For All Mankind: Following the reccommendations, I marathoned the first two seasons of For All Mankind, aka what Ron Moore (and friends) did next (after BSG), which is an AU starting from the premise that the Soviets get to the moon first, therefore the Space Race doesn't end, and history starts to alter in small and big ways from therel. (One of the big ways being that as part of catching up with Soviet progressiveness in that regard, women enter the US space programm far earlier.) naraht has said this is also a soap opera, which is true, in a good way; the relationships drama certainly forms a solid part of the narrative, but it's expertly done. (So far.) Non-romantic relationships are treated as important both on a Doylist and Watsonian level, and while space exploration continuing in this AU is clearly a good thing overall, the show doesn't use the premise to solve all the rl problems; as of the second season, which is set in 1983, acceptance of same sex relationships hasn't moved faster than it did in rl, for example.

You can tell that Moore and several of the other scriptwriters cut their teeth in Star Trek long before Danielle quotes the TOS episode A Taste of Armageddon in the s2 finale by despite things getting pretty dark at times, humanity's better instincts prevail. Also by Starfleet NASA, by and large, being an organisation where most people, be they astronauts or engineers, are brave, loyal, and devoted to each other, so you get why people would want to join even beyond the romance of visiting the moon. (Though I have to say, congrats to the GCI department, all those space shots are gorgeous.) When they do fail each other (think Margo re: Aleida in s1), there's usually a good explanation, and also fate gives them another chance. (They get called out on it, though.) And you get all the space tropes - difficult landings, losing contact, being thrown of course, having to do repairs on a moving vehicle, etc. - even the spoilery thing I last saw on The Expanse and before that read in Arthur C. Clarke. One sign of how well the show worked for me: I was never tempted to fast forward through the Earthbound centric episodes but found them just as gripping.

Another thing which impressed me: several examples of the "both sides have a point" trope, viscerally so when Danielle visited her sister-in-law in s2.

Sometimes I wasn't sure whether I read the episode right, but then subsequent events proved the creative time knew what it was doing. For example: ( Now it gets too spoilery to talk about without a cut. )

Lastly: talking about a non space related change to rl events in this AU: John Lennon survives. This isn't a plot point but something of a recurring gag since he keeps popping up on tv briefly when people switch channels. Apparantly in this AU, John in response to the escalating Cold War gets back into peace activisim and organizes a big concert as part of this. Here my suspension of disbelief broke down, not re: the surival or the return to peace activism but the concert organizing. Look, he'd be terrific at promoting something like that, if properly motivated. But organizational skills and the patience and discipline it takes to get a mega event like that together... nah. Of course, Yoko did and does have organizational skills, but a mega concert in 1983 would have required diplomacy and talking various other superstars with big egos into it and hm, I just don't see her as Bob Geldof, either, is what I'm saying.


I also read Fortune's Favor, the third volume of Jo Graham's ongoing space saga The Calpurnian Wars. Like the previous books, this one introduces us to another of those planets in uncomfortable coexistence with the expansion-hungry Calpurnia (aka, ever more apparant, Space Rome). Speaking of AUs, it strikes me that one way to describe this saga is "the story of the late Roman Republic, but a) from everyone else's pov, and b) everyone else wins". In the last volume, we basically got space!Gaul winning against Caesar, and now it's Space!Egypt's turn, confronted with two of the conspirators (space!Caesar still got assasinated in between books), Cassian and Junia. Cassian is this volume's main antagonist, but as ever in this series, the attraction and narrative interest lies in our heroes and the setting and not in the imperialist menace du jour. In this case, our main character is Caralys, a courtesan, allied to one of the main influential families on Menaechmi. This book is also where characters from the previous volumes start to interact, so Caralys teams up with Bister from Sounding Dark and Boral from War Lady in order to a) rescue her lover's kidnapped son, and b) ensure her world's freedom from blackmail by warlord. It's a very satisfying adventure, and I had a particular soft spot for the subplot involving Caralys' lover and Boral. As for Caralys, impressive as her weaving threads together to get the rescue going is, my favourite scene of hers involves something that I think is incredibly difficult to pull off both on a Doylist and Watsonian level: confront a character who has given our pov every reason to despise them so far when they are down on their luck and react with kindness and insight instead of crushing them. In a way that doesn't come across as naive or doormat-like but as going to the core of the problem in a way that can make an actual change for the better instead of continuing a vicious cycle. Perhaps because of all the rl viciousness right now, I treasure such scenes and characters all the more.

