seemingly insurmountable problems -- as befits the genre of time travel -- in the episodes ahead, and I'll be back here with reviews of each of them.

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on May 16, 2022 16:57

Podcast Review of The Man Who Fell to Earth 1.4

Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 299, in which I review the fourth episode of The Man Who Fell to Earth on Showtime.

Written blog post review of this episode of The Man Who Fell to Earth.

podcast reviews of The Man Who Fell to Earth 1.1 ... 1.2... 1.3

Paul Levinson interviewed on WNBC-TV about David Bowie in 2016

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on May 16, 2022 11:26

The Man Who Fell to Earth 1.4: "Tell my wife I love her very much..."

How cool and meta-perfect is The Man Who Fell to Earth new series on Showtime? Well, in episode 1.4, just up last night, we learn that Thomas Newton, who came to Earth all those years ago, in the 1976 movie starring David Bowie in the role, lost his memory, or most of it, including of his wife back on Althea, way out there in outer space. And in episode 1.4 Newton, now played by Bill Nighy, tells Faraday in a little hovering ball of a recording made as his memory was fading, "Tell my wife I love her very much". The very request that Major Tom made to his listeners in David Bowie's iconic 1969 "Space Oddity" recording. "Ain't Jenny so cool ..." Well, not only Jenny Lumet, but Alex Kurtzman, Jane Maggs (who wrote the story Lumet and Kurtzman made into the teleplay) and everyone who put this unique sequel series together.

Bowie's presence and essence has been integrated into this new series from the very first episode, which was entitled "Hallo, Spaceboy" -- just a comma more than Bowie's 1995 song "Hallo Spaceboy". At this point in the series, I've got to say I can't think of a better, more multi-valent TV series sequel to a movie.

And we got some important Justin backstory in this episode. She invented a cold fusion process -- an incredible achievement, that duly impressed Faraday -- but paid for it with the loss of her daughter's father, who died of radiation poisoning. Along with Newton's loss of memory, this was one of the two most powerful heart tugs of the episode.

Spencer has another night of flexing his CIA muscle, but the highpoint is his encounter with Mary Lou, another memorable character from the 1976 movie, played back then by Candy Clark. She and Newton shared a love of sorts, and in his absence she's become Sister Mary Lou, now played by Juliet Stevenson. Spencer's conversation with her was one of his best moment so far in the series, but I could've done without the bee in her mouth.

The Man Who Fell to Earth continues to be one of the most refreshingly original science fiction shows on television. That's quite an accomplishment, given that the series is a sequel, but it draws you into its spider web to the point that you're really feeling, on a visceral level, the interstellar interplay that is at the heart of this story.

See you back here next week with my next review.

first spaceship to Alpha Centauri from Mars

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on May 16, 2022 10:19

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1.1-2: Great Characters, Actors, and Stories

I saw the first two episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds on Paramount+ late last night and really enjoyed them. More than Picard and a lot more than Discovery, to rank the new Star Treks that Paramount+ has been rolling out. Strange New Worlds brought back a lot of the verve and joy of watching TOS aka the original Star Trek series. And here are some of the more specific reasons why:

[No big spoilers ahead ... ]

1. It was wonderful to see so many of the TOS characters brought back, in their younger days, as befits a narrative about Captain Pike ten years before he suffered the disfiguring injuries that we saw so vividly in one of the all-time best TOS episodes, the two-hour "The Menagerie". Anson Mount's Pike, first introduced in Discovery, is superb. I first noticed Mount in Hell on Wheels, where he also gave a top-notch performance. His Pike is tough, sarcastic, empathetic, and now tormented by the disfiguring future he's seen. Ethan Peck's Spock is also outstanding, providing his logical commentary in perfect pitch, struggling to throw in some lame humor, even being pretty effective in a romantic scene back home before he's called to join Pike on the Enterprise. Cecilia Rose Gooding was great as Uhura, as was her back story, and her affinity for language including music. Jess Bush's Nurse Chapel was also fun to see, especially her crush on Spock. And speaking of Nurse Chapel, she of course was originally portrayed by Majel Barrett, who played Pike's Number One in "The Menagerie" -- Rebecca Romijn's Number One in Strange New Worlds looks to be a strong, literally supporting character whom Pike can confide in. And just for good measure, Sam Kirk, James T's brother, was on board as well as an anthropologist.

2. The new characters were excellent, too. My favorite was Christina Chong's La'an Noonien-Singh. She's tough-minded and tough to beat, and will make a very effective Security Chief. From what we briefly saw of the new doc and the new engineer -- as always, a bit behind the eight ball with beaming -- will be bringing a lot to Strange New Worlds, too.

3. I've been saying for years now, ever since cable and then streaming television emerged, that I much prefer continuing narratives throughout a season to standalone stories. But I thought the first two standalone episodes of Strange New Worlds -- the first with the same title as the series, the second aptly named "Children of the Comet"-- worked great. The first episode did violate the Prime Directive, though in all fairness, the don't-interfere-directive was not yet named Prime, and only became Prime as a result of what Pike did in this episode. The second, about (I guess) an AI-driven comet, and the belief of its protectors that the comet was a vehicle of a higher power, was one of the best religion in space stories I've ever seen, a really fine and intelligent job. And this made me realize I prefer religion treated in Star Trek to the way it's treated in, for example, Raised by Wolves. I guess that amounts to a preference for intellectual ingenuity over blood and gore.

