tv review
Reviewing insightful and thought provoking science fiction TV and technology.
Review of 'The Rook' 1.5
The Home Secretary came into focus in The Rook 1.5 this past Sunday. No figurehead, she, but a crucial player, who's been having an affair with Conrad, and wants to be Prime Minister. And she's well played by Gina McKee, whom I first noticed in The Borgias.
By Paul Levinson6 years ago in Futurism
Review of 'Years and Years' 1.5
Episode 1.5 of Years and Years couldn't be more tragically relevant to our lives right now in the United States, off-screen. It was about the treatment of immigrants, their placement in concentration camps, and what that really means.
By Paul Levinson6 years ago in Futurism
Review of 'The Rook' 1.4
The best episode of The Rook—1.4—was on last night, in which we find out lots of stuff about Myfanwy. First and foremost: she knew that Bristol had something important to do with her forgotten past. She thought it was the city (and it's a nice city, one of my favorites in England, after London), but it turns out to have been the name of her shrink. And as soon as they meet in this episode, in the present, it's crystal clear (to the audience, if not yet to Myfanwy) that they were having an affair. Her earlier self has left her a note, in Bristol's possession (which he gives to her now) that tells her to run if she's in Bristol's presence.
By Paul Levinson6 years ago in Futurism
Review of 'Years and Years' 1.1-1.4
My wife and I just watched the first four episodes of the British Years and Years on HBO. It's about as powerful and caustic a depiction of the rise of fascism in our time—that is, so far in the short series (six episodes), 2019-2027—as you'll find. Which is, searing and gut-wrenching indeed.
By Paul Levinson7 years ago in Futurism
Review of 'The Rook' 1.3
The most compelling thing(s) about The Rook 1.3 on Starz earlier this evening was the Gestalts and the short but effective explanation we got about them. They make a nice piece of science fiction, especially for the television screen, and work well in that Philip K. Dickian tradition.
By Paul Levinson7 years ago in Futurism
Review of 'The Rook' 1.1
The Rook on Starz starts off with a bunch of familiar premises—someone (in this case, a young woman) wakes up in a dangerous situation with no knowledge of who she is. She gradually learns about her past and situation from a series of helpful messages from her younger self, who knows she's in danger of having her memory wiped. We and she learn that she (Myfanwy is her name) is part of an MI6-type British secret service group. And soon another very different, but also very familiar, trope is revealed: Myfanwy has some kind of super powers—the ability to inflict physical damage on people via her mind—and the MI6 group (Checguy) is somehow all about this.
By Paul Levinson7 years ago in Futurism
Review of 'The Orville' Season 2 Finale
The Orville really brought it home last night with a season two finale (2.14) that built on last week's superb time travel episode (2.13). In effect, making both parts a brilliant two-part time travel engenders alternate history story. Although time travel and alternate history can and do often happen independently of one another, the two science fiction genres are naturally connected. If I go back in time with knowledge I obtained from the future, that instantly creates an alternate reality in which a different series of events are spun, put in motion by the knowledge of the future I now have in the past.
By Paul Levinson7 years ago in Futurism
Review of 'The Orville' 2.13
I've said many times in my many places that time travel is my favorite genre of science fiction. The best episodes of Star Trek TOS and TNG were time travel stories—"City on the Edge of Forever" in TOS, "Yesterday's Enterprise" in TNG. So I was expecting that sooner or later The Orville would check in with a time travel story—if not quite as superb as the TOS and TNG stories, right up there in excellence, anyway. It did so tonight.
By Paul Levinson7 years ago in Futurism
Review of 'The Orville' 2.12
Another powerful episode of The Orville last night—2.11—which follows the two-part "Identity" episodes (rebroadcast the past two weeks) even better than did the episode that followed the first showing of "Identity," though that episode was excellent, too.
By Paul Levinson7 years ago in Futurism
