Paul Levinson
Bio
Novels The Silk Code & The Plot To Save Socrates; LPs Twice Upon A Rhyme & Welcome Up; nonfiction The Soft Edge & Digital McLuhan, translated into 15 languages. Best-known short story: The Chronology Protection Case; Prof, Fordham Univ.
Stories (696/0)
Review of 'Timeless' 2.3
A thoroughly satisfying Timeless 2.3 last night, which featured, among other good things: Orson Welles (or, at least Citizen Kane), Hedy Lamarr, Lucy singing "You Made Me Love You," Lucy and Wyatt finally together, Flynn out of prison via an inter-temporal gambit, and a surprise ending I won't mention until the end in case you don't like spoilers (which, by the way, were mentioned, literally, in this fine episode - as was, come to think it, Fake News, too).
By Paul Levinson6 years ago in Futurism
Review of 'Timeless' 2.1
Last night's Timeless roared back from the jaws of oblivion—aka cancellation by the mothership, its network NBC—with a new episode that was far better than anything we saw the first season. And it did most of this in its final few minutes.
By Paul Levinson6 years ago in Futurism
Review of 'Counterpart' 1.7
A truly masterful Counterpart 1.7 last night; a perfect spy science fiction story in many overlapping ways. First, it occurred to me as we watched the young Clare in spy training on the other side that there's a strong something of The Americans in Counterpart. Except, whatever Elizabeth's original name was in The Soviet Union (I forget) as she trains to be the adult Elizabeth in America, passing as an American, the ante in Counterpart is much higher, because we get Clare training not to be some rival or enemy nationality but her alternate self. This, again, as I've said before, comes from this deft mix of spy story and science fiction story.
By Paul Levinson6 years ago in Futurism
Review of 'I Thought You Would Last Forever'
I Thought You Would Last Forever - the English title of Ya dumal, ty budesh vsegda, a 2013 Russian feature-length time-travel romance, now streaming free with English subtitles on Amazon Prime -- is no Anna Karenina. But it tells a pretty good time travel story of broken hearts and quietly heroic attempts to repair them, and is imbued with the fatalistic but deeply human Russian spirit.
By Paul Levinson6 years ago in Futurism
Review of 'The Cloverfield Paradox'
Well, there really wasn't any paradox in it (things going very wrong does not equate to paradox), and the story was at least much horror as science fiction, but The Cloverfield Paradox on Netflix was pretty good science fiction of the alternate-reality variety anyway.
By Paul Levinson6 years ago in Futurism