Paul Levinson's Blog: Levinson at Large, page 65

The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey 5: Slippage

The saddest thing about the next-to-last episode of The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey on Apple TV+ is that it looks like Ptolemy is at last beginning to lose it. The "it" being the enhanced, super-sharp mentality that Dr. Rubin aka Satan's treatment has given Ptolemy. At that party, the occasion for Ptolemy's speech that Rubin attended -- the only white guy in the room, as Rubin (very well played by Walter Goggins) observed and noted -- Ptolemy can't quite get that last line out. Ptolemy (for my money, one of Samuel L. Jackson's best performances) is aware of that, too, but soldiers on. He has crucial work still to do.

But that slippage wrecks my theory/hope that Ptolemy will somehow avoid what Rubin sees as an inevitable decline. Though -- maybe not. While there's life, there's hope, right? And there's still one more episode of life in this six-episode miniseries.

A large part of the work left for Ptolemy is to convince his nephew Reggie's wife Nina's boyfriend -- who, in fact, killed Reggie to prevent him from taking Nina away by way of Texas -- to take some big sum of money to go away himself and leave Ptolemy's family alone. It's a safe bet, I'd say, that this killer is not going to go away so easily.

The other work left for Ptolemy is to get Robyn to take control of his money -- multi-millions --when he's gone. As Robyn rightly says, she's only seventeen. She knows nothing about how to handle big money. I'd say it's also a safe bet that Robyn will agree to Ptolemy's request before the series ends next week.

But Ptolemy will have to do all this work with his mind slipping. And I'll be hoping until the end that that just doesn't happen.

See you back here next week, when I'll let you know what I think of how it all turns out.

a little time travel story -- free

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Published on April 02, 2022 18:53

Podcast Review of Severance 1.8

Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 272, in which I review Severance episode 1.8 on Apple TV+.

Written blog post review of Severance 1.8

podcast reviews of Severance: 1.1-1.2... 1.3... 1.4... 1.5 ...1.6... 1.7

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Published on April 02, 2022 10:26

Severance 1.8: Fired, Kissed, Almost Free

Three brilliant elements stand out in this superb next-to-last episode of the first season of Severance on Apple TV+.

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

1. Harmony is fired! A shocker, that comes from the Board learning that Helly tried to commit suicide, and Harmony failed to inform the Board. As a first example of what Harmony gone from Lumon will do: she advises Mark's outie to get away from Lumon, when he tells her he's thinking of leaving. This, presumably, is a split second before Dylan manages to ignite the Overtime Contingency, which will allow Mark's innie to escape into his outie (see # 3 below).

2. Helly kisses Mark right before her innie takes the upward elevator to become her outie (which, again, will soon be inhabited by her innie). The kiss was long overdue and good to see. The two would make a good couple. Here's hoping we see that happen.

3. Dylan finds it's harder than he thought to turn three outies into their innies at the same time, aka, switch on the Overtime Contingency for Irving, Mark, and Helly. I put Irving first, because we also learn tonight that the black guck we see in the opening credits (which, by the way, are excellent) is a take on the paintings he makes with thick black paint as an outie. I suppose calling them paintings is an exaggeration, but I'm no expert in abstract art. I'm also assuming here that the Outer Contingency worked -- the episode ended a nanosecond before the Contingency transformation takes effect.

Which brings us to next week's finale. There's no way we won't see the innies freed, at least for part of that episode. The big question, of course, is what they and we will discover about their outward lives. The one we know the most about is Mark, and that's not much. Helly's outie is some rich socialite or businesswoman, or so it seems. Irving has a lovable dog and is a "painter". As for Dylan, we learned previously that he has son.

See you back here next week, with my impressions of what we learn in the finale.

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Published on April 01, 2022 19:59

Deeper Problems at the Oscars

Most people are understandably still talking about Will Smith slapping Chris Rock in the face at last week's Oscar ceremony, after Rock made a tasteless joke about Jada Pinkett Smith's hair (she has alopecia or hair loss). What Smith did was wrong, no doubt, but thinking back about that broadcast, I'd say that incident was the least of the Oscar ceremony's problems:

1. First, what Smith did was indeed not noble but wrong. We parents spend a lot of time teaching our little children to use words not hands to express their anger, however justified it might be. An actor resorting to violence on a world-wide stage sends out a very bad message.

2. Smith did also use words to express his outrage at Rock, shouting "Keep my wife's name out of your fucking mouth" to Rock several times. Unfortunately, we here in America were deprived of hearing that. ABC, ever fearful, like other broadcast networks, of FCC (Federal Communication Commission) fines, bleeped out the offensive tirade. (Fortunately, it was heard in Australia and other places with less repressive regimes than the United States.) And it also must be noted: the FCC does absolutely nothing about Fox News and its dissemination of outright lies about COVID and now the Russian invasion of Ukraine -- lies so grievous that it got Chris Wallace not to his contract with Fox, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to recommend Fox News. Surely, those lies are not broadcasting "in the public interest" -- the lies about Covid vaccines and bogus "cures" have literally cost lives. And maybe the (Federal Trade Commission) should investigate the very name Fox "News" as a form of false advertising.