Like the previous books, the novel does tell its own adventure, and you get the necessary information about Bister and Boral in it if you haven't read the two previous ones, but the narrative texture is much richer if you have. I really enjoyed it reading it, and am looking forward to the next story of the saga!

Lastly, a DS9 vid rec: The Wrong Side, a delightful and charming Garak/Bashir vid.

I got a new ipad for my birthday, and with that new ipad came three free months of Apple + tv. I wouldn't have subscribed on my own - I really have enough streaming services to justify to my budget - , but three free months, why not, and thus I had the chance to marathon Foundation, a tv series loosely based on Isaac Asimov's novels. It was go created by Josh Friedman by Sarah Connor Chronicles fame, Jane Espenson (from Buffy and BSG) is among the producers and scriptwriters, and Bear McCreary (from BSG and Black Sails) wrote the drop dead gorgeous music. All of which got my attention.

Now I have read the novels, but that was decades ago, literally when I was a teenager, I never reread them (as opposed to many of Asimov's robot stories, which I thus remember much better), and I only remember bits and pieces, not nearly enough to get emotionally invested in which I still could tell had to be massive changes. (For a start, lots more female characters in main roles having agenda and doing the talking than is common in good old Isaac's stories, the glorious Susan Calvin excepted.) This probably made me the ideal audience. All in all, I was impressed and increasingly hooked by the show. It has its bumpy early installment try out hits and misses in the first season, but by the second season you can tell the writers have figured out what works and what still needed improvement and keep on delivering great stuff. (BTW, I would NOT reccommend you start with the second season, though, and not just because I'm a completist by nature. The second season builds on what has happened in the first.) Also, the actors are great. Both the ones I already knew like Lee Pace (who gets to play several variations of a character due to the concept of cloning and has fight scenes in the nude at least once per season) and the ones that were new to me, like Laura Brin who plays Demerzel (aka what happens when the creator of Cameron and Catherine and John Henry from Sarah Connor Chronicles has a go at an Asimov material), or the actress playing Constant in the second season, are just outstanding. Incidentally, two of the main characters in both seasons are black women, and s2 adds two more poc women to the mix; I'm pretty sure Gaal and Salvor, if they existed - I think Gaal did, but I could be misrenembering? - were white men in the books. Go show, say I. Though Gaal's storyline in s1 was after a strong start left meandering and one of those elements in need of improvement, which definitely came in s2, more about this later. Season 2 also offers Ben Daniels, last seen by me as one of the two leads in the tv Exorcist, and he's both badass and gay in his Foundation role as well.

What I did remember from those decades ago was the basic premise both books and tv show share: the concept of "Psychohistory", mathemaqtician Hari Seldon using said craft to predict the Galactic Empire he lives in is about to fall and will be suceeded by 30 000 years or more by bloody chaos unless active measures are taken (including but not limited to the Foundation of the title) that will limit the decline and fall time to a thousand years. There's an obvious Edward Gibbon interpretation of the titular Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire influence here along with with some Byzantium in the way said Empire is depicted, along with questions as to whether or not the future can be changed or is set in stone, the weight of individual choices vs the big picture, the concept of freedom and so forth.

