Ancient philosophers have discussed the concept for millenia: What is the nature of life? Are we part of the plan of an architect of all things or do we have a say in our future? The latest exploration of this subject uses science fiction stories as analogies to these unanswered questions in The Simulated Multiverse, by Rizwan Virk. Virk skips over the scientific method to dabble in ideas of pseudoscience like Erich von Däniken or an episode of In Search Of…, blending bits of the history of science with the “what ifs” of a Dan Brown novel, James Rollins’ The Last Odyssey, or the Wachowskis’ The Matrix. It’s an interesting trip full of elements that are integral to understanding much of pop culture fiction. The book’s impetus is an obscure postulate by science fiction’s own Philip K. Dick, and the conversation interconnects everything from Sliders to Star Trek.
Our borgBest of 2018 list continues today with the best in television. If you missed it, check out our review of the Best Movies of 2018 here and the Kick-Ass Heroines of 2018 here.
Without further ado, this year’s Best in Television:
Best Borg TV Series, Best TV Borg – Humans (AMC). No other series touches on the ramifications of technology, specifically the perils of an onslaught of real-world cyborg technology, like AMC’s Humans. This year three characters stood out, including Gemma Chan’s Mia, the cyborg Synth from past seasons, who sacrificed everything for the liberty of cyborgs in the UK. Then there was Ruth Bradley’s Karen Voss, a Synth who refused to live segregated from the humans, opting instead for a normal life for the cyborg son she assumed care for. And Katherine Parkinson’s Laura Hawkins, a human lawyer who fought so hard for the cause of the Synths all year, only to throw away all the good she had done, failing the first real challenge that was presented to her. This year’s best TV borg is shared by Synths Mia and Karen, as each showed the uphill battle any future outsider must overcome when faced with humans.
Best Sci-fi TV Series – The Man in the High Castle (Amazon). What had been a two-season build-up all came together in the series’ third season with the audacity of killing off key characters, wisely adhering to the framework of the source Philip K. Dick novel. The use of science fiction to tell an often gut-wrenching array of subplots and unique characters has set up a fourth season with plenty to address. Exciting, smart, scary, and even fun, it is an unusual science fiction show that isn’t merely trigger-happy sci-fi. Honorable mention: Humans (AMC), Counterpart (Starz).
Best New TV Series, Best Reboot, Best Ensemble Cast – Magnum PI (CBS). If you would have told us a year ago our favorite show this year would be a reboot of Magnum, p.i. starring Suicide Squad’s Jay Hernandez and an actress in the iconic role of John Hillerman’s Higgins, we wouldn’t have believed it. And yet, even as diehard fans of the original, we had to acknowledge that many elements of the reboot series were even better in the new series. With the dangerous risk of taking on a beloved property, the production maintained loyalty to the original while making it fresh, scoring Magnum PI high marks on all counts. Every character was smartly written–suave and confident Magnum, energetic Rick and TC, and a savvy Higgins–every actor was perfectly cast, and each show was another round of nostalgic fun for fans of the original. Best New TV Series Honorable mention for Best New TV Series: Counterpart (Starz), Lodge 49 (AMC).
Best Series, Best Drama, Best Comedy – Lodge 49 (AMC). Lodge 49 told two stories: a darkly serious drama of real people dealing with real-life 2018 adversity, and the other a comedy farce like no other. Hanging over our heads was the idea that this was going to be a fantasy show, complete with secret codes, hidden rooms, and psychic visions. If you’re looking for all the elements of great fantasy the hint of it all could be found throughout this series. And yet it wasn’t fantasy at all. An oddball Cheers? A southern Twin Peaks without the Lynchian weirdness? Star Wyatt Russell’s hero Dud could be dismissed as a typical young man with no vision, or maybe he’s that idealist that everyone needs to strive to be. Maybe we’ll learn more about that next season. Honorable mention for Best Drama: Counterpart (Starz). Honorable mention for Best Comedy: Baskets (FX). Continue reading →
It’s time for borg′s annual look at the Best Kick-Ass Genre Heroines in film and television. This year we selected 25 characters that rose to the top. Again the studios gave us more to cheer about than ever. We’re highlighting the very best from a slate of fantastic heroines, with characteristics to learn from and cheer on. Determined, decisive, loyal, brave, smart, fierce, strong (and, okay, sometimes evil), you’ll find no one here timid or weepy, but all rely on their individual skills to beat the odds and overcome any obstacle that comes their way. Over the years we have expanded the list to include any tough, savvy, gritty character played by a woman, so villains are welcome here, too. Some may be frazzled, put-upon, war-weary, or human, but all have fought, some against difficult circumstances, others against personal demons (literally, figuratively, or both), and some against gun and laser fire. And they all showed what a tough, kick-ass character is about.
In 2018 these characters broke new ground, and unlike last year’s great list, this year’s selections would not have worked as well had the characters been swapped for males. We had a former MI-5 agent, bounty hunters, assassins, doctors, defenders, advanced superhumans, superheroines, warriors, witches, and even a few cyborgs–with a roster evenly split between television and movie characters.
Better yet, here’s something we haven’t said before. Several of our selections this year were played by women over 50.
