Season one had many stand alone episodes with a few three parters. But when we had three parters they each focused on different Jedi or different parts of a battle. Season did the same. Season three had some multi-part episodes and also added some episodes meant to be before or after ones in season one and two and thus turn those into multi-part stories.

Season four doesn't have episodes that take place ones in previous seasons. We get many multi-part stories and quite often they are set in the same place with the same characters. So in a way you are getting fewer stories, but longer ones. And that is both good and bad. Being able to do the same story arc over multiple episodes does allow for a more complicated story but it can also make it feel like they are padding things out a tad. It also means you get a lot of some characters in some stories but then nothing else about them in others. When I was viewing the one episode a week, it did feel really drawn out, but once they were all on Teletoon On Demand, it was much more enjoyable watching the episodes back to back so you could better appreciate the multi-part stories. So the DVDs should be more enjoyable than they had been on TV.

The season starts with the weakest stories of the lot - a three parter about a battle on Mon Calamari. There's a one off featuring JarJar and the gungans on Naboo, not an overly memorable episode. Next are two little adventures featuring 3P0 and R2.

Next is an interesting 4-part story about the clones and a jedi leader who is a deliberately trying to get the Clones killed. While it moves a bit slow, this 4-parter does have an interesting story to it as the tension mounts as the Clones loyalty is tested.

There's a stand alone episode with Ahsoka and Lux, the boy she met in seasons three, it seems there could be another episode set before this because it seems the Nightwatch are upset with Dooku,but last time we saw them in season two we were not led to think they wanted revenge on him. This episode is one of the best of the season.

There is rather good three-part story about Anakin dealing with a slave empire.

There's a four-part one where Obi Wan goes undercover, featuring Cad Bane. This story line takes a while to get interesting, but is still fairly good.

The final four episodes are more loosely joined. It picks up from where season three ended with Ventress and the Nightsisters, sees her next joining Boba Fett on a mission, then the final two episodes feature Savage Opress picking up from season three, continuing his search for Maul and finding him (the mad half of him that servived.) Those final four episodes are rather good.

So all in all there are some good stories in this season but because of the way they are drawn out over more episodes they do move along slower, but we also get a bit more in depth. So it a different sort of season. And though it started off a bit slow, got better as went - which is true of previous seasons too. The animation continues to improve as well.

This was a pretty well put together two part made for TV biopic of Canada's Prime Minister from 68-80 (a bit of 79 notwithstanding)

Part 1 focuses on the FLQ crisis of 1970 and part 2 the road to the new Constitution of 1982.

I'm in this film for a grand total of about 4 seconds. I'm the second guy in the suit turning the corner in the montage about the military presence in the city.

I have a few anadoctes to share about this experience. While the B unit was doing the shots of the military the A unit was filming the scene where Trudeau is talking to a journalist about the military in the city, the famous "well watch me" moment. I got to see them shooting that. And took some pictures. I got to talk to Sarah Paulie during the lunch break, asked if I could take her picture, she basically said well maybe later.

That day of shooting was done on September 13 2001. Given what had happened just two days prior, Parliament Hill was still completely closed off to the public. So kudos to the scouting people making the film, these scenes were instead shot at the Victoria building, better known as the Museum of Nature, which is built in a very similar style to the parliament buildings.

The other funny factoid: while unit B was working on the scene with guys in military uniforms and rubber replica guns, the real RCMP showed up to see what this was all about. Apparently someone at the nearby Iraqi embassy got a bit nervous about these military guys in the area. Remember this is two days after 9/11.

I commented to the other extra playing a civil servent that here we were trying to recreate the fear of terrorism that occurred during the FLQ crisis, it didn't seem hard for us to get in character given the current situation.

Ironically when I was casted they thought I would make a good RCMP officer. A bunch of guys were in uniform as such but they didn't have any more for me so I got cast as a public servent in a suit. It turned out to be a good thing cause most the guys who were RCMP didn't get used in the end.

We all got paid $7 an hour for 7 hours. But mostly it was fun to see the process of filming.

It's a pretty good bargain as you get five games for the price of one. The quality of each game though varies. I got this and also Poirot Evil Under the Sun at the same time because I already had And then there were None and Murdur on the Orient Express. These 5 games are equal and often better than those two (except for one). So if you enjoyed those you may wish to grab these.

I'd give The Mystery of the Mummy only 1.5 stars. The graphics are so-so. It's first person, you can only move from one spot to another - not full movement walking about. You need to solve puzzles to move on to the next section. Once I got into it the game was not too bad though I got stuck at one point involving a desk that wasn't doing what it was supposed to do. Up to that point the game might have warranted 2.5 stars I guess.

The Secret of the Silver Earring is a whodunnit mystery. You get to interview people and gather information. I admit I didn't figure it all out on my own when you get the quiz at the end. It's third person movement. Click a spot and you walkover to it - similar in that way to the Poirot games. It was the first one I played in the set and all in all I thought it was rather good. 4 stars.