Foundation, the tv series, took the late Roman/Byzantines in Space idea and ran with it, but far more inventively than other space Romans I've watched. Instead of your regular imperial dynasty (which it is in the novels, I think), the "genetic dynasty" in the show always consists of a trio of clones based on its founder, Cleon I., in various stages of his life - Brother Dawn (child and young man up to his early 20), Brother Day (the ruling Emperor in his 30s and 40s, and that's where multiple Lee Pace performances come in, naked or otherwise) and Brother Dusk (50s, 60s, 70s, then he "ascends" i.e. dies and a new baby brother Dawn is "birthed" while the previous Dawn and Day are promoted to Day and Dusk, respectively. This is supposed to ensure there's never a succession conflict and is also a great symbol for the stagnation Seldon diagnoses, because while the various clones of Cleon do have some differences in their personalities (and these are a gift for actors), they raise each other and thus the same type of decisions keep being made. Also raising them, supporting them and being the all important political advisor to boot: Demerzel, the last (to everyone's knowledge, including her own) surviving human-looking robot, who was already millennia of years old when the Genetic dynasty started. (We get some dialogue in both seasons about the millennia ago "Robotic Wars", but no details. Demerzel's personal backstory is revealed in fragments, with the biggest reveal happening in the last but one season episode which recontextualizes a lot of previous events, but there's still a lot more, given her age. (She might be the oldest sentient person in the galaxy at this point, and she's definitely a person.) (If you know your Asiimov Robotic Laws, you'll mutter "but what about..." at certain plot points in s1; s2 does bring them up and addresses what altered for Demerzel re: that.) Demerzel's relationships with the Cleons and theirs with her is intense and screwed up on several levels, and as I said, and the question of free will and programming for both machine and human is very much central to it. As for the imperial clones, of whom we meet various incarnations due to s1 having two time jumps and s2 another one right at the start, they work better as variations of the same basic potential and genetic make-up changed through circumstances into separate personalities than anything I've seen since Orphan Black. (BTW, I wouldn't be surprised if the decision to make them a triad at different ages wasn't on a Doylist level also made to ensure no one actor had to do all those scenes because while Tatiana Maslany succeeded gloriously, this is a A LOT of work.) Some are sympathetic, some are despicable, some in between, but you always get where they're coming from - and the sheer deformity which comes by inahabiting the all powerful position of Empire is never ignored.

And those are "just" the show's antagonists.

(The Imperial splendor on Trantor is both where part of the show's budget clearly went and Byzantine-influenced more than by Romans, with the colourful murals being also plot points in both seasons.)

On the heroic side of things, we have Gaal, mathematical prodigy from a deeply science loathing planet, Salvor, of the first generation born Terminus, the planet where Seldon's followers were settling on, who in the first seaosn is the show's stoic action heroine, Salvor's parents who are part of the original exiles, Salvor's boyfriend... and the late, or is he, Hari Seldon, whose theory kicks off the plot. Hari Seldon in the novels as far as I recall dies very early on and thereafter occasionally shows up as a holographic recording. This isn't quite what happens on the show, to put it as unspoilery as possible. He's also a lot more morally ambiguous than the nice old man figure I dimly recalled. Which is guessable from the fact they hired Jared Harris to play him. ( Definitely spoilery comments about the show's Hari Seldon ensueing. )

S2 added Constant and Poly (Poly we've seen as a small boy in s1 and he's an old man in s2), and Constant, a cheerful cleric with an earthy fondness for life and a great sense of humor, is probably my favourite new s2 character, despite fierce competition by Space!Belisarius, err, General Bel Rios, the Ben Daniels character who comes with a husband he loves, Glawen, Queen Sarbeth and her trusty advisor the former courtesan Rue. (Rue has backstory with the current Dusk, Sarbeth has plans for the current Day.) And Hober, a trickster type from the fine tradition of characters claiming to look out only for themselves but finding themselves in the business of hero saving before they know it. The various storylines intersect and influence each other at different points, and where in s1 I thought the Clones-plus-Demerezel plotline worked better than the Foundation characters plot line(s) did, s2 changed that so I never was impatient to get back to palace scheming and power struggling but was rivetted by what everyone else whas doing as well, see above.

Perfect, the show is not. But it has definitely captured me, and I do hope it will get its third season to continue its tale. Both seasons wrap up the stories of their seasons-only characters, and there will of course be another time jump (as indicated by its teaser scene at the very end), but in addition to those characters surviving from season to season due to plot and circumstance (three or four so far, depending on how you count one of them), this is a show where cloning, digital copies and as of s2 ( something spoilery ) are all part of the worldbuilding, so they could potentially bring back other characters as well. Even if not, there hasn't been one the show didn't manage to make interesting for me so far, and I trust that will continue. And it is fantastic to look at, in general, not just Trantor. The "spacers", i.e. genetically manipulated humans needed by the current faster-then-light travelling ships, being a case in point, but also invidual worlds, like the desert world Brother Day and Demerzel visit in s1, or Gaal's watery home planet. (That her people chose to ignore science and let the ruination of the environment continue until the ocean overtook everything is a none too subtle dig at the present, but that water planet still looks great.)

