Catching Up, Part I: Due South, Season 3, Disc 1 (1997-98)

I really ought not watch any more movies until I catch up on my reviewing, so here goes.

I try to keep a balance in my Netflix queue among classic films, newer films I've missed, and television episodes. The TV shows are the most difficult in some ways because DVD producers vary so much in how many episodes are on a disc. Some companies will put only one or two episodes on a DVD, whereas others will cram in as many as possible. The people who make DVDs of Due South are the latter variety, with 5-7 episodes per disc, so it takes a while to get through one.

Season 3, Disc 1 finds Constable Benton Fraser (Paul Gross) in a very puzzling situation. He returns from a trip to find his partner, Ray Vecchio (David Marciano) gone, and in his place a completely different person who says he's Ray Vecchio. What's worse, everyone in the station, even Ray's sister Francesca, who's now a civilian aide, agrees that the sloppy-dressing, blondish-crewcut cop (played by Callum Keith Rennie) is indeed Ray Vecchio. Like Fraser, I had a hard time warming up to the "new" Ray at first. But after watching several episodes (and having the mystery explained), I'm enjoying the new character and Rennie's performance, though I still miss David Marciano. Otherwise, it's the mixture as before, with gentle fun poked at Fraser's Dudley Do-Right persona and plenty of Ripping Yarn-style stunt work. Gordon Pinsent as the ghost of Fraser's father appears more and more often and I wonder if he was the genesis of the ghost character in Slings and Arrows, Gross's more recent ( and well worth watching) series.

Midsomer Murders: Blood Will Out

Tonight's film was just a television episode, one of many in a still-continuing series, Midsomer Murders, based on characters created by Caroline Graham. She initially wrote 5 books about Inspector Barnaby, at which time the television series began; since then only two more books have been published, but of course there have been many more television episodes. Blood Will Out was the final episode in the second season.

Interestingly for me, since I'd just watched Into the West a few days ago, was that the plot seemed to center around the arrival of a band of Travellers into one of the villages for which Inspector Barnaby is responsible. The villagers have varying reactions to the Travellers, but many of them believe (not necessarily wrongly) that thefts will increase. Of course there is a murder and a large number of red herrings before it is solved. In discussing murder mysteries I try not to include spoilers, so I won't say much more about that.

The continuing characters are engaging, with Inspector Barnaby's wife and daughter figuring fairly largely in each episode. In this one they have enlisted the help of his Sergeant, Gavin Troy, to keep him on a diet (it sounds like that Detox Diet that some people I know have been on recently). They, as well as Troy, provide some comic relief. In the books, Sgt. Troy is not quite as nice a character as he is in the television show, although in both cases he respects and admires Barnaby.

The scenery in Midsomer Murders is always so beautiful that it's hardly credible -- lovely villages, stately homes, ancient churches, sweeping meadows and lush woodlands. That's just one of the aspects that makes an episode from this series a nice break from more serious films.

Planet Earth (Episodes 1-3)

Because we have only as much cable tv as is necessary to avoid climbing on the roof to install an antenna, and for various other reasons out of the past, I end up getting a lot of television from Netflix as well as what I think of as "real movies." Quite often these tend to be things that were once shown on BBC America or just the plain old BBC, and they usually have some trailers before the main feature. That's how I found out about Planet Earth,(2007) the $25 million dollar nature series narrated by David Attenborough. Over the past couple of days I've watched the first three episodes, "From Pole to Pole," "Mountains," and "Fresh Water."

I'm ambivalent about this series. I probably will continue watching it at intervals, but I can stand to wait a while for the next disc. (Note to self: check queue and make sure it doesn't come too soon.) The photography is amazing. The producers have made use of every kind of new photographic technology, aided by many kinds of transportation from helicopter to small river boat, to show scenes that few people would ever be able to see on their own. Animal, bird and fish migration scenes were some of my favorites (and the producers', too -- there was at least one in each episode, but they were spectacular so who can blame them). They roamed the world, and I saw places I'd never even heard of before as well as familiar scenes from new perspectives. And those grizzly bear cubs were some cunnin', as were the Ethiopian baboons, the Indian otters, and the pandas, both giant and red. So what's my complaint?

First the milder one -- I'd like to see a show like this one that concentrated more on the geology, hydrology and botany and less on the zoology. Not that some of the animal scenes weren't wonderful. To my mind, it is better to see a video of a snow leopard in its natural habitat, unaware even that it's being photographed, than to see one in a zoo. And because of the new technology, there were many animals that probably hadn't been so well photographed before. Still, there have been so very many animal shows; I feel the other aspects of Planet Earth have been neglected.

But my bigger objection is to the compulsion this, and other similar films, seems to feel to show the predator stalking, catching and eating its prey, several times in each episode. After watching the first one, which featured wild African dogs catching an impala and Canadian wolves with caribou, I hoped that episodes titled "Mountains" and "Fresh Water" would not need to include such scenes, but both did. It begins to seem almost like pornography -- we know these things occur and are necessary to the balance of nature, but is it really necessary for the camera to linger so long on them? For this reason also, I'd be very careful about showing these films to kids under 13 or so, and even parents of teenagers with sensitive spirits might want to warn them before they watch. I had to close my eyes a few times.

Each episode is followed by a short piece called "Planet Earth Diaries" about the technology used and the difficulties encountered in making that episode. These were quite interesting and I recommend watching them. The BBC has more information on its website, as well.