Category Archives: tv series review

DALL·E 2022-12-26 11.15.44 - jack ryan as han solo with ukrainian flag in the background

Jack Ryan – Season 3 – another victim of Putin

DALL·E 2022-12-26 11.15.44 - jack ryan as han solo with ukrainian flag in the background
Jack Ryan as Han Solo and Ukraine are really the themes of Season 3

I just finished Season 3 of Jack Ryan. And I will provide spoilers. So stop.

The central conceit of the season is that a secret cabal within the Russian government wants to reestablish the USSR. What the show does extraordinarily well shows the cabal’s motivations. Motivations that are not cartoonish but very real. Motivations that have led to a war in Ukraine.

The show was shot in 2021, and when Ukraine was invaded, I am certain the producers were saying, “fuck-ity-fuck-fuck.”

But they released it anyway. And although I don’t know how many scenes were reshot, as the show does an extraordinary job of articulating the why of the invasion of Ukraine. The why so many older Russians are attracted to the idea of a war of conquest.

The end of the USSR was a traumatic experience. For many people who had devoted their lives to the system, the end was a massive and protracted layoff. Their identity, sense of worth, and place in the world were shattered.

Like Andor, in Star Wars: Rogue One, they had done horrible things in the name of the Revolution. And those things were justified because of the revolution. And now it was over. And all of those terrible things were now just terrible things.

There are several excellent scenes in the show.

The first is Petr Kovac explaining the loss of power his father felt. That the end of the USSR meant he was no longer feared and had become a joke. Losing power, losing control, and terrifying and wanting it back are all normal human reactions.

The second is the interaction between Alena Kovac and Alexei Petrov. The rogue defense minister of Russia does an excellent job articulating the venom and contempt that Putin articulated towards Ukraine. He saw Czechs not as a free people but as a thing to be crushed.

The third is Luka Gocharov’s speech on the past. As a Greek, who experienced the silence of the Greek Civil War, it was eerie. The events of the past didn’t happen. They didn’t exist. And yet they motivated actions and horrors and hates of the present. In Russia, the unwillingness to confront the imperialist past and the crimes in the name of the imperial past means they continue to practice those crimes.

The fourth is the flashbacks from the Sokol Massacre in 1969. Everyone has a different understanding of the events. For Luka, it’s a shame and horror of the act. For Petr, it is a sense of betrayal from the rulers of Russia. When the USSR collapses, he sees the last betrayal of the ruling elite of those who suffered and died.

The NAZI regime, the Putin Regime, and Greek Junta are regimes of corporals and colonels. Men who took orders and felt that they had been betrayed by those who led them. And so they did what they did, seize power to make better decisions. To reverse the mistakes others made.

The NAZIs started a war that destroyed Europe. Putin started a war that has destroyed Ukraine. And the Greek Junta started a war that partitioned Cyprus.

Jack Ryan’s screenwriters are to be commended for doing such an amazing job.

From Vietnam to Empire

In an earlier post, I talked about how the Federalist Papers argued that a standing army, the size of the United States, and the nature of Freedom made the imposition of a dictatorship impossible. And Andor makes that point in a very compelling way. As it tries to enforce its dictates, the overstretched Empire cannot because it lacks the controls.

However, Andor’s real contribution is to make Star Wars relevant to a new generation. The Vietnam War was about a colonial power, the United States, using overwhelming force to attempt to impose order on a population.

The Vietnam War is almost 50 years old. And the people who cared and fought and protested that war are slowly dying off. It is no longer a meaningful touchstone.

The Death Star, in many ways, was the manifest expression of those Americans who wanted us to Nuke the North.

It was viewed as a terror weapon, not a legitimate tool—an extravagance.

A large part of the Star Wars canon involves a debate within the Imperial Fleet represented by Grand Admiral Thrawn, who argued against the Death Star in favor of more advanced tie-fighters. And we are led to believe that Thrawn was right. That the Death Star is ridiculous.

And the problem is that because the Death Star is ridiculous, it makes the plot of Star Wars and later episodes 7-9 stupid.

Andor makes this problematic plot device a logical necessity given the nature of Freedom and the Empire. And it does, perhaps unintentionally, demonstrate why the Federalists were right to argue that a standing army was not a threat to the Union.

A standing army can not rule a large country because it is too big. And so either you have the consent of the governed, or your government falls apart.

The Emperor conceived that the ability to instantaneously destroy a planet and the ruthlessness to destroy a world was the solution. He didn’t need a standing army; he needed a gun that could blow up an entire planet. Why? Because he guessed, probably correctly, that the number of people willing to sacrifice their whole world is small.

We would like to believe otherwise, but look at what’s going on in Ukraine. Folks like Elon Musk used their platform to argue that we should sacrifice Ukrainians’ lives to save ourselves. In short, the loss of some freedom is seen as a reasonable tradeoff when confronted with annihilation.

So combine the army with a gun-killing planet, and you have enough power to rule the galaxy.

He learned the hard way that a single gun isn’t good enough. And that’s why he built a fleet of planet-killing guns. A single weapon can be destroyed by luck or misfortune. A fleet cannot. And a fleet can destroy planets depriving any rebellion of the resources they need to build their armies.

In short, the plot device of a death star, then a second death star, then a star killer base, and then a fleet of planet-killing star destroyers isn’t some cheap plot, but the logical conclusion of the nature of imperial power in the galaxy when the populations have had a history of freedom.

What Andor did was reframe the Death Star from the weapon of colonial power to the necessary weapon of a galaxy-spanning empire with insufficient resources to rule every corner of it ruthlessly. In short, like Rogue One, Andor’s writers made Star Wars intellectually rigorous and, in the process, fixed what was, in my mind, just lousy script writing.