...and did I mention you get Lee Pace doing everything from subtle reactions to scenery chewing with abandonment as various Space!Roman/Byzantine Emperors with no concept of personal space?

Started but won't finish: the latest miniseries take Great Expectations, starring Olivia Colman as Miss Havisham. It's one of those productions which in theory sound good - colourblind cast, scriptwriter coming from successful original show (Steven Knight) - and in practice is just a mess. Also one that's mostly filmed in grey, both the marshes that form the landscape of the early episodes and London (the end of the first London based episode is where I stopped). Estella's dresses are sometimes the only dots of colour.

( Great Expectations: The G.R.R. Martin Version ) See, Dickens is anything but subtle with his own moral lessons, but he knew how to interweave them with compelling characters and a good yarn. Removing the vitality of the characters in favour of "here are the evils of 19th century British society in human form" in overdrive does this adaption no favours, and there's only to much leisure time I have, so, goodbye, tv series (despite Colman being excellent as the creepiest, most predatory of all Havishams).

Whereas what I go through at quick pace because it's compellingly, emphatically and wittily told while being no less critical of the society it describes (and ours): A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, by Emma Southon. As with Southon's biography of Agrippina the Younger, I consumed it in audio form, not least because that struck me as eminently suited to her style of writing, which is very conversational . This book basically uses murder in its many many aspects as a read thread through several centuries of Roman history (from the 2nd century BC to the end of the Antonine period, to be precise - Southon stops before the Third Century Crisis) to provide us with a social history of Rome. Individual chapters: "Murder on the Senate Floor", "Murder in Roman Law", "Murder in the Family", "Murder in Marriage", "Murder in the Slave State", "Murder by Magic", "Murder in the Imperial House", "Murdering an Emperor", "Judicial Murder". Behind those chapter titles hides a clever, somewhat surprising and incredibly effective structure, as Southon starts her book with the most prominent asassination (Caesar), then goes back to the Gracchi, and forward again, instead of building up to it. The reason why this is effective is because it's not actually the prominent murders among the elite that lie at the heart of the book, but the wives getting killed by their husbands who weren't part of a ruling family, the every day violence against slaves on whose backs the entire system was built, and the gruesome executions (be they in the arena or by cruxifiction) that remind one all over again what inspired Collins' Hunger Games.

(Of course, the written sources mostly were written by and focused on the Senatorial class, but for example tombstones manage to provide glimpses of other stories, like the couple of Imperial slaves who managed to get permission to have a tombstone for their infant baby son, or the freedman mourning his wife who like him started out as a slave.)

The big difference to the Dickens adaption cited above is that while Southon is no less dedicated to exposing the baked in injustices (seedy underbelly would be the wrong term, really, because there was nothing hidden about, not least because it wouldn't have occured to the Romans there was something to hide) of the Roman society, she does so while keeping everyone human, and sketches out the legal and belief systems for context really well. The generally flippant narrative tone comes with deep empathy that manages to keep it real that everyone killed was a person in their own right with a story and feelings, not a moral lesson or a joke.

Now, some of her takes I could argue with. (I mean, I agree that whether you're categorized as a good or a bad Emperor by historians who were senators definitely had to do with whether you managed to provide the Senators of your own time with the illusion that you cared about their opinion, or rubbed their noses into the fact they had no real power, but I wouldn't have chosen Caligula vs Hadrian to illustrate that point, because Hadrian, while counted among the Five Good Emperors by tradition, was very much disliked by the Senate of his time and had a very mixed press among historians.) And there's one big glaring mistake early on - Cicero didn't execute Catiline without a trial, he did this with several of Catiline's followers. Catiline himself died in battle against the forces led by Cicero's fellow consul Antonius Hybrida. (See also Sallustius for describing his last stand.) And Emma Southon doesn't just make this mistake once, she's referencing it two or three times. (Because these executions without a trial came back to bite Cicero big time, and played their part in the continuing decline of the Republic. But, again, Catiline himself wasn't among the executed.) (After this mistake, I wondered whether there might be others I missed, but as far as I could tell, no.)

