Now that's creativity

I've been watching a mini series by my favourite director/producer.

Most good series are to be savoured on face value, with nothing deep or lasting to be learnt from them. Think of awe inspiring Heroes (first two seasons at least), rib cracking Boston Legal, suspense filled 24 or the Event. But trust this director/producer to weave something different.

One interesting thing about this series is that it covers multiple generations with one concept. It spans five consecutive decades and four different generations, and centers on three separate families and yet one continuing event. It develops the story from absolute mystery to (less absolute) conclusions.

The 9 episodes of the series have an intermittent narrator who sheds light on the prevailing theme of the episode. The narrator is a little girl and, though unclear to the unsuspecting until the latter episodes, the story is about the birth of this one girl.

Sadly for most, the genre is not acceptable. Science Fiction has never been the forte of the unimaginative.

In latter episodes, the grand children of the main characters in the first episodes contemplate the attitudes and actions of their grandparents. For the viewer, this generational leap has the effect of making you feel as though you are not subject to the constraints of time. Characters who were alive to you days or hours before are not being regarded as part of a past which cannot be fully understood. Very intriguing.

Also related to this concept is that across the time-lines, you are compelled to choose favourite characters and see them die of old age only to be replaced by their children, or grand children. You also get to see the effect of the prejudices of the 'father' on the 'children' and how people end up being the monsters they always thought their parents were.

The mini series also pulls an amazing colour depiction of the times. Starting in the 1940s where we all "know" life was almost in black and white to the very colourful present generation, hue is used to give an almost subliminal feel of the times.

The mini series gives such a surreal perspective on time. Personally it haunts me with the same nameless questions that accrue from the concept of immortality and eternity.

The mini series is Taken - a Steven Spielberg production. The surreality of the effect on me is heightened by the concept of a civilization, remote from our concept of morality, culture, science and technology, and by the fact that despite this civilization being responsible for the continuing event in the series, there is no personal interaction with it.

My favourite character? Jacob Clarke - unemotional and yet not cold, profoundly intriguing.

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