Stories (681/0)
Sam's Requests
The sepia-toned 45 turned on the table, twisting souls -- I know -- and mashing potatoes. Soul Twist The ship operated on sheer thought. This was a big advantage -- no fuel was needed -- but the thinker had to be awake and focused. If there were no enemies or obstacles ahead, she could doze, even sleep, and the ship would coast, as her eyes floated under her rippling lids. But today was not such a day.
By Paul Levinson9 months ago in Fiction
Review of 'Sharper'
This seems to be a season for non-linear neo-noir caper thrillers set in the New York City area. A few months ago, Kaleidoscope appeared on Netflix (here's my review on Vocal), which was so linear you were invited to watch the episodes of that series in any order you chose. Sharper, which debuted on Apple TV+ a week or so ago, is a movie, not a TV series, so you can't really choose the order of the parts you watch. But the parts are equally non-linear, and the story every bit as captivating.
By Paul Levinson10 months ago in Criminal
Review of 'Star Trek: Picard' 3.1-3.2
Good to see Star Trek: Picard back with the beginning of its third (and final) season on Paramount Plus last week. All kinds of fun things in the first episode, including Riker back with some great repartee and all sorts of other good touches including Riker accidentally calling Picard (who's now an Admiral) "Captain" once again. But my favorite moment came at the very end, when--
By Paul Levinson10 months ago in Futurism
Review of 'The Last of Us' 1.5-1.6
Another superb two episodes of The Last of Us on HBO Max -- 1.5 and 1.6 -- in what is shaping up, hour for hour, as the best post-biological apocalypse series I've ever seen (and as I keep saying, right, that includes The Walking Deads).
By Paul Levinson10 months ago in Futurism
Review of 'The Ark' 1.1-1.3
So, The Ark debuted on the Syfy Channel three weeks ago to a typical chorus of baying critics who carped that the disaster in deep space movie was itself a disaster, and the series was as "imbecilic" as NBC's time travel series La Brea. I did stop watching La Brea in the second season because it wasn't going anywhere. But at this point I have higher expectations for The Ark.
By Paul Levinson10 months ago in Futurism
Review of 'The Last of Us' 1.1-1.4
So why would I watch yet another post-apocalyptic series -- apocalypse caused by some biological agent? I mean, aren't Station Eleven, Y, not to mention our real COVID-19 pandemic enough? And for that matter, the endless Walking Deads, which I stopped watching a while before COVID hit? Well, yes. But something moved me to watch The Last of Us on HBO Max, and here I am reviewing the first four episodes of the series, and telling you I'm going to watch the rest of the episodes of this inaugural season.
By Paul Levinson10 months ago in Futurism
Review of 'Hunters' Season 2
I just binged the eight-episode second and final season of Hunters on Amazon Prime Video. I liked it a lot more than the first season, and I liked the first season a lot, with some reservations. Indeed, though the first season was an intensely personal story set in all-too real world, the second season was even more personal and managed also to be about the real world, our current real world, in fact.
By Paul Levinson11 months ago in Criminal
Review of 'The Pale Blue Eye'
A murder mystery with all kinds of twists featuring a young Edgar Allan Poe quoting "Full many a flower is born to blush unseen" from Thomas Grey's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," my all-time favorite poem, written in 1750, what more could I ask for? Well, The Pale Blue Eye has that, as well as a first class story of life at West Point in 1830, so I couldn't ask for much more regarding a film indeed.
By Paul Levinson11 months ago in Criminal
Review of 'Y: The Last Man'
I just finished watching Y: The Last Man on Hulu, about a year after I should have watched it in the first place. Why am I saying that? It's because Y is a breathtaking, one-of-a-kind daring one season of a series, which I would have enjoyed thinking about now for a year rather than just a few hours. It certainly warranted multiple seasons, but was inexplicably cancelled in October 2021 before the first season was over (all ten episodes are now up on Hulu). To be clear, I get that the viewership sagged, as widely reported, and Hulu had other reasons for not continuing the series. But given how groundbreaking the narrative was (based on a comic book I haven't read), it eminently deserved much more story and screen time. Or, to be less courteous, I think the cancelation was one of the most clueless moves in all of television history, rivaling the cancelation of Star Trek (the original series) by NBC after three seasons back in the 196os.
By Paul Levinson11 months ago in Futurism
Review of 'Three Pines'
Just binged Three Pines, a new series on Amazon Prime Video -- at once charming, dangerous, provocative, with a Sherlock Holmesian detective (Inspector Gamache, played by Alfred Molina) and gorgeous wintery scenery north of Montreal. It somehow manages to have elements of a British cosy whodunnit, with cursing you wouldn't hear even in Chicago PD, and it's an altogether wonderful treat to see.
By Paul Levinson11 months ago in Criminal