None of these nitpicks take away from how immensely readable (listenable?), enjoyable and moving I found this book, though. And she may have swayed me on a couple of topics. (The question as to whether or not Livia arranged anyone's death, to be precise.) Plus, I really need to get around to reading Apuleius one of those days.

American Born Chinese (TV Series, either miniseries or first season): Charming, based on a comic I haven't read, and that rarity, neither Marvel nor DC. Follows two boys, one of whom is actually a god (well, the son of one), and in supporting (but not main) roles has much of the cast of Everywhere all at once. (Including Miichelle Yeaoh as the Goddess of Mercy.) I liked it very much, though I think one mistake the writers made was ( spoilery in nature ). But anyway, the main narrative combines the "misfit in highschool" narrative with some well placed social criticism and mythology elements with a light touch, and I liked it a lot.

The Offer (miniseries): Since Strange New worlds starts its second season next week and since they have Discovery and the other Treks as well, I gave in and added Paramount + to my subscriptions. Another thing Paramount + has is The Offer, a miniseries about the making of The Godfather. Based, as the credits inform you, on producer Al Ruddy's memories of producing The Godfather, and boy, is that apparant. ( Spoilers were entertained but not in love with this miniseries and missing some bite. )

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel just finished its fifth and last season. I kept enjoying the show throughout; it was frothy fun, it had interesting characters, they certainly milked the late 50s/early 60s fashion for the biggest eye candy factor, and while I wouldn't call it a must watch, I, personally, am glad I did. Sometimes you're in the mood for something that's neither trash tv nor deeply challenging thought provoking stuff, with snappy dialogue and engaging actors, and it definitely delivered on that front to me.

( Spoilery observations follow )

In other news, I've been marathoning Mike Duncan's podcast "Revolutions" (which covers, in this order: The English Civil War, the American Revolution, the (first) French Revolution, the Haitian Revolution, the 1830 (second) French Revolution, the 1848 Revolutions across the European continent (German, Austrian, Hungarian, Italian, and kicking it off, the third French one), the South American Revolutions, the Mexican Revolution, and for a grand finale, the Rusisan Revolutions. I've just finsihed season 10, Episode 68, wherein Nicholas II FINALLY is forced to abdicate, and let me tell you: I knew he'd been a bad ruler, but I was not prepared for the utter, utter incompetence and stupidity both he and his wife Alexandra displayed. (Yes, they're going to die tragically later on, and nobody deserves to be shot with their families, but good lord, neither of those two should ever have been anywhere near a position of power in the first place given all the damage they did. If they'd emigrated right after this episode, I think people would feel about Dear Nicky the way they feel about his first cousin Dear Willy, aka Wilhelm II, who as the last Emperor of the short lived German Empire displayed much the same infuriating mixture of bigotry, favouritism of sycophants, stubbornness when compromise was needed and spinelessness when backbone was needed and utter refusal to acknowledge reality until the house came crashing down. I mean, even hardcore monarchists and Hohenzollern fans during the Weimar Republic didn't want to bring him back from his Dutch exile. Of all the royal couples brought down in revolutions covered in this podcast, you get the impression that Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette would have been fine in another era (they wouldn't have been great monarchs, but they wouldn't have been regarded as terrible, either, just as unremarkably mediocre), Charles I and Henrietta Maria probably would have ended up unpopular in every era they reigned in, though not necessarily gotten overhtrown - but Nicholas and Alexandra as anything but private citizens who at no point are given any responsiblity or authority over anyone would have been a catastrophe. Even had they been the headmaster of a school and his wife. (The competent teachers would have been sacked, the sycophants hired would have been incapable of doing anything, and Nicholas and Alexandra would have refused to talk to the parents but would have said it's just a few disgruntled former teachers but their students all adore them even at a point when the students where smashing stones through their windows and setting the house on fire.)