Top Chef Masters: The Emperor is still the Emperor, and the Child is still a Child

One of the classic tales of fiction is Hans Christian Anderson’s The Emperor Has No Clothes.

One day two rogues arrived in town, claiming to be gifted weavers.  They convinced the Emperor that they could weave the most wonderful cloth, which had a magical property.  The clothes were only visible to those who were completely pure in heart and spirit.

The Emperor was impressed and ordered the weavers to begin work immediately.  The rogues, who had a deep understanding of human nature, began to feign work on empty looms. 

Minister after minister went to view the new clothes and all came back exhorting the beauty of the cloth on the looms even though none of them could see a thing.

Finally a grand procession was planned for the Emperor to display his new finery.  The Emperor went to view his clothes and was shocked to see absolutely nothing, but he pretended to admire the fabulous cloth, inspect the clothes with awe, and, after disrobing, go through the motions of carefully putting on a suit of the new garments.

Under a royal canopy the Emperor appeared to the admiring throng of his people – – all of whom cheered and clapped because they all knew the rogue weavers’ tale and did not want to be seen as less than pure of heart.

But, the bubble burst when an innocent child loudly exclaimed, for the whole kingdom to hear, that the Emperor had nothing on at all.  He had no clothes.

Now the moral of the story is that there are sycophants in a room, and that we should be willing to point out when there is a lie.

But in the Sandman, by Neil Gaiman, I am reminded of another point of view:

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes. But the half-wit remains a half-wit, and the emperor remains an emperor.

In the episode titled Trick in a Box, the master chef’s are asked to cook a meal for a bunch of aspiring chef’s in cooking school.

And so the aspiring chef’s, feel that they should criticize these legendary cooks … They act as if they have the right to an opinion.  Except what they should be doing is using that opportunity to touch greatness and learn from greatness and shut the fuck up about the quality of the food.

Watching these children make comments is painful. And so maybe the food wasn’t perfect, but the Emperor, the master chef, is still Emperor, and the aspiring chef is still the aspiring chef that critiqued the master chef’s food on television.

Top Chef Masters: The difference between the great and not so great

In a recent Top Chef Masters episode I got to see the difference between a great food critic and an amateur.

Anito Lo was asked to create a dish with the theme illusion. Her dish was a masterpiece of thought and execution. A key element of the dish was a steak tartare sauce whose purpose was to be poured into a bowl.

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In the regular Top Chef, where newbies compete, Gail Simmons is one of the better food critics whose opinions are usually thoughtful and insightful.

But little did I realize the gap between her and the great critics. Presented with this dish, Gail complains it lacks salt. Then the incomparably greater critic, James Oseland, turns to her and says:

Well I poured the steak tartare sauce into the bowl, and it was perfectly salted.

I suppose that’s the way one food critic tells another food critic:

Dude, have you ever eaten food before?

Gail, after having been educated on how to eat her food, proceeds to give the seemingly unsalted dish 4.5 stars. 

Top Chef Masters: Hector vs Achilles in front of the walls of Troy

Top Chef, a Bravo TV, reality program pits aspiring chefs against each other in a month long competition where they are asked to, on their feet, create great food week after week after week.

The team that brought us top chef, decided to do a spin on the show, where they would bring in great chef’s and ask them to compete in the same format.

In many ways, the creators of Top Chef, looked at gladiator matches of yesteryear, and realized that we all want to watch the greatest go head to head. We all want to see Hector fight Achilles in front of the walls of troy.  And yet the reality is that in our modern world, that never happens. hector would be a general, and so would achilles, and they would never be allowed to risk their lives in man-to-man combat.

Top Chef Masters creates that delicious competitive battle, where the stakes are infinitely lower, but still real. These are after all, great chefs, who want to do great cooking.

In one episode, they take the chef’s and have them compete in a speed competition where they have to prep food. For all of them, the last time they prepped food was at least decade ago, and for Roy Yamaguchi it may have been more than two decades ago.

What’s amazing to watch is how these great, great, great Chef’s are forced to do something as elementary as create a great dish on the fly, and to see them struggle. Not because they can’t create a great dish, but because the last time they did it on their own was years ago. Watching Jonathan Waxman, a man whose efforts years ago helped create the foodie culture that produced top chef, struggle with how to use a pressure cooker was delightful because it reminded me of how all leaders rely on some kind of support staff.

It’s an interesting statement about life in general. As we promote people to positions of leadership, their ability to do the simple basic tasks, under time pressure, begins to evaporate. So Rick Moonen, can’t finish a quick fire, but then turns it around and creates a masterpiece, because he is still a great, great chef.

It is very rare that you see great men compete mano-a-mano in their chosen profession. Top Chef Masters is a great bit of television.

Stargate Atlantis has turned into CSI

WTF? I am here watching Stargate: Atlantis and a CSI episode broke out.

But it’s a weird CSI episode. It’s set in Las Vegas, with CSI classic style. But it has a lot of elements from CSI NY and CSI Miami. The police headquarters look like the ones from CSI Miami. The music is classic CSI NY.

WTF?

Updated later

And now a soprano’s episode busted out. Fuck.

Okay so it’s a weird ass alternate dimension episode about exploring john shepherd.

The Warrior: SG1 Season 5 Episode 18

Stargate is one of my favorite shows. And one of my favorite lines in the show is the comparison Col. O’Neill makes between the Jaffa weapons and the Earth weapons.

These are weapons of terror. They are used to terrorize the enemy. Pointing to the P9’s These are weapons of war. They are used to kill the enemy.

This is why we have always defeated every Jaffa in every skirmish we have ever been involved with.