Today the land before time TV series premiered in Germany. I have so far not watched most of the TV series episodes for reasons and lack of reasons which I have laid out elsewhere as far as I can explain them to myself.
However, I don’t think that I can for ever on “dodge” the series. Perhaps I needed the degree of “heteronomy” which the airing on German television provides in order to get myself to watch it. By heteronomy I mean the schedule set by the TV programme. The episodes are aired at a given time and I’m either there at that time (the time prescribed by the TV programme) to watch and record the episode or else I am not. Well, I guess there won’t be any “not being there to watch and record the episode for me”, but if it was up to me to decide WHEN an episode would be aired I guess I would continue to delay it. So that’s the kind of “heteronomy” I mentioned above and for which I guess I am grateful to some degree. For good or bad I shall watch the episodes now...
Reading this many of you might think of me as very theatrical (“Gee, that guy sounds like empires would fall if he starts watching the LBT TV series!”). Those who do think of me that way are probably right.
Looking at the whole thing objectively I am making too much of a fuss about it all. However, LBT does mean an awfull lot to me and I dread the “damage” poor episodes may do, not to a worldly empire, but to a realm of fiction which I might label “my land before time”.
An ugly, selfish part of my mind even fears the good episodes which I’m convinced I’m going to see. I have quite a few unwritten land before time stories in mind. Stories with ideas some of which I’m afraid are bound to appear in similar form in the TV series. I don’t want to write stories parts of which are retelling or varying ideas which appeared in the TV series already.
I am of course a latecomer when it comes to discussing the TV episodes. I have not read any of the TV series discussion threads excepting some of those threads dealing with one of the episodes which I did watch before.
I will just write my reviews about the TV series after watching the German and the English versions of an episode and copy paste those reviews in the GOF. There may be many repetitions of what others posted in those threads before, but I won’t know until reading the threads AFTER I post my reviews there. I’m doing this in order to prevent my first thoughts to be mixed with your ideas and thoughts. Maybe that way I will mention things I might not mention if I read the threads before writing the reviews. Maybe that way there will be more substance for discussion (apart from the repetitions which I expect to be unavoidable that way) in the reviews and perhaps discussions which ceased a while ago might be revived. Also that way I won’t spare myself the possible awkwardness of stumbling over questions for which some of you may have found brilliant answers a long time ago already.
And now, after typing this longwinded message of questionable use I shall go ahead and type my review of the first episode aired over here, namely “The cave of the many voices” (I just need to watch the English original while I finished watching the German episode just before I started typing the message)