All this said, it's not a little creepy to hear the 19th century Czarist manifesto of "Orthodoxy, Autocracy and Nationality" (as a counter creed to the 18th century French Revolution slogan "Libery, Fraternity, Equality" that kept making the rounds through the subsequent century among various nations) and consider how well alive it is in Russia today. For all of Putin's self professed trauma of the Soviet Union dissolving, it's the 19th and early 20th Century Russian Empire he's really the heir of.

I just finished marathoning this nine episode miniseries from 2020, which takes place in the 1970s and covers, using the fight for and against the Equal Rights Amendment during that decade as a narrative red thread, both the rise of the far right in the Republican party and Second Wave feminism in the US. It's also an incredibly female centric ensemble story with a fantastic cast - Cate Blanchett as anti feminist activist Phyllis Schlafly, Uzo Aduba whom I recalled as Suzanne in Orange is the new Black as Shirley Chisholm, the first black and the first female Democratic candidate for President, Rose Byrne as Gloria Steinem, Margo Martindale as Bella Abzug, Tracy Ullman as Betty Friedan, Elizabeth Banks as Jill Brocklehouse, Sarah Paulsen as one of the few fictional characters, Alice, Melanie Lynskey as Rosemary Thomson, and, and, and. Now googling for reviews in between episodes tells me by far the most controversial aspect of the show was to use Phyllis Schlafly as the villain protagonist throughout the show while each of the other episodes after the pilot, except for the finale, focuses on a different woman. (Hence the titles - "Gloria", "Shirley", "Betty", "Jill" etc. ) For me, that narrative decision paid off. Giving the spotlight to different women each episode emphasized not just the characters' complexity but also got across the interweaving of different agendas even within similar larger goals, and of the feminist political activism as a democratic work in progress where you have debates, where what one generation wants isn't the end game for the next anymore but they're still connected, where no one is a perfect heroine but has their own flaws and blind spots. (see, for example, Gloria Steinem utterly surprised when the sole black member of her editing team at Ms first gets shot down when talking about tokenism and then quits). Not coincidentally, the anti-ERA movement Phyllis Schlafley creates while also coming into being via grassroots organizing isn't just more and more hierarchical, with people expected to fall in line behind Phyllis, but it's not until the penultimate episode that one of Phyllis' followers gets the narrative spotliight (and it's the sole important fictional character of the show, very well played by Sarah Paulsen who until then had to convey her mixture of admiration and fear of Phyllis and the first stirring of doubts via reaction shots.

The show is also brilliant at conveying the changing political climate of the 70s. When it starts, the ERA isn't controversial, it's seen as bi partisan, even Nixon is for it. Roe versus Wade is about to become law. Being pro choice and being a female Republican working in tandem with Abzug and Steinem isn't mutually exclusive (hence Jill Brocklehurst in the National Women's Political Caucus). Life is far from idyllic for women and the patriarchy is still going strong, especially for women of colour, even if they have achieved name recognition and political success - the third episode, when Shirley keeps getting told, and not just by men, that she's done her bit for symbolism and should hand over her delegates to MacGovern already makes that viscerally clear - but nonetheless, there's such a strong momentum for progress in the air....and when the series ends, Ronald Reagan has been elected, bi-partisan is increasingly a dirty word, and the conservative backslash has barely begun. Which sounds incredibly depressing - which it is, and we're sitting in the results - and yet, this isn't a depressing series, it's too vibrant and interesting and complex for that. (And extremely well costumed. Not to mention the soundtrack.)

While the dialogue has a lot of zingers - between them, Margo Martindale and Tracey Ullmann are in a neck to neck competition in oneliner delivery - , the series also excells at the quiet moments, trusting its actresses to get across what the characters are feeling and thinkng without dialogue as well. Some that come to mind: in the first episode, Phyllis realising the reason why her husband supported her last (failed) campaign as congresswoman but doesn't want to do so now is that he didn't believe she could win last time; Margaret Sloan-Hunter's expression when the (white) rest of the MS staff is aghast at the mere suggestion tokenism could be a thing; Alice (Sarah Paulsen throughout), but especially when watching Phyllis in the finale; Bella when having to decide whether or not to include support for gay rights on the schedule for the Houston conference. And of course there are some epic confrontation scenes, and that's another way the narrative structure, with a different woman highlighted in every episode, pays off. There are two scenes in which Phyllis Schafly directly debates a feminist (both, googling tells me, historical), in one case Betty Friedan, in another Brenda Feigen (Ari Graynor). ( Spoilers for history ensue. ) Which is very satisfying to watch. (Though somewhat sobering to realise that by now, if someone did that to the Orange Menace and their ilk, their audience would no longer care.)

