tv review
Reviews of politics-centered TV series about White House politicians, cybersecurity, history, controversies and more.
First Democratic Presidential Debate, Part 2 of 2
I thought the second part of the first 2020 Democratic Presidential debate was better than the first part, in that more of the ten on stage had standout moments. My assessment follows, in descending order of what I thought were the best performances:
By Paul Levinson7 years ago in The Swamp
Revisiting 'Washington: Behind Closed Doors'
Before House of Cards, before The West Wing, there was Washington: Behind Closed Doors. Broadcast in six parts on the ABC network in 1977, it followed hot on the heels of its source novel, former Nixon aide John Ehrlichman's Roman à clef The Company(later republished under the miniseries' title). The result is an intriguing blend of fact and fiction.
By Matthew Kresal7 years ago in The Swamp
I Wish I Knew How to Quit You
In the last sequence that ends the haunting finale of The Americans, the car carrying former Soviet spies Elizabeth and Philip Jennings, who have fled back to their homeland after years of posing and living as suburbanites in the United States, all while carrying out their (at times) murderous mission, are finally coming home. Years after Mischa and Nadezhda arrive in the United States to become Philip and Elizabeth Jennings, it has all finally fallen apart.
By Karen Goldfarb8 years ago in The Swamp
Review of 'The Americans' Finale
An exquisite, satisfyingly restrained, even beautiful finale to The Americans last night—a series which only in this, its sixth and final season, has become, in my view, one of the finest series ever on television. This is because, although the series started as gangbusters in its first year, and although it never lost the astonishing originality of its premise and first season, it meandered, almost got repetitive and stuck in a quagmire in subsequent years, only to reclaim the best that it was was and exceed it in this last season.
By Paul Levinson8 years ago in The Swamp
Review of 'The Americans' Penultimate
Well, the next-to-last episode of The Americans on FX last night was really something. Keri Russell has been outstanding throughout the six-season series, but she put on an off-the-chart performance as Elizabeth in episode 6.9.
By Paul Levinson8 years ago in The Swamp
Review of 'The Americans' 6.8
With only two episodes left to go in The Americans, episode 6.8 this week mapped out a profound change in Elizabeth. Till now, in this season and earlier, Elizabeth has been nothing but coldly homicidal regarding anyone identified as an enemy by the Centre and ordered by them to be eliminated. Likewise, any innocent person who jeopardized her continuing work for the Centre. But, after a game-changing conversation to start the episode, in which Philip finally tells Elizabeth what he's been tasked by the Soviet government—in contrast to the Centre—to do, Elizabeth finally begins coming into her own, as, well, a human being.
By Paul Levinson8 years ago in The Swamp
Review of 'Babylon Berlin'
I can't think of a better time -- or maybe worse time -- to watch a 16-episode German series (streaming on Netflix) about the police in the Weimar Republic in 1929, just a few years before the Nazis won a plurality in the Reichstag, Hitler became Chancellor, and by 1934 had seized power, ended democracy, and declared himself Führer. Weimar police detectives are comprised of people who would give their all to save democracy and people bent on destroying it. Police on the street often react with deadly force to protests, unable to distinguish peaceful demonstrators from those with darker motives. Politicians are much the same. The parallels to our age of Trump, who has systematically attacked the press and other bulwarks of democracy, are obvious and chilling -- more than chilling, given that we know how this battle turned out in Germany, and the impact of that result on the rest of the world.
By Paul Levinson8 years ago in The Swamp
Review of 'The Americans' 6.7
Throughout previous seasons of The Americans, I've wondered why Stan, looking at the sketches of Philip and Elizabeth in disguise, didn't recognize them as his nextdoor neighbors. I mean, the disguises are good, but not that good. The sketches of the Soviet-agent suspects sure looked to me like Philip and Elizabeth, and, if anything, Stan knows them much better than I do. I see them just once a week, for an hour or so, for ten or a few more weeks once a year. Stan sees them all the time.
By Paul Levinson8 years ago in The Swamp
Review of 'The Americans' 6.6
In The Americans 6.6, Jackson — a new mark Elizabeth is working on, as a conduit to Senator Sam Nunn (of earlier Watergate fame, in case the name sounds familiar) — anyway, Jackson says Rififi (a 1955 French movie), where Elizabeth first contrives to meet him, is the best heist movie ever made. I agree! I felt that way when I saw it as a kid in the late 1950s at a beat-up old movie theater (I think the Globe, on Pelham Parkway in the Bronx), and the movie has stayed with me to this day. Jackson was not only correct in the 1980s when he said that to Elizabeth, his appraisal is true today. The very word, "Rififi," said sotto voce in the movie, gets me in the mood for any great foreign heist movie. So far, Jackson's role hasn't materialized in The Americans, but I just wanted to make that point about Rififi.
By Paul Levinson8 years ago in The Swamp
Review of 'The Americans' 6.5
The common denominator in last night’s episode 6.5 of The Americans, another perfectly powerful episode, was...sex. It not only was the subject of the delightfully drunken conversation between Claudia, Elizabeth, and Paige. Sex also motivated two major developments in the story. First, Elizabeth sleeps with Philip as prelude to persuading him to set up Kimmy to be jailed in Bulgaria. And then Philip in turn sleeps with Kimmy to convince her to leave Greece to meet him, so that Elizabeth’s plan to get Kimny in a Bulgarian jail as a way of getting leverage on her CIA father can happen.
By Paul Levinson8 years ago in The Swamp