These are the Best Kick-Ass Genre Heroines of 2018:
Enfys Nest(Solo: A Star Wars Story). For the first half of Solo: A Star Wars Story, Enfys Nest was the leader of a band of pirates, a character as cool and ruthless as anyone Han Solo ever faced. But once she took off her mask, it became clear how important she was, how significant her mission was–even more so than Han Solo’s own pursuit of mere wealth. She foreshadowed what Han would later find with Leia, an early glimpse at a rogue and scoundrel who actually had some good in him. When they joined forces, it made their characters even better. And she became one of the best warriors in the Star Wars universe since the original trilogy. (Disney/Lucasfilm)
Okoye(Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War). Is there any woman warrior as powerful and impressive in a fantasy movie this year as Danai Gurira’s Okoye? We can’t think of any. A smart commander, a brave soldier, a loyal ally. Stalwart, devoted, steadfast, strong physically, intimidating and wise, with a keen unwavering ferocity, she represented the best of Wakanda, and fought bravely to defend the world at the last stand against Thanos. (Disney/Marvel)
Higgins(Magnum PI). Few television characters are as beloved as Jonathan Higgins in the original Magnum, p.i. So it was going to be risky having any actor step into the role John Hillerman made famous. So when the show honored the original character and late actor with such a finely tuned, updated character and actor, we took notice. Perdita Weeks’s Juliet Higgins is everything Robin Masters was–the character we all thought Higgins was in secret. We don’t know whether we’ll learn the truth this time around and what that truth will be, but as an ex-British secret service agent, she’s a James Bond for Thomas Magnum to partner with–literally running alongside the show’s star and fighting and shooting her way as an equal. And the result? Every episode of the first season was full of great action and fun. (CBS) Continue reading →
The visionary behind the groundbreaking 1997 science fiction film Gattaca has at last delivered his next worthy sci-fi follow-up. The direct-to-Netflix movie Anon is equal parts future crime and noir detective thriller. It stars Clive Owen(Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, Children of Men, Sin City) and Colm Feore (Thor,The Chronicles of Riddick,Paycheck) as police detectives in a near-future Earth where smart phone and computer technology has merged with the mind. Technology and science have evolved to allow humans to instantly identify and search their minds and a database shared with everyone as they move through their day–as if Google Glass tech was inside a contact lens wired to the brain. Written, produced, and directed by Andrew Niccol, writer/director of Gattaca and writer of The Truman Show, Anon features a police detective nicely synthesizing Rick Deckard, Frank Bullitt, and Dirty Harry Callahan. Only an actor as unique as Clive Owen could pull that off.
With a world similar to Gattaca–but a colder, stark, and concrete-filled version of a rigid, totalitarian future close to that of the Prime side in the world of the Starz series Counterpart–telling lies has become a thing of the past. The detectives must track down an unidentifiable woman, the anonymous hacker of the title played by Amanda Seyfried (Veronica Mars, Ted 2, Mamma Mia!), sought as the criminal behind a string of murders. This hacker can erase memories and replace real thoughts with replaced images, and we see the best example of this as Owen’s detective pursues the hacker in a busy subway. Oddly, this dystopia doesn’t feel as horrible as that of Mad Max: Fury Road, or Blade Runner, or Terminator. It’s just not that far removed from the wired life of today. Which should be enough of a cautionary warning.
Stark but slick and cool like The Adjustment Bureau, not only the visuals of Anon but the music is haunting and cold, thanks to an inspired score from Christophe Beck (Ant-Man, Edge of Tomorrow, Buffy the Vampire Slayer). Surreal camera angles and the use of shadow firmly plant the audience in this future thanks to cinematographer Amir Mokri, and you can credit production designer Philip Ivey (District 9, Elysium) and art director Aleksandra Marinkovich (Crimson Peak, Kick-Ass 2, Total Recall) for a stunning, new vision that leaves behind tech noir for something fresh and different.
Do you want to see the best series opener you’ll probably see this year? If you’re a J.K. Simmons fan–and even if you’re not–set your DVR for tonight’s premiere of Counterpart on Starz. It’s Dirty Harry meets The Adjustment Bureau as J.K. Simmons plays mild-mannered Howard Silk, a thirty-year veteran of a low-level interface job in a Berlin carryover Cold War installation. But his world is turned upside down when he learns an experiment back in the 1980s split time apart and created a duplicate world, and he meets his counterpart–the Howard Silk from the other side, a brusque, 007 spy, who has little patience for his genetically-identical, under-achiever self.
Could Counterpart be J.K. Simmons chance at a coveted television role like Tatiany Maslany’s multiple roles in Orphan Black? We can only hope. His role is similar to Jason Isaacs’s dual role in the 2012 series Awake. But will there only be two Howard Silks, or more? With so many characters in series these days not making it through a single character arc all season, Simmons’ Silk gets plenty of development in his first hour. It’s clear we’re going to get a season of Simmons vs. Simmons, and the series opener allows for audiences to witness plenty of nicely filmed interactions between the two.
It’s exciting, smart, dramatic, and even poignant. Silk’s wife, played by Olivia Williams (The Sixth Sense, The Postman, Rushmore) on this side of the timeline is in a coma, and Silk visits her to read to her each night. He is confronted by her brother, an unlikeable sort played by Jamie Bamber (Battlestar Galactica, Horatio Hornblower). Sara Serraiocco plays a badass counterspy.