Could a show been made that centred around solely the feminists, or solely one of them - say, Shirley? Sure, and it would have been great as well if equally well written and cast, I'm sure. But I am glad this show exists, because stories about women disagreeing with each other on a deep set political and ideological level, not a story about some personal rivalry, are stlil very rare, as are female characters with a Walter White like arc and dimension of dastardliness who still don't come across as caricatures. It's not that the seriers lets the men off the hook - for every supportive husband, like Brenda's or Bella's, or even Gloria's boyfriends, there are plenty of guys on both sides of the aisle who are at best condescending and at worst abusive controllers like the unseen Kevin, Pamela's husband. Not to mention that two of the most gut wrenching scenes come when men who have made (political) promises to our heroines sell them out. Nonetheless, when Gloria early on dismisses Phyllis as a brainwashed tool of the patriarchy who doesn't know what she's doing, she's clearly wrong; Phyllis knows exactly what she's doing, and she wants to do it. That Republicans like Jill who is fiscally conservative and militarily hawkish but, as mentioned, pro-choice, pro-social security, pro-medcare were on their way out while Republicans like Phyills would become the standard wasn't, at this point in history, inevitable. It was a conscious choice, too. (And keeps being one.)

Lastly: for all the debates, one of the most endearing aspects of the show are the moments of connections (often against the odds) that keep being made and from which the majority of the women draws their strength. The phonecall between Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan (who usually have a rather tense relationship, though mostly tense on Betty's side) at the end of the fourth episode. Shirley and Bella in the finale. A drunk Alice stumbling across Flo Kennedy at the Houston convention and singing "This land belongs to you and me" together. These are the scenes that allow a viewer to believe that while, as Bella predicts after Reagan's election, much of the country goes fifty years backwards, not all of it does, and nothing is inevitable. The climate of progress, the momentum being with it and not against it, it can happen again.

I recently finished listening to a thirteen parts (German) audio play version of Hlary Mantel's novel A Place of Greater Safety. (German title: Brüder.) It was originally broadcast and is now available on Audible. I haven't reread the novel in years, but I found all that made and makes it my favourite among Mantel's books in this version. One of those qualities, btw, also is a reason why the Thomas Cromwell trilogy doesn't work nearly as well for yours truly.


( Lots of spoilery musings on book(s) and play, cut for length. )

A few shorter reviews of marathoned shows in recent weeks:

Moon Knight: Starring Oscar Isaacs in more than one role, to put it unspoilery. He's not quite on a Tatiana Maslany level, but pretty good, and like her has excellent chemistry with himself. I also thought Marvel does a bit better by Egyptian mythology than it does with the Norse gods. ( Spoilery Remarks. )

Werewolf by Night: affectionate homage to Universal and Hammer horror movies, mostly, though not exclusively in black and white. Made me miss Being Human (the UK version).

House of the Dragon: I think I dropped out from Game of Thrones around the fifth season or thereabouts (or was it the fourth? I honestly can't renember), but word of mouth about this one was mostly good, so I thought, why not? Well, I was entertained. ( Spoilery remarks ensue. )

Courtesy of the Mouse, I was finally able to watch it. It's been literally years since I saw s3, but not for lack of affection for this show who imo belongs in the same category of Better Call Saul in being a spin-off which became very much its own thing and indeed something you very much would not have expected back when watching the parent show. In the case of The Good Fight, it's also perhaps the tv show most reflecting the present with its frantic surreallism and satire echoing the insanity of the Orange Menace dominated US. Making Trump literally the show's main antagonist, especially in seasons 2 and 3, was a bold move, but s4 impressed me especially by complicating the matter right from its opening episode onwards, which is one episode long dream/hallucination of Diane's, a "what if Hillary had become President" AU. (Which, btw, also hints at what the show had been like if, as it was originally conceived, it would have taken place in such a world.) While Diane at first is dizzy with relief at "waking up" in a world where Elizabeth Warren and Merrick Garland are on the Supreme Court and there's even a cure for cancer around, her joy quickly fades as she finds out there never was a #MeToo movement, Harvey Weinstein is still un-outed and a client of the firm. And then there are such zingers as when Marissa and Liz ask her re: the world with Trump as President which Diane now believes she must have dreamt and the horrors of which she lits: "And where were the Obamas when all this happened?" Diane replies: "Getting a deal from Netflix." Ouch.

