Paul Levinson's Blog: Levinson at Large, page 99

Debris 1.9: Resets 1

Whoah -- a brilliant game-shaking episode 1.9 of Debris on NBC tonight, in which the piece of said Debris shifts those who come into its presence into alternate realities.  That is, what clearly is not one but what seems to be an unlimited series of alternate realities.  That would be a cool centerpiece of this narrative.  But the story that plays out for our characters is an ingenious piece of work in itself for just an episode of a television series.

The hour starts off conventionally enough (that is, conventionally enough for Debris).  A diver comes into contact with a piece of Debris off the coast, and finds he's in an alternate reality minus his sister.  And the narrative stays conventional enough (that is, for Debris) throughout most of the rest of the hour.  Bryan and Finola investigate what's going on, now with the help of Finola's sage father.  But the diver, desperate to find his sister, keeps jumping in the ocean and swimming towards the Debris to enter yet another new reality.  We see everything from the diver's perspective, including Bryan having different partners in some of the realities.  Finola's father says colors are important in understanding what's going on, especially the color orange.  In an especially nice touch, it even looks like one of the Bryans has orange reddish hair.  (Did they dye Jonathan Tucker's hair, or just changed the lightning, or maybe my mind was playing tricks on me.)

But all of that is just prelude to what happens near the end.  Bryan tries to stop the diver from swimming towards the Debris -- the repeated resets of reality could "damage the universe" -- and Bryan gets sucked into an alternate reality himself, where, among other things, Finola is not his partner.

And this turns out to be just Part 1 of a two-part story about alternate-reality resets.  I've seen some good alternate-reality episodes on various science fiction series over the years -- those on Star Trek: TOS and Star Trek: TNG are especially memorable -- but this episode of Debris is something new, very different, and right up there with the best.

See you back here next week in what I hope is our same reality with my review of the conclusion of this story (or these stories).

See also Debris 1.1 Some Probability of Gems Among the Pieces ... Debris 1.2: Clones ... Debris 1.3: Trapped Out of Time ... Debris 1.4: Suspentia Belief ... Debris 1.5: Fine Tuning ... Debris 1.6: Fountain of Youth and Its Complications ... Debris 1.7: Ferry Cross the Moebius Strip

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The Nevers 1.3: Mary's Melody

A really powerful, touching, terribly beautiful and instructive episode 1.3 of The Nevers on HBO tonight.

I was thinking, as Mary was singing in the park tonight, her voice amplified by some kind of Edison-like loudspeaker with possibly some dollop of superpower worked in, that if only the Touched can hear Mary sing, and we in the audience, on the other side of the screen, can hear her, than maybe The Nevers is telling us that all of us are touched in some way, too.

It was a lovely thought, until bullets tore it apart.  And there's a trenchant lesson in there for us, too.  In tonight's episode, the monster with the eaten-away and maybe also electronic head is easily disposed of.  And Amalia, after a pretty fierce battle in the water with the big bald chain-wielding guy manages to put him of out his homicidal misery, too.  But not so the horrible bullets that end Mary and her song.

Isn't that a lot like our own 21st-century real time, when bullets are daily doing so much horrendous damage, fired both by police and civilians with hate in their hearts, and we seem to be unable to stop it?  Mundi is able to stop this assassin, but there will be more, just like there are in our own world.

Dr. Cousens has incredible healing powers, which we saw again tonight, but he can't bring back the dead, at least as far as know.  That's a line which no one who has crossed can come back from, not here or in the special, wondrous Victorian world in the which The Nevers takes place.

But we still have Mary's song, and I like to believe that, where there's song, there's hope, and maybe in our world as well as theirs.

See also The Nevers 1.1: Never Say Never ... The Nevers 1.2: Song and Gun

          "challenging fun" -- Entertainment Weekly

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Podcast Review of For All Mankind, Season 2

Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 172, in which I review For All Mankind (Episodes 2.2-29) on Apple TV+.

