Media Monday--Due South

With the new year I am going to start out a new format for my blog that may help me focus a little better on writing. Each day will have a significance, which I will be revealing this week.

As you see above, Mondays will now be "Media Monday". Each Monday I will comment on DVD's, movies, books, albums or whatever else I want to share about.

Today I am going to share about a wonderful series I discovered because of watching "Slings and Arrows". The show is called "Due South".

It aired on CBS during the 1994-95, and 1995-95 seasons, but was cancelled. But Canada picked it up, and they produced two more seasons.

The premise of the show is a Canadian Mountie who lived in the Northwest Territories travelled to Chicago to find the killer of his father, who was also a mountie. The mountie is portrayed by Paul Gross (is this name starting to sound familiar?). He teams up with Chicago cop Ray Vecchio and each episode they solve another crime. It has a lot of Canadian references and humor, and is very well written. (The more I watch Canadian shows, the more I am starting to appreciate their brand of humor.)

"Due South" can be rented from Netflix. I was a good girl, and Santa gave me the whole series for Christmas to enjoy. Even after the show has been off for over 10 years, people are still nuts about the show. Fans are planning a convention in Toronto, Ontario this summer. There are websites dedicated to the show.

Below is a video from one of the episodes called "Mounty on the Bounty". The song is called "32 Down on the Robert McKenzie".





If you want a good show with quirky characters, good humor and some drama, I'd suggest you try this series.

Slings and Arrows review

My brother Raymond Pert gave me the DVD series 1 of Slings and Arrows for my birthday this year. I finally had a chance to watch the entire season over the weekend, so here are my thoughts.

After watching the first episode, I was a little put off by the constant use of the "F" word, and the sex. (But, this is just me.) This show is rated along the lines of Sex in the City or The Sopranos.

But, once I got past those two things, I got into the story of this six episode series, and I loved it. The premise of the show, and why my brother thought I would enjoy it, is telling the story behind the scenes at a theater.

This theater is one that does Shakespeare plays, and while they are rehearsing onstage for the play, the story is also being told on what is going on behind the scenes.

(I've always felt more drama goes behind the scenes of a play than what happens on stage. It is the nature of the people involved in productions.)

As the story develops, you come to appreciate the art of the theater, and what the true calling of a theatrical production is all about. They are rehearsing Hamlet on the stage, and themes from the play are also being played out in thier lives.

There are two more seasons, where one season they do MacBeth, and the following season they do King Lear. I look forward to seeing how they play out these stories in real life.

I was very impressed by the actor Paul Gross. I don't think I had ever seen any of his work, but he was so good in this show. But so was everyone else. It was a great cast, well written, and a wonderful story.

So, if possible, try and get past the language and sex, (if that bothers you) because there is a great story being told.