tv review
Reviewing insightful and thought provoking science fiction TV and technology.
Review of 'The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey' 4
It was good to see Ptolemy in top intellectual form throughout the whole episode #4 of The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey on Apple TV+. This ranged from putting the cops who came knocking of the door of his apartment in their place, to coming to terms with Hilly, to pretty much figuring out who killed his nephew.
By Paul Levinson4 years ago in Futurism
Review of 'The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey' 1-3
I figured I'd catch up with the first three episodes of The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey on Apple TV+, and I'm very glad I did. I mean, how you can you go wrong with a Walter Mosley novel (which I haven't read), adapted to the screen by him too, and starring Samuel L. Jackson in the title role? You can't.
By Paul Levinson4 years ago in Futurism
Review of 'Severance' 1.5
So, I said in my review of Severance 1.4 last week that, in the metaphysics of life and death in television series, if you don't see a character's head literally severed or blown to bits, that character might survive whatever the grievous injury. And--
By Paul Levinson4 years ago in Futurism
Review of 'Severance' 1.4
A more disturbing episode of Severance -- 1.4 -- than usual, because [Spoilers ahead ... ] Well, if you saw the episode, up since Friday on Apple TV+, you'll know why: Helly takes her life, or tries to take her life, at the end of the hour. I make that distinction because, you know how it is on television, if a character's head isn't literally severed (for want of a better word), than she or he might well have survived. In Helly's case, someone in that hell on Earth might have come by and rescued her.
By Paul Levinson4 years ago in Futurism
Review of 'Star Trek: Picard' 2.1
The debut episode of the second season of Star Trek: Picard on Paramount+ was enjoyable, notwithstanding the annoying commercial breaks which lacerated the narrative on the paying service. (Yes, I'm too cheap to pay more for Paramount+ with no commercials.)
By Paul Levinson4 years ago in Futurism
Review of 'Severance' 1.3
It's hard to watch and review a profoundly dystopian science fiction series when a profoundly dystopian reality -- the horrendous, Nazi-like invasion of Ukraine by Russia -- is going on and available to see on a myriad of television screens. I'll be interviewing the Polish holocaust poet Grzegorz Kwiatowski about this on Monday (I'll be posting links to the video and audio recordings to that interview here), but for now, I wanted to take an hour to keep up with and review episode 1.3 of Severance on Apple TV+.
By Paul Levinson4 years ago in Futurism
Review of 'Raised by Wolves' 2.4
A really superb and pivotal Raised by Wolves 2.4, in which every kind of sentience is pitted against one another. Since most of the sentience is one kind or another of artificial intelligence, usually embodied in some kind of android, the contests and their outcomes provide one of the best explorations of the power and limitations of programmed android intelligence in any television series. Isaac Asimov would have loved this. I wonder if he would have agreed that this was a far better example of such exploration of android intelligence than we've at least seen so far in the Foundation series on Apple TV+.
By Paul Levinson4 years ago in Futurism