So I'm really onboard with this new Enterprise. Its position, a decade before Sam Kirk's brother took the helm, is in many ways ideal. In particular, what Pike does to follow Number One's good advice to resist and contest what he saw in the future and those of us who are old enough first saw in 1966, will be fun and exquisite to see.

And I'll see you back here next week with my next review.

And see also The Missing Orientation (free essay)

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on May 15, 2022 09:40

Star Trek: Picard Season Two: A Roundtable Discussion

Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 298, in which Captain Phil, MaryBeth Ritkouski, Michael Rizzo, and I discuss Star Trek: Picard Season 2 on Paramount+ and much more about Star Trek: TOS, Star Trek: TNG, and all things Star Trek and related.

More about Mary Beth Ritkouski and Michael Rizzo at SciFi Distilled

More about Captain Phil at Captain Phil's Planet

Boarding the Enterprise (edited by David Gerrold and Robert J. Sawyer), anthology with essay "How Star Trek Liberated Television" by Paul Levinson, which discusses the Star Trek syndication impact

Fringe Science: Parallel Universes, White Tulips, and Mad Scientists (edited by Kevin R. Grazier) anthology with essay by Paul Levinson, "The Return of 1950s Television in Fringe," which discusses Levinson's "First Love Syndrome" in popular culture appreciation.

Welcome Up: Songs of Space and Time (2020 LP by Paul Levinson on Old Bear Records and Light in the Attic Records)

podcast review of Star Trek: Picard 2.10

podcast review of Star Trek: Picard 2.9

podcast review of Star Trek: Picard 2.8

podcast review of Star Trek: Picard 2.7

podcast review of Star Trek: Picard 2.6

podcast review of Star Trek: Picard 2.5

podcast review of Star Trek: Picard 2.4

podcast review of Star Trek: Picard 2.3

podcast review of Star Trek: Picard 2.2

podcast review of Star Trek: Picard 2.1

podcast review of Star Trek: Picard season 1

a little time travel story -- free

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on May 14, 2022 12:55

Podcast Review of The Man Who Fell to Earth 1.3

Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 297, in which I review the third episode of The Man Who Fell to Earth on Showtime.

Written blog post review of this episode of The Man Who Fell to Earth.

podcast review of The Man Who Fell to Earth 1.1 ... 1.2

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on May 12, 2022 14:36

Agnieszka Stecko-Żukowska speaks to Paul Levinson about the impact on Poland of the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 296, in which I interview Polish social media researcher Agnieszka Stecko-Żukowska about the impact on the Russian invasion of Ukraine on her family, her studies, and her country.

Video of this interview is here.

Previous interviews about the impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine:

with Polish poet and member of the bank Trupa Trupa, Grzegorz Kwiatkowski with Ukrainian writer Katia Iakovlenko

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on May 11, 2022 16:21

The Man Who Fell to Earth 1.3: "I've come with a prototype ... "

The Man Who Fell to Earth just keeps getting better and better. The last few minutes of episode 1.3 were the best so far in this very fine series. Faraday tells the audience -- assembled in the narrative and whoever's watching the episode on Showtime or Amazon Prime or any way else on Planet Earth -- "I've come with a prototype for a quantum fusion process," and proceeds to make good on his claim by lighting London up in the night. England swings like a pendulum do.

Faraday is progressing well. He's a big drinker -- of water, which gets him to expel the poison that he took in last week to cure Josiah. Before the hour is over, he and Justin are in London, brought there by Hatch Flood, ousted a few years ago by his sister Sonya from a science tech behemoth, and that's how Faraday got that crucial audience.

At this point, the bad guys seem way behind. Spencer is driven and smart, Lisa seems even smarter, but if this is a battle between the CIA and big tech to get control of the quantum fusion process I don't see how the CIA can overcome the combination of Faraday and Sonya's company unless ... well, I guess unless the CIA got the inscrutable Thomas Newton to work with them, but why would Newton do that? The last we saw he was being tortured by the CIA all those years ago.

I'm beginning to think that Newton, the man in The Man Who Fell to Earth in David Bowie's 1976 movie, will be far more than just the foundational character who so far has been hovering around the edges, in effect passing off the narrative to Faraday. The truth is, I didn't quite buy what he told Faraday in episode 1.2. And tonight we learned that his failure to complete his mission was not due to his getting "distracted" here on Earth, although I guess you could consider having your face peeled off an extreme kind of distraction. (By the way, that black and white old film reminded me of The Man in the High Castle, just saying. They had color back then, didn't they?) The gist of all of this is that it's not clear that helping Faraday is now Newton's ultimate goal.

Well, there's nothing like keep watching the series to get answers to these and other open questions, and that's exactly what I intend to keep doing. See you back here next week.

first spaceship to Alpha Centauri from Mars