When We Left The Earth
June 22, 2008
For those of you that haven’t been watching the recent Discovery series “When We Left The Earth”, you don’t know what you have been missing. The series has been quite excellent and the high definition images quite stunning.
The series is a cooperative effort between the Discovery Channel and NASA. It chronicles the history of the NASA space program from its inception until current times. The show is very well done and includes tons of footage and interviews that I haven’t seen before.
There was a docu-drama a while back, “From the the Earth to the Moon”, that was also well done, but that series featured actors and interpretation. The “When We Left The Earth” series is all real people and fact based. It includes many interviews and viewpoints of astronauts, NASA personnel, media, family and others. The footage is all genuine and quite riveting.
Its been a series that the whole family, even Savannah, has been able to enjoy together. The kids have never really been exposed to the Mercury, Gemini or Apollo programs and they only know of the space shuttle as our space program that has had a few accidents (ie Challenger and Columbia). Its been a great learning experience for them.
We are actually considering buying the Blu-Ray addition that includes an additional 4 hours of NASA films/images. It was a series that plain and simple was that good. Odds are that we won’t buy it because while a great series, it probably would only get watched every few years.
If you didn’t get a chance to catch this wonderful new series the first time around, Discovery is running the series a few more times over the next month or so. If you can’t get it in HD, I would image it would still be stunning. Even the person with only a casual interest in space would find this series enjoyable. I bet even an avid space aficionado would learn a thing or two from this series. Give it a watch!
Nashville Star
June 18, 2008
First, I am not a big fan of all the reality TV shows that are on now. However, Suzanne and the kids are big fans. In the interest of family time, I do watch a few of them with them. Being a big fan of Country music, I have always found Nashville Star to be a very enjoyable show.
In past seasons, Nashville Star has not been on the major networks. I thought the talent has always been very high, producing several current stars, such as Miranda Lambert. This year, the show moved to NBC giving it access to more viewers.
After the first couple of weeks, I have to really say the talent level is down this year. In past seasons, I thought the talent was better than the other singing show American Idol. This year, American Idol, in the few shows that I was forced to watch, blew away the singers on Nashville Star. Hell, most of the singers aren’t even singing Country songs.
It’s been pretty disappointing, especially compared to previous seasons. What the heck were the folks thinking when they picked these contestants? Were there no good singers that auditioned this year? And the lack of the contestants singing Country music really bothers me. And then, at the end of the show this week, they announce that next week Nashville Star goes Pop! Aaargghh!!! Tell me it’s not so!
These contestants are going to have to step it up or Nashville Star isn’t going to see another season – at least on a major network – which might actually be good. Not sure I can handle the salute to Pop next week though.
Thank goodness for Gordon Ramsay and Hell’s Kitchen!
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