I watched the first hour on the Discovery Channel last night. The film was great, TDC's presentation of it....well, not so great. By the end of the hour there were five-minute commercial breaks for every three minutes of programming. Really, really, really bad. I taped the rest and will watch tonight, with the help of fast forward. But I really need to get a DVD.

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I too watched it again last night and as before, the interviews with the astronauts are the best. I had forgotten Buzz's comments about a necessity of nature he took care of before stepping off the LM. And Michael Collins comes across as a guy you just want to sit down with, have a few beers (I'm buying) and chat for a few hours. I had forgotten though how old John Young (no pun intended) looked, particularly compared to most of the others - I wonder if he is having health issues.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

I think the great movies creat a great impact on the mind, I am sure this movie can also make more history, is this movie filmed in the space? or in only studio? I am always curious about such movies, but they are least available to view in the cinema hall.

It's documentary footage of historical events, such as from NASA's film archives or news reports from the time, interspersed with recent in-studio interviews with participants, such as NASA control room people and astronauts.

I began to notice it near the start of the second hour (but it didn't have my full attention, so it could have started earlier). It made me wonder if some large initial part of the show had been, without my noticing, commercial-free, maybe to hook viewers, because they sure seemed like they were trying to make up an enormous deficit.

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I watched it, largely because I'd never seen it before. And I don't own a DVR. It was yesterday's review, and I'm grateful to have been told that it was on.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

According to my father, who likes to edit commericals out of programs before saving them to DVD, the show was 2 hours with commercials, and 1 hour 35 minutes after removal.

He didn't say if they back-loaded the commercials.

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"That's Not Blight. It's New Jersey" - The Wall Street Journal

As Mr. Binary noted, there were not many commercials at first -- may have been up to the first twenty minutes with none at all. They sure made up for it later on.

I have a terrible memory for names and faces and was wishing they had identified the astronauts on-screen a little more often. But the interviews were great.

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Cum catapultae proscribeantur tum soli proscripti catapultas habeant.

SOP. Almost all shows (certainly those more than an hour long) are like that.

They want to wait until they've got you "hooked" before they make you watch all the commercials.

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SeanF

"Ask to understand, but don't challenge unless you have the knowledge."--NEOWatcher

The contents of this post are ©2008 by SeanF and may not be copied or retransmitted in any form without the express written consent of SeanF

I recorded it so I was able to fast-forward through the commercials. But it did look like a lot of commercial time. Commercials are fine for sports or TV series, but they just are too distracting for movies. I've almost stopped watching movies on TV except for on commercial-free channels like TCM.

That said, I enjoyed "In the Shadow of the Moon". It felt like I honestly got to know the astronauts. Since it doesn't focus on the technical aspects of the missions, it is very accessible for non-scientists.

It's an hour and 20 minutes long. That's a lot of time left for commercials in a 2-hour slot. THC would probably have stuck in a 15minute documentary to fill the extra time like they do with history in the classroom in the mornings. TDC just filled it with ads it sounds like.

You should get the DVD. It has an extra hour of stuff they cut out. I haven't watched it but it starts out with the lads talking about flying sabres in Korea. Looks interesting enough that I think I'll save it.

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You're a coward and a liar and a thOOF - Bart Sibrel

One gets the feeling that "free" presentations such as these are deliberately made semi-unwatchable (endless commercials, constant channel logo, incredibly annoying popups, etc.) in order to boost DVD sales.

For some reason I recall the sales pitches made by the cable companies back in the late 1970s "commercial free television!" and how upset some of the first inet users were when the first .com sites showed up.

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I hadn't heard Mike Collins speak much before, and was very impressed. Forget the clown or pony, I want him at my next birthday party. That's not to take away from the other astronauts and controllers. If I could spend an evening in a bar with any of them, I'd buy the beer. Too bad Neil Armstrong didn't participate in the interviews.

I wonder a round-table discussion with the astronauts and controllers similar to the Discovery Channel's "After the Catch" program for the Alaskan Crab Fishermen would work. Buy some beer, set-up some cameras, ask a few starting questions, and let them talk.

I had no problem with the spiritual comments near the end. I think it was just Gene Cernan and others trying to sort out our place in the universe. I didn't like the acknowledgement of the conspiracy theory during the closing, though. It just didn't seem to fit.

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"That's Not Blight. It's New Jersey" - The Wall Street Journal

He does seem to have a very relaxed, amused and witty way about him, doesn't he? A joy.

I kind of liked how it was tacked on at the end. In a tiny screen, almost as an afterthought, as if it doesn't matter one bit. It seemed fitting.

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" -- Charles Darwin

"Ignorance convinces" -- slang's dad

You do have a point.

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"That's Not Blight. It's New Jersey" - The Wall Street Journal

I find that's true for every movie except for The Wizard of Oz, which I've watched so many times on commercial television that it's jarring not to have a commercial break right after she leaves Munchkinland or when the Cowardly Lion jumps through the window in the Emerald City.

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Haven't seen it yet, but will check it out as it is airing on Discovery Channel Canada this coming Sunday at 9pm (EDT).

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" The universe is running away
I heard it on the news just the other day
There's this new stuff called dark energy
We can't measure and we can't see..." - from Jimmy Buffett's What if the hokey pokey is all it really is about?

Watched it, enjoyed it and also taped it. DC Canda paired it with an hourlong show "Apollo 13: The Inside Story". The two shows covered my evening's viewing.

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" The universe is running away
I heard it on the news just the other day
There's this new stuff called dark energy
We can't measure and we can't see..." - from Jimmy Buffett's What if the hokey pokey is all it really is about?

Discovery Channel Canada cut some things out of In The Shadow Of The Moon. Like the part about Apollo 13 and the part with the speech Nixon would have given if Armstrong and Aldrin were stranded on the Moon. I have it on DVD so I noticed these omissions. Don't ask me why I was watching it on TV when I have it on DVD, I know that doesn't really make sense.

I'll have to check this out.. i was at Space Center Houston when they were doing some of these interviews in the old mission control room, that was pretty cool to be at the right place at the right time for a change.