Through the Opera Glasses - 65 - The Pillars of the Earth

The Pillars of the Earth debuted on The Movie Network and Movie Central last week in Canada, and on Starz in the US.

Hooray! says I, who loves everything medieval. This series, based on the book by Ken Follett, has everything I love: life-or-death royal power mongering, salt-of-the-earth good guys, slippery Gray Character bad guys, several young male characters all trying to find their places in the world, strong and resourceful female characters who push the boundaries of what society allows them to be without zigzagging into anachronistic territory.

There's swords, horses, battles, kings, monks, a wise woman, castles, cathedrals, sins, secrets, and backstory waiting to change everything.

Not only that - there is:


Matthew Macfadyen










Ian McShane















Rufus Sewell


Eddie Redmayne



Naquillity says I don't get Starz but it appears the episodes are online so I can watch them there perhaps.

Jennie Marsland says Sounds great, Julia! I'll have to try to find it.

Travis Cody says Ian McShane and Rufus Sewell eh? That recommends it very well right there.

Through the Opera Glasses - 45 - Spartacus: Blood and Sand

Hmm...what do we see through our opera glasses today...?




Spartacus: Blood and Sand

This series debuted here in Canada on the Movie Network last week, and tonight I settled in for the second episode.











After a Thracian warrior rebels against his Roman commander, his wife is taken into slavery and our hero is condemned to die in the arena. But he fights like the fabled Thracian king of old, and is now renamed Spartacus.













Spartacus refuses to believe his wife is lost to him forever. He'll kill for his Roman master in the hope of wrapping her in his arms once more.



I'm liking Andy Whitfield, I can tell you that much.



WARNING: This trailer includes graphic scenes of violence.



Janet says Now I want to subscribe to cable - thanks a lot Julia :(

Travis says It certainly seems to have the gritty realism required.

Wylie Kinson says Andy - oh yum.

Through the Opera Glasses - 36 - ZOS - Zone of Separation

As we head towards Remembrance Day, I'd like to mention a Canadian series we just started watching on The Movie Network.


















ZOS follows 'the absurdist reality of living in a violent Zone of Separation, as well as the real costs to the peacekeepers dropped in to police it.'

A Canadian production, this series features top Canadian talent as well as featuring an international cast in the spirit of United Nations peacekeeping.

Canadians Enrico Colantoni
Lolita Davidovich
Nick Mancuso
and Nicholas Campbell

join Irish Colm Meaney
and Slovenian Larissa Drekonja
plus many Canadian actors born in other countries such as Portugal, Latvia and the actual setting for the series, the former Yugoslavia.

This is an extremely gritty series with copious amounts of swearing, blown-off body parts in living colour as well as frank depictions of battle zone prostitution and drug dealing.

It paints a transparent picture of the lunacy faced by so many Canadian peacekeepers who served in Bosnia, only to return home suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It was a combination of exposure to gruesome combat conditions as well as the frustrations of trying to serve a mission with contradictory goals and chains of command.

For anyone familiar with the story of Romeo Dallaire and his doomed Rwandan peacekeeping mission, the warning signs of what was to come are woven eerily throughout this series.