What We're Watching 2008

February 2008 

Survivor All-Stars (Season 8)
This weekend we started watching the DVDs of Survivor All Stars with the girls. They enjoyed watching the second half of Survivor the Australian Outback last month (see below) and were delighted to see the return of Colby. It's interesting for me to watch the All Stars season again and to watch the relationship between Rob and Amber develop, knowing now that they eventually married after the series. They also took part in The Amazing Race together and I was further impressed to see just how well they work together under the pressures of that game.

Ashley and Caitlin get attached to certain people, constantly asking where their favorite person is when they are off camera. They also ask tons of questions, including questions about the animals they see, the country in which the game is set, the insect bites covering the players bodies, and in the most recent episode, why one of the players (Jenna) decided to withdraw from the game and "go home to her mammy". Her mother had been in a hospice with cancer for a long time and encouraged her daughter to take part in the All Stars series (Jenna was the million dollar winner from Season 6 set in the Amazon). During the game she had a strong intuition that she needed to be with her family and withdraw from the game, which she did. It turned out that eight days after her return to her family her mother died. It was a very powerful demonstration of the importane of following your intuition. Anyway, the girls asked a lot of questions about this and once again we had another opportunity to share with them how everyone dies and that it is sad, and that it is important to enjoy life and appreciate everyone and everything along the way.

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January 2008

Battlestar Galactica
James and I have been watching the DVDs of this series, courtesy of Netflix. I was a big fan of the original series that was produced in 1978 and 1980. This series was "reimagined" for a new TV series in 2003. So far we are well into the second series in our viewing. I love this series. It has a lot of grit to it. Once I got used to Starbuck being a woman in this version I have really come to admire the writers for creating a strong, interesting and very complex character for this new rendering of the role. I am consistently stimulated by the thread of how the humans treat the cylons (a cybernetic race orignally created by humans that later rebelled). The cyclons have evolved and there is now a group of cyclons who have biological form and are almost indistinguishable from humans. Some of these cyclons have been planted among the humans. Some of these are sleepers, who don't even know they are cylons but may be activated at any time to complete their mission: the anihilation of the human race. There is a lot that is very thought provoking in this series, and of course it is excellent for sheer sci-fi entertainment.

My understanding is that three seasons have been aired so far and that at the moment only two seasons are available on DVD. Season 3 looks set to be released in April this year to coincide with the premiere of season 4 being aired on TV. I'm not sure how likely all this is given that, of the 20 episodes that were supposed to be filmed for season 4, only 11 had been completed before the Writer's Guild Strike shut down production in November last year. I imagine that season 3 will be released eventually this year. I do know that I won't be watching season 4 on TV. I just cannot bring myself to watch very much TV due to the endless ad breaks here in the US. I'll just wait for the DVDs to eventually come out sometime in 2009!

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Survivor: The Australian Outback (Season 2)
Knowing that we are huge fans of Survivor, our friends Christian and Jennifer gave us DVD collections for several past seasons. James and I watched the first half of Survivor: The Australian Outback and then we let Ashley and Caitlin join us for the second half over a couple of Sunday afternoons. They became quite attached to Colby Donaldson, Caitlin in particular.

 Colby Donaldson

Each time Colby appeared on the screen she would give a little delighted cry of "Colby!". Ashley has seen the odd episode last year and really enjoyed watching the challenges (games) that the survivors engage in to win rewards or immunity (safety from being voted out of the game). One very noticeable influence on Ashley from watching Survivor was her interest in their diet. She was very interested in how for the most part the survivors only had rice to live on, and any fish they can catch. We had noticed over the last year that Ashley has been less enamoured with rice, whereas before she had loved rice, especially sushi and onigiri (Japanese rice balls). At dinner on the evening we watched Survivor: The Australian Outback, Ashley ate all her rice without any struggle and then stated that she wanted to have rice for breakfast too!

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Juno
Thanks to Maylynn's recommendation, James and I went to see Juno on or first date this year. Thankfully, this was a much more succesful trip to the cinema than when we went to see I Am Legend after Christmas. A well written, witty film about a 16 year old girl, Juno, who becomes pregnant and decides to have the baby but give it up for adoption. The acting from the entire cast is excellent. It was particularly enjoyable to see Allison Janney (who played C.J. Cregg in The West Wing) play the part of Juno's stepmother.

Stardust
James is a big fan of Neil Gaiman, who wrote the book on which this film is based. The story starts in a little English village called Wall (so named because of the cobblestone wall surrounding it). A young named Tistan Thorne sees a falling star and promises the most beautiful girl in the village that he will travel to the land on the other side of the wall and bring the star back to her as a sign of his love. On the other side of the wall is a magical parallel world where strange and wonderful things happen and Tristan meets an array of interesting, quirlky and bizarre characters, some of whom are helpful and others more sinister. Excellent performances, particularly from Robert de Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer and some beautiful special effects (particularly the glowing of the star).

December 2008

Liberty! The American Revolution
Okay, so technically this is not 2008, but we watched this fabulous series by Ken Burns over the last few days of 2007. James' Dad Ian received it as a Christmas gift from Janet (James' mum) during their visit with us for the holidays. Over the course of 3 nights we watched all six of the 1 hour episodes originally shown on PBS. James and I are now planning on watching Burns' Civil War at some point this year and will no doubt check out many of Ken Burns other well respected documentaries over time.