Blog post reviews of these episodes:

For All Mankind 2.2: The Peanut Butter Sandwich ... For All Mankind 2.3: "Guns to the Moon" ... For All Mankind 2.4: Close to Reality ... For All Mankind 2.5: Johnny and the Wrath of Kahn ... For All Mankind 2.6: Couplings ... For All Mankind 2.7: Alternate History Surges ... For All Mankind 2.8: Really Lost in Translation ... For All Mankind 2.9: Relationships ... For All Mankind 2.10: Definitely Not The End

Red Moon (2000) by David S. Michaels and Daniel Brenton

The Missing Orientation -- why we've made so little progress on and beyond the Moon in our reality

The Loose Ends Saga -- another alternate space travel history

=========================

anthology

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For All Mankind season 2 Finale: Definitely Not the End

Well, the season 2 finale of For All Mankind, just up on Apple TV+, was about as good as it gets.  Which is about as good as any science fiction space travel alternate history story can get.  Which, by my lights, is grand indeed.

Apropos space travel, the final covered all the bases [spoilers follow ...]

The US and USSR in this one hour attacked each other on the Moon, with loss life on both sides, and made peace in space with a defiant Apollo-Soyez docking, and on Earth, where this docking inspired the war-prone Reagan to reach his hand out in peace to Andropov (in the alt-history news clip of their meeting, though, it sure looked like it was Reagan and Gorbachev meeting, as they did in our reality, but ok).

Two highlights of the near-war on the Moon and on Earth were Ed firing on and obliterating the Buran, and how that came to happen on the Pathfinder.  The action on the Moonbase was also nail biting and heart in mouth.  I would much rather have seen Gordo and Tracy survive, of course, but their not surviving, losing their lives by just a minute or two, was more realistic.

I also very much liked Kelly quoting John Lennon -- "Everything will be ok in the end. And if it’s not okay, it’s not the end" -- to get her bearings in her turbulent life. This doesn't come from a John Lennon song that we know.  It's not even certain that the quote comes from Lennon -- he might well have heard it from the Maharishi.  But maybe in the alternate reality that is For All Mankind, John Lennon really did say this.  He wasn't assassinated in that reality, and the world of the early 1980s therefore has had a few precious more years to know him and his work, and that's more than fine with me.  I think Lennon's assassination was one of the most grievous of the 20th century, and I sent my time travel Jeff Harris back to save him in my novel, The Loose Ends Saga (I won't tell you if he succeeded).

I will tell you that I loved the very ending of this second season of For All Mankind, we humans on Mars in 1995.  That's what we'll see next season.  I hope we see it by the end of this decade in our reality.  In the meantime, I'll watch the third and every ensuing season of For All Mankind, and be back here with reviews.

See also For All Mankind, Season 1 and Episode 2.1: Alternate Space Race Reality ... For All Mankind 2.2: The Peanut Butter Sandwich ... For All Mankind 2.3: "Guns to the Moon" ... For All Mankind 2.4: Close to Reality ... For All Mankind 2.5: Johnny and the Wrath of Kahn ... For All Mankind 2.6: Couplings ... For All Mankind 2.7: Alternate History Surges ... For All Mankind 2.8: Really Lost in Translation ... For All Mankind 2.9: Relationships

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The Nevers 1.2: Song and Gun

Just chiming in here to say what I liked most and least in this past Sunday's excellent episode 1.2 of The Nevers on HBO.

What I liked most:  The focus on the power or "turn" of Mary, who is a singer whose voice can bring together all who are touched.  I really liked this, because, if you think about, music in our untouched world has its own power to bring people together, in concerts, protests, all kinds of spiritual gatherings, which should soon be resuming as we get vaccinated and beyond this Covid age.  Music is a magic that is available on both sides of the television.  I also think Eleanor Tomlinson is just right in the role of Mary -- she was perfect as Demelza in the reboot of Poldark.

What I liked least:  Amalia shooting herself, as a strategy, and accidentally hitting a "vital" organ.  There are all kinds of things wrong with that.  First of all, I think shooting yourself anywhere is a dangerous strategy.  But it makes no sense that Amalia, even in that very hectic situation, would accidentally shoot herself in a vital organ.  Dr. Cousens helpfully informs everyone, including us, that Amalia will have a full recovery.   But we still don't know what vital organ was hit, and whether there will be some residual consequences, despite what Cousins said.

