And we are go for liftoff!

Hallelujah! My laptop is fixed. It's been a long few weeks. It has also been busy, as well, for though my laptop has been down, I have continued to watch DVDs. Here are some reviews for just a couple of the television DVDs I've watched in the past few weeks:


First up, Band of Brothers. I posted about the first half of this almost a month ago, right before my laptop went down. My last post on this was written after what was the halfway, and low point, of the entire series. It really picked back up in the next episode.

I love this series. Right after I watched it, I immediately went out and bought the book so I could read it while watching it again. It was just that good. The most amazing part was how skillfully most of the actors were in showing the emotional impact the war had had on their characters. Some were barely even recognizable by the end.

I highly recommend that anyone who knows little or nothing about the history of Easy Unit in the 101st Airborne refrain from learning it before watching this series. There were a couple of episodes that took me completely by surprise because I had no idea what areas of the war the 101st was involved in.

Visually, this series is topnotch. It uses Spielberg's patented Saving Private Ryan-style of combat cinematography, which works very well psychologically. All the scenes in the first episode where the soldiers are training are filmed in the traditional Hollywood-style, and the scenes where the soldiers are at war or on their way to war appear as that washed out color. It's a very good use of style to moderate the mood.

The scene in the second episode where the troops parachute in is absolutely stunning; perhaps the most visually magnificent moment in television history. There have been few movies which have been able to achieve the sight of planes being shot at, and shot down, in the evening sky, with hundreds of paratroopers sailing through the night. That scene will stick with me forever.

The only thing that annoyed me was the sound. Many times I watch television while my husband is asleep, so I have to be careful what volume I have the receiver at. I had my hand on the volume button throughout every single episode of this series, turning up during quiet dialogue scenes and then hurriedly turning it down when things started to explode. It made for a very irritating experience. As has been made clear, I have hundreds of DVDs. Many of the DVDs I have are war films, including Spielberg's war film. This HBO series has the widest sound volume range I've ever heard for a DVD in 5.1. This is definitely a DVD you want to watch when you don't have to worry about volume.

Overall, I highly, highly recommend this. It was so good I watched it twice in less than a week. Just fantastic.



Next up, X-Files: Season 2.




What an utter disappointment. The highlight of watching this was finally getting to see the first episode of this series I ever saw. "Blood" was a typical monster of the week episode where people in a small town start seeing messages on the monitors of digital appliances that tell them to kill people. It was one of the best episodes of this season. I wonder if I would have kept watching this show if I had watched one of the truly horrible episodes in this season, especially the 2-part opener, first. I was so terribly sad to see how bad this season was as a whole. I have always had a very difficult relationship with this show. I lost interest in the whole mythology arc after the ridiculous first movie, stopped watching it for the most part when Mulder left, and was horrified by the series finale, one of the worst series finales of all time.

On the other hand, I loved so many of the monster of the week episodes. Even this bad season had some very good episodes, including one of the show's very best: Die Hand Die Verletzt If you see no other episode, see this one. One of the best television episodes from any show. Go rent it from Netflix if you have the chance; you don't need to know anything about the show at all to enjoy this episode thoroughly.

I think I may have been unlucky enough to watch the worst season (of the first seven anyway) of The X-Files. I watched the first season less than two years ago and enjoyed that one much more, and I know season 3 has a slew of great episodes. I do hope I am right; it would be sad to think that I have just grown beyond this show.


I am going to end it here. Next up: Taken, Frasier Season 10 and Stargate: SG1 Season 8.