3. Speaking of COVID and the Russian invasion, neither received much mention at the Oscar ceremony. COVID was actually the subject of an early joking skit. Ok, but the pandemic is no laughing matter to the more than six million people around the world who lost their lives, and the millions more in their families. Would've been appropriate to say something about COVID in the Oscar "In Memoriam" segment.

4. The same egregious oversight about the heroic Ukrainians fighting for their very lives and country marred the Oscar event. Sean Penn suggested that Ukrainian President Zelensky be allowed to address the world via the Academy Awards ceremony. Not only did that not happen, there was no official mention of the Russian attack of Ukraine at all, other than some silent words briefly up on a screen. Ukrainian-born Mila Kunis alluded to but didn't mention by name the savage Russian invasion of her birth place. Were the presenters and winners told not to mention Ukraine? It was left to Francis Ford Coppola to defiantly proclaim from the stage, "Viva Ukraine"!

All in all, though there were many very worthy winners, a sad shambles of an award ceremony

.

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Published on April 01, 2022 18:34

Moonshot: Buckminster Fuller and True Love

Hey, not every movie about humans in space has to be about battles for the galaxy, or, if the story is about planets closer to home, about being stranded on Mars or otherwise vexed by its harrowing problems. There's a place in movies about Mars for profundity delivered through joy, even the joy of maybe slightly older than teenage romance and humor.

That's right, and Moonshot is such a movie. A ways ahead in our future (2049), Walt (well acted by Cole Sprouse) wants to go to Mars because he kissed a girl (Ginny) one night, and she's going to Mars, and Walt wanted to go there anyway. He stows away on a ship to Mars with the help of Sophie (well acted by Lana Condor), a brilliant and deep thinker, who doesn't like space travel but whose boyfriend Calvin is already on Mars with his family.

Lots of frivolity and even Animal House-like slapstick ensue, but there's also lots of philosophic awareness onboard, with thoughts about the ultimate home of humanity and Earth as our best place in the universe and therein (ala Buckminster Fuller) a unique and irreplaceable spaceship for humankind. These come mainly from Sophie, with Walt providing encouragement and some pretty crucial common-sense thinking of his own at crucial times in the narrative.

Predictably but still enjoyably, the two fall in love on the trip to Mars, and the story then becomes how will Sophie break that news to her boyfriend (Ginny has already found someone else on Mars). I won't tell you how all of this ends, other than that there are good twists and turns. Will true love triumph over the human drive to go further out into space in pursuit of something which many people (including me) view as our destiny?

See Moonshot and see for yourself.

first spaceship to Alpha Centauri from Mars

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Published on March 31, 2022 22:07

Podcast Review of Star Trek: Picard 2.5

Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 271, in which I review Star Trek: Picard 2.5 on Paramount+

written blog post 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

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Published on March 31, 2022 18:40

Star Trek: Picard 2.5: Don't Walk Away, Renee

Superb episode 2.5 of Star Trek: Picard, with so many profound, unexpected elements, unfolding so quickly, it felt like just five minutes had passed before the episode was over.

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

We meet Picard's great aunt in 2024, Renee Picard, whose accomplishments as astronaut have to happen in order for our timeline to be preserved. Q, of course, doesn't want that, and he's pulling out all kinds of stops to stop that. This of course raises the tricky question of why Q can't just make everything he wants happen by snapping his fingers. He and we saw last week that, for some unknown reason, that's not happening. And Jean-Luc becomes aware of that, too, tonight.

Meanwhile, Q is pursuing another related gambit (they're all related in Star Trek). He's trying to get Dr. Soong -- whose descendant created Data -- to help him (Q) implement some essential part of his plan. His leverage over Soong is to provide a cure for the fatal illness of his daughter. It was great to see Brent Spiner back in yet another Soong/Data role.

And if those two threads aren't enough, let's not forget the Borg Queen and the hold she now has over Agnes. I knew Agnes couldn't have killed the Queen so easily, and, sure enough, in a shocking scene at the end of the episode, there is the Queen indeed right there in Agnes's head, as she works to help the team keep Renee in motion.

Speaking of which, it's great to see the team all back together. They'll need all the help they can get fightning not one but two masterful villains -- Q and The Borg Queen. Well, at least one thing seems to be going very well: Picard's conversations with the woman in 2024 who looks just like Laris (played by the same actress, Orla Brady), but isn't. Doesn't matter, that's bound to help Picard and Laris get back together, right?

See you back here next week.