Anyway, most of the other interludes and developments moved the narrative along in helpful ways.  We now know more of the implacable villainy of Lord Massen.  I'm looking forward to the irrepressible Hugo standing up to him even more.  Augustus walking away from Penance was disappointing and I'd say crazy, but I'm sure we'll see them back together.

And I'll be back here next week with another review.

See also The Nevers 1.1: Never Say Never

          "challenging fun" -- Entertainment Weekly

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Big Sky 1.12: Sheriff Before Butterscotch

Well, that was my favorite scene in last night's Big Sky 1.12, when U. S. Marshall Lindor chooses the sheriff before the offered butterscotch candy, and therein springs Cassie from the sheriff's keeping.  I haven't had a butterscotch candy in years, but if I remember corrected they were delicious, making Lindor's sacrifice to liberate Cassie really significant.  I expect the two of them will be together before the end of the season.  He did take the butterscotch on the way out.

Meanwhile, Ronald still looking like a demented John Denver continues like a time bomb.  He gives an indecipherable smile to the the camera when his new girlfriend says she loves him.  But she's got some crazy in her too, so there's no telling what will happen when that bomb blows up.   It's a good bet she won't go easily or quietly, if she goes at all.

And then there's that supremely miscreant family, "bad news," as Rosie aptly says.  Most of the scenes with them are more nauseating than frightening.  Their connection to the first half of the season is at this point still unclear, and until and if it does, you have to wonder why the narrative is devoting so much time to these misfits.

I'll hazard a guess.  In addition to connections which will no doubt be revealed, the Kleinsassers serve as an aesthetic counterweight to the sheer natural beauty of Big Sky country.   It's like, for some reason, the creators of this series weren't satisfied with just kidnapping and killing to balance the breathtaking nature all around.   You know what?  I liked that balance just fine.   I'd certainly take butterscotch over what old Horst deservedly, unknowingly, drank in his coffee.

See also Big Sky 1.1: A Pretty Big Deal ... Big Sky 1.2: The "Goods" and the Ruined Plan ... Big Sky 1.3: "You Kidnapped the Wrong Girl" ... Big Sky 1.4: Controls on Psychos ... Big Sky 1.5: Winter Finale Indeed! ... Big Sky 1.6: "Sweet Psycho" ... Big Sky 1.7: The Montana State Trooper ... Big Sky 1.9: Crafty Ronald ... Big Sky 1.10-11: Rocky Mountain High, Somewhat Twisted

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Chauvin Guilty on All Three Counts: Thoughts on How this Happened

Today will be recorded in history as a great day for Black Live Matter and American jurisprudence:  former police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty on all three counts.  Chauvin is now a justly convicted murderer.

This is the beginning of a profound correction in the American judicial system, which for decades and centuries has exonerated police who took the lives of innocent black men with impunity.  What was different in this case?

It's because the killing of George Floyd by Derek Chauvin was not only captured on video -- that has happened many times before, with police acquitted, as happened with Rodney King in the 1990s -- but because the murder of George Floyd was conducted in slow, agonizing motion.  Sometimes a killing by an officer with a gun happens so quickly that it's difficult to see on a shaky video.  Not so so the videos recorded by brave bystanders that all of us, including the jury, have seen of Chauvin taking the life out of Floyd with his knee on Floyd's neck.  They and we saw the horror of murder in slow motion.

This verdict is the end of this trial, but not the end of the process of holding murderous cops to account, and, even more important, getting them not to kill innocent human beings in the first place.  This will require much better hiring and much better training of those who want to wear the badge.

It's good that we now have a President in office who wholeheartedly supports this verdict.  I have confidence that Biden and the Democrats in both Houses of Congress will keep applying maximum pressure to move this profound remaking of the police forward in this country.

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Debris 1.8: Resurrection and Its Hazards

Well, Debris finally cashed in tonight -- ok, this was only the 8th episode, so maybe "finally" is a bit harsh, but it's seemed like a long time -- on the promise (or threat) of Finola's deceased father George being resurrected or reanimated is the more au currant word.