The Awakened. It says this game is a revisit or something to that effect. I think that means they updated the game. This is the best one in the set for sure beyond 5 stars. The story is compelling and well animated. Holmes and Watson have to solve a mystery involving a creepy cult. The collection is worth the price for this one alone. You can play it in the third person style or first person. In first person you get to move around with complete control using arrow keys. I found that I often prefered it that way. Awakened also had a cool hint section for when you got stuck. You could ask it to give you more and more detailed clues if you required it. It saved me having to look up walkthroughs online.

Nemesis. This one is clearly meant to take place after Awakened. It's not quite as good. You only get first person movement. This game features Lupin who is up to mischief in London. The story is great, though not as amazing as Awakened was. 4.5 stars.

The last game in the set is Dracula Origin in which you play Van Helsin as he tries to get Dracula (Van Helsin's voice is cool). It's third person movement, similar to Poirot and some of the Holmes games. It's not overall as challenging as some of the Holmes and the end was a bit anti-clamatic. But visually it's as good as Nemesis and Awakened. 4.5 stars.

I did initially have some installation issues with one of the game (I forgot which) but you can just 'explore' the contents of the disk and find the exe file and install it that way.

I know right away that some hard core fans are going to dislike this album on principle since it doesn't have Jon Anderson. But this CD is still a worthy addition to the Yes discography. It's not their most traditional prog-rock sounding album, nor their most commercial either.

The album features Squire, Howe, White, the return of Geoff Downes, and Benoit David on lead vocals. It was produced by Trevor Horn, who contributes backing vocals (hard to tell where) and additional keyboard bits, as does Oliver Wakeman on some spots. And thus this album while not the "classic" Yes line-up, or the Rabin line-up, is still in effect the reunion of one of Yes's former incarnation, specifically the Drama line up.

Of course, it's not as good as The Ladder or Magnification (which I think are arguably their best albums). Stylistically it is more like a follow up to Drama than to The Ladder or Magnification, which were more symphonic and had more spots for keyboard solos and such. The album is a more subdued style of progressive rock, a bit more like Asia.

In some ways this album feels more like a "potluck" album, in that the material feels like it was drawn from the members past or outside projects rather than created jointly and specifically for this project.

Half the space is devoted to the multi-part Fly From Here opus. Fly From Here was a song (shorter orginally) composed by then Buggle-duo Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes which they had written for Yes just before becoming Yesmen themselves for the Drama album. Fly From Here and Life On A Film Set, also written by Horn-Downes, thus harkens back to Drama period Yes. Downes is a good keyboardist, though his work is style is more texturing than fanciful soloing of a Rick Wakeman. So part of the album sounds very early 80s Buggle/Drama.

Canadian Benoit David is the new lead singer of Yes. His voice is very good. He sings in a range similar to Anderson and Horn, with a clear tone. He's not as distinctive as Jon Anderson, but he's also less strained sounding. It's hard though to gage from this CD what David's natural vocal phrasing would be. The songs that were Horn compositions have melodies that sound like songs sung by Horn (Horn incidently does backup vocals), so if feels more like David is playing the role of Horn. Nowhere do you feel that he is trying to copy Anderson's style, and that's probably just as well.

Squire's song, The Man You Always Wanted Me to Be, features himself on lead vocals and was co-written with Gerard Johnson, who plays piano on the track. Johnson had also been part of the Syn reunion album, Syndestructable, and thus this song sounds like something that could have been leftover from that project.

Howe's song, Hour of Need, has him doing co-lead vocals with David and again sounds like it might have been a song he could have put on the last Asia album. His intrumental, Solitaire, is nice, and typical of many of his solo acoustic songs on his solo albums.

The only song that seems to be a full joint creation is the final song, Into the Storm, which gives credit to Squire, Wakeman (Oliver I assume), Howe, Horn, David, White. That one also features everyone singing on the song in harmony.

So while David is good, the impression you get is that unlike Anderson, David's influence on the album is rather muted. If David remains as "lead" vocalist in the studio, then he should play a bigger role on the next album rather than being a space filler. They could have just as well had Horn do his parts and then it would have really been like Drama II.

Overall, the material is still rather good, though not epic. It would be nice in the future to see them record again with Jon Anderson, even if he can't always tour with them. I think they are generally better with Anderson, he brings a lot to the table, even if his lyrics are sometimes nonsensical.

The best Yes albums are the ones where everyone is contributing evenly and not just one or two pushing it while the rest get dragged along, that makes the album too much one style. This album here feels more like a compilation of idea created on their own with other people that jointly made.

I hope it won't be another long gap until we get new Yes material. Next time around I think they should try to create new material jointly. Hopefully fans of Yes will keep an open mind and not reject the album because Anderson wasn't involved.

