Archiv vom March 2017

TV-News: Stargazing Live 2017

It’s that time of year again and the BBC is going to look at the skies: Stargazing Live is coming back for a seventh year and this time it’s completely different. Usually broadcast from the Lovell Observatory in England, the program moves its base of operations to the Australian Siding Spring Observatory for the first time to look at the southern sky.

Brian Cox and Dara O Briain will be hosting again, although there is an announcement from ABC TV that Australian tv presenter Julia Zemiro is going to co-host with Brian Cox. It looks like ABC is going to do three live shows on their own because when the BBC show airs, it’s in the middle of the night – that would mean pulling double duty for Brian! [Update: Sorry, the Australian version is actually airing one week later from April 4 to 6!] The Australian broadcast will also be followed by the Back to Earth after-shows, which the BBC apparently are not doing this time around. Hopefully the BBC is going to broadcast a recording of the Australian shows sometime.

The BBC broadcast airs from Tuesday, March 28 to Thursday, March 30 at 8pm UK time on BBC2. All programs are scheduled to be one hour long without an after-show segment.

Unfortunately the series has, typically for a BBC live production, never been released on DVD, but some episodes from 2011 and 2012 are still online – the rest has sadly been deleted.

Stargazing Live 2011Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3
Stargazing Live 2012Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3

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DVD-Review: Forbidden Planet

It was not the first of its kind, but one of the most influental and innovative ones: Forbidden Planet was the first real science-fiction movie of the 1950s, paving the way for a revolution of the genre. Unlike many other science fiction movies of its time, it still holds up well today, six decades after its making – and it feels like the unofficial first episode of Star Trek as well!

Last year I unfortunately missed the 60th anniversary of Forbidden Planet and I never completed the translation of my original German review, but now I’m making up for it with an improved and expanded English edition that is basically a whole new article on its own. For those who haven’t been here before much: my reviews usually consist mainly of in-depth reviews, while the technical review of the DVD I’m watching is more of an afterthought. This review is about the German DVD release from 2007, but basically applies to all new editions of Forbidden Planet released since 2006. Click on the cover on the left or on the link below to go to the full review!

Continue to Review »

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