Now, that's just the opening episode, and the rest of the season takes place in the Orange Menace's reign, alright, but it still moves him mostly to the background while concentrating on the corrosion of the judicary going on. Now, the whole "Memo 618" MacGuffin at first didn't really work for me, but then I bought into it. The Supreme Court is never mentioned, but the whole season asks that if you can't believe anymore there's any instutition where law prevails, when everything is so corrupt that it's impossible to achieve justice no matter how clever and resourceful you are, where do we even go from there? And because it's The Good Fight, it asks this not through serious ponderings but gleefully sharp, quick paced narrative explosions.

It wouldn't work if one didn't care about the charactes, though. Maia exited the show at the end of the previous season, and I was surprised how well this worked out for the series. Also, Julius, who in The Good Wife was the occasionally getting lines single black Republican, already in s3 had a subplot of his own pairing him up with Marissa (narratively! Not romantically, good lord, no!) as he campaigns for judge, but it's in s4 where he gets possibly the most challenging of the subplots, and the actor is more than up for it.

Speaking of narrative gambits, the season finale provides one mean riff on Citizen Kane. And Diane still gives the best "I am outraged about this and I will cut you" expressions. But I think I'll take a break between seasons before finding out how the series handles January 6th....

This is my favourite of the Disney+ MCU shows I've watched so far. (The other ones being Hawkeye, WandaVision and Loki, which 've liked in that order.) Iman Vellani is ridiculously charming and endearing as our teenage heroine, Kamala Khan, who is a credible teenager (and fangirl) graduating to heroine. The show feels to this non-Pakistani American deeply anchored in the vibrant migrant community which surrounds Kamala, and in the backstory. (More about this in a moment.) There's an interesting contrast to how the Netflix show Luke Cage went through much effort to anchor the show in Harlem, which worked, but ironically Luke himself to me on his own show was of far less interest than as a guest star in other shows, with the major character development on Luke Cage going to the supporting cast like Misty or to the villains like Mariah and Shades. Meanwhile,Ms Marvel manages to both provide Kamala with an endearing characterisation and coming of age story and present a good supporting cast. (Villains, less so, but that's not a breaking point for me.) Her parents are adorable, and at the same time, changing the origin of Kamala's superpowers and making the Partition (of India and Pakistan) trauma central to the family's backstory (while pointing out that "every Pakistani family as a Partition story) is one of many details ensuring that Kamala's story really is specific to her as the daughter of Pakistani immigrants.

Then there's the present, with Kamala's friend Nakia compaigning for a place at the Mosque board and everyone all too familiar with being searched when the cops show up, while Kamala's cousins tease her for being too bland in her foot tastes when she's visiting Karachi. But I was especially thrilled by various formulaic things NOT happening which I had completely expected to happen, to wit:

( Now it gets spoilery )

Seriously, the only complaint I could make would be that the villains are underwritten. ( Spoilers alert. ) But you know, I was okay with that, because the show suceeded in all other departments, and ultimately Kamala, her family and friends being of interest to me and making me root for them was far more important to me than whether not I found the villains well done.

Also: after being subjected to the relentless jokathon that was Thor: Love and Thunder and starting She Hulk which is also on the joke joke joke side (though has Tatiana Maslany, goddess of acting, so I'll probably continue), it was such a relief to encounter a Marvel product which gets the balance of drama and humour in a way that really works for me. There's emotional room to breathe, is what I'm saying.

Lastly: this also is that rarity, a Marvel show without any supporting roles for already established characters that trusts its own characters to carry the story it wants to tell. At an age when there are fewer and fewer standalone stories in this franchise, this was very welcome.