kitsilanoca-1

CONTAINS SPOILERS.

Having seen the original series when it was first aired as a small child, and watched reruns on and off ever since, I went into the threatre with an open mind and came out very happy with what I had seen. I found it fun, exciting and imaginative, with great arcs in the stories of the main characters, and I obviously wasn't the only one who felt this way because the audience in the theatre I attended clapped enthusiastically at the end.

I have come to realize over the last forty years that with Star Trek anything can happen, including black holes behaving like worm holes, and the shift in the space-time continuum did not bother me at all, though I was surprised as anyone else at the destruction of Vulcan and the tragic death of Spock's mother. Still I accepted right away that this was opening new roads for ideas as much as Spock and Uhura being a number is, or Scotty being given the equation for trans warp beaming by a Spock from the future.

I truly liked getting to see a young Spock's vulnerable human side a bit more than we did in the original series. Then again in the original series episode, The Menagerie, we do see a younger Spock showing this by smiling in a certain scene, and a few other episodes have him expressing some emotions as well. I am very curious to see more of him in what I expect will be future films. I was also glad to see Ben Cross as the choice for Sarek, and found him touching as Spock's logical father who admits he has felt emotions like love.

So for those who aren't happy with this new look to Star Trek, I suggest you maybe try to see it as a parallel universe to the original series, where both slight and great differences can exist. Also keep in mind that just because time has been tinkered with doesn't mean the characters from STNG etc. won't exist on this time plane in the future. They just may have some changes in their lives, positive or negative, minor or extreme. Just be imaginative: maybe Jean-Luc Picard will captain the future Enterprise, he'll just have married and divorced, having fathered some children in that time. Maybe Tuvok of STVG - who'd be a child when this story is told - was not on Vulcan when it was destroyed. The same might be said for Ensign Vorek's parents, and they will meet at the Vulcan colony that the elder Spock plans to help build. Maybe Seven of Nine's family will never be assimilated by the Borg, she'll end up joining the Maquee and meet Seska, as well as Chekotay and Bh'lana, that way, and they'll all meet Captain Janeway and the USS Voyager the way the rebel group did in the series. Who can say?

As one film reviewer here in Vancouver said, he'd been waiting for this for forty years, and I couldn't agree more; I'm going to see it a second time!

This is a very engrossing interpretation of the famous string quartet Death and the Maiden, by German romantic composer Franz Schubert. I came across it one morning after just waking up and turning on my TV to watch the Bejing Olympics, found this story being told of a young maiden being visited by a handsome man who is actually the Angel of Death, and who has come to take her away, much to her distress. Done to the music of the quartet, with only the movements and gestures of the actors' bodies telling the story, I found myself quite caught up in the very European flavour of this CBC production, and curious as I watched Death fall in love with the maiden so that he ends up not taking her after all, but seduces her, leaving her bearing his child. An interesting twist to a character we so often see portrayed as ugly and frightening, a bringer of only sadness. A must see for lovers of quality performing arts dramas, and those who love Schubert's beautiful quartet.

I just watched this episode last night, and found it to be the best of the three so far. I found the plot very complicated, so I had to keep concentrating on the screen and not let my mind wander: this is something I expect a good mystery drama to do with me. I found myself having to think through each character very carefully to come up with whodunit, but the one I thought most likely wasn't, so it satisfied me there as well by tricking my own deductions as well. That and the fact that after the show, which I had be watching in bed, I had a very stiff neck; a sign that I was taut all through the show as it kept me on edge. My parents phoned me after wards and both said that they really enjoyed it as well. So that is the opinion of three people!