Now, you know if that happened, that George wouldn't. couldn't, possibly be exactly the same.  First, there's what I years ago called "the paradox of duplication" -- you can never make a perfect or complete copy of a unique entity, such as any human being, because that duplication will unavoidably rob the original of a crucial characteristic, its uniqueness (see my Mind at Large: Knowing in the Technological Age, 1988, pp. 149-150; and/or my review of Charles Platt's Silicon Man).  And worse than that, as was explored so well in Frank Herbert's Dune Messiah, chances are the people or beings who brought a departed loved one back to life will endow that reanimated entity with something not to your liking.

Since Debris like Fringe is deeply obligated to great science fiction of the past, of course there has to be something sinister about the alive-again George that will break Finola's heart.  We got just glimpse conformation of this in the very last scene, when "George" seems to disintegrate, or I don't know, under a blanket.

One good thing about George back to life, though, at least as far as the viewing audience is concerned, is that he provided about the best explanation I've heard so far about why the interstellar debris are so valuable to Earth and humanity:  we're way of track, falling apart, irrevocably declining, and the debris can help right our course.  In a phrase, that technology can save us.

Though that seemed a tad more relevant six months ago, we're still not out of the real woods by a long shot yet, so I'll keep watching Debris.  Nah, not true -- I'll keep watching because I'm an irredeemable sucker for classic science fiction.

See also Debris 1.1 Some Probability of Gems Among the Pieces ... Debris 1.2: Clones ... Debris 1.3: Trapped Out of Time ... Debris 1.4: Suspentia Belief ... Debris 1.5: Fine Tuning ... Debris 1.6: Fountain of Youth and Its Complications ... Debris 1.7: Ferry Cross the Moebius Strip

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Podcast Review of Home Before Dark

Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 171, in which I review Home Before Dark on Apple TV+.

Blog post review of Home Before Dark

Further viewing: The Opinionization of Journalism

Further reading: Review of Andrey Mir's Postjournalism

 

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Home Before Dark: The Fact-Seeking Journalist As Hero

I've just seen one of the most inspiring television series in years.  It made me proud to be both a writer and a professor who teaches about journalism.   Home Before Dark is a 10-episode first season of a series that debuted on Apple TV+ about a year ago, a fictionalized narrative of a real 9-year old girl, Hilde Lysiak, who in real life when she was a few years older won the Junior Zenger Award for Press Freedom in 2019, aptly described on Wikipedia as "given to a journalist who fights for freedom of the press and the people's right to know."

There’s been a lot of remonstrating in the past few years about how satisfaction of partisan public opinion has replaced the investigating and reporting of truth in print, televised, and most of all social media, including by me (The Opinionization of Journalism) and in bold new books like Andrey Mir’s Postjournalism. It was therefore profoundly reassuring and a call back to truth to see Home Before Dark, all the more so because the protagonist is nine years old and a real person.

The fictionalized narrative is quite good, as well, harkening to Stranger Things as Hilde and her nine-year-old friends investigate a kidnapping that haunted and pulled apart a small West Coast town for decades. There's teenage angst and romance with her older sister Izzy,  a questionable older sheriff, racism and sexism and snobism effectively mixed into a riveting mystery that Hilde and her parents and friends attempt to solve.  Brooklynn Prince was fabulous and deserved an Emmy for her performance as Hilde.  The whole cast was excellent but I especially also liked Kylie Rogers as Izzy, and Joelle Carter (Justified!) and Sharon Lawrence (NYPD Blue!) back on the screen.

But the paeon to truth-seeking journalism is what puts Home Before Dark over the top.  Hilde's favorite movie is All The President's Men, and tells the jaded sheriff  "The truth is what makes everything work right ... it’s bigger than me, it’s bigger than you, it’s bigger than all of us".  He unsurprisingly, patronizingly replies, "that's adorable".  But we know better, or should know better.   It's no surprise that those words about the truth come from a 9-year old girl, fortunately not yet bitten by the cynicism that afflicts so many adults.   We should know better, and I surely do now.

PS: Season 2 will be on Apple TV+ this June 11.

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