"The group on this CD is Michael Dunford's Renaissance, formed by the composer-guitarist of the 1970s progressive band, with Stephanie Adlington singing lead and Richard Brown playing keyboards and writing the arrangements. Ocean Gypsy is a partly successful attempt to revive and reconsider the group's '70s sound in an acoustic idiom. The songs will be familiar, a cross-section of classic Renaissance album highlights, including the title track, "Things I Don't Understand (Part 2)," "Young Prince and Princess," "Carpet of the Sun," and "At the Harbour," the latter with its original opening and closing from the music of Claude Debussy. Richard Brown's orchestrations are a little more playful in character and lighter in texture than the originals (mostly by Richard Hewson), and involve fewer instruments, but otherwise don't add enormously to the existing versions. Much more importantly, Adlington has an impressive vocal range but lacks the power that characterized Annie Haslam's singing on this same repertory. The playing is very good, but the whole album, with the possible exceptions of "Young Prince and Princess" and "A Trip to the Fair" -- which benefits from a fine reed solo -- stands in the shadow of the originals. ~ Bruce Eder

"Recorded at Asta Studios, Ashford, England. Includes liner notes by Russ Elliot.

"Renaissance: Stephanie Adlington (vocals); Michael Dunford (acoustic guitar, background vocals); Jimmy Hastings (flute, piccolo, soprano saxophone); Richard Brown (accordion, piano, keyboards); Alan Daniels (keyboards); David Woolgar (bass); Rod Brown (percussion); Rob Williams (background vocals)."

-quoted from CD Universe

I'm jumping the gun giving this 4 stars when I don't yet have it, but I know the artists work well enough.

In 1995, there were two 2-CD compilations put out The Talbot Brothers Collection and the John Michael Talbot Collection and those covered 1974-1990. Subsequnetly JMT started his own Troubadour label. It's interesting that this spring I was emailing his manager and made the suggestion that a compilation covering 1992 onward would be nice way to commemorate JMT's 30th anniversary of his conversion and sure enough I was told that such a thing was coming out that August. This collection thus picks up where the other two compilations leave off and in combination with those makes a very nice "box set".

I've listened to maybe 5 of the albums covered here. Of these later works I especially like Table of Plenty, City of God and Monk Rock and thus part of me feels like there should have been more from these. Especially from Monk Rock. And as with any collection there are a few song that I think should have been on instead of others but that's just me.

On the plus side the fact that the collection covers many of the albums I've not yet heard, so its' a nice way to sample those works too. I look forward to getting getting a copy.

Came pretty close to trading this one in 9hence two and not one star). It's really off the mark for this group. While Voyageur didn't have the group's trademark fusion of gregorian or other vocal samples and instead was more original, it at least had songs. Posteriori is almost entirely instrumental. So on the one hand I guess it can pass off as okay background music, but while updating my Enigma mix MD I was hard pressed to find anything worthy from this one. Sitting on the Moon is fine and The Alchemist is a reasonably okay. That gated guitar things on that track I'm sure is sampled from Confrontation off Arena's Contagium EP (2003) yet they never give credit. Likewise on MCMXCIX ad, the drums from Calas Went Away are obviously sampled from Par Avion by Mike + the Mechanics (even has the bird chips), but I digress. Bottom line, this 6th Enigma album is a major let down. I'm hoping the new one coming soon is a return to form.

Trent Gardner who has made a handful of albums with his brother as Magellan (their best album is 1997's Test of Wills) has done 3 side projects (not including tribute albums). Explorers Club 'Age of Impact' (1998) is a prog metal masterpiece but it's follow-up (which was in the works at the same time as Leonardo and Magellan's 4th album clearly wasa major disapoiment) has a greater focus on synth. So then you have Leonardo with a focus on vocals. And clearly while Gardner was also working on a Magellan and Explorers Club album at the same his best ideas of the period were invested into Leonardo.

This is not simply a concept album (which are often more miss than hit) this is a progressive rock opera telling the life story of DeVinci(made years before She by Caamora). Here the guest singers don't simply do a song each, rather they play a role each (Dream Theatre's James LaBrie is Lenoardo) and thus they share vocals on multliple songs.

This would make a truely great stage show.

It's not as heavy as Age of Impact or Magellan's albums but has strong melodies and great vocal performances.

I got the original version that came out in 1999 (pre-The Ladder album), the book was later reprinted to include stuff about the years right after.

I thought it was a pretty good read at the time and I read it twice. I find one of the negative reviews here to be rather ironic, seeing as the the reviewer is critising how Chris Welsh writes and yet writes his review badly.

Hitherto this book, the only other telling of the Yes Story I had was the VHS Yesyears, which was made in 1991 and only interviewed the 8 band members who were part of the Union tour. What I liked about this book by contrast is that all members and entourage were interviewed.

The book gets what the band is about. Very often if you get an encyclopdia of rock and look up a band like Yes they only look at the group in terms of it's commercial success or lack thereof and overlook its artistic success.

I concede that people interviewed in the book do seem to be negative more often than not, but that's human nature.

At any rate it's nice to get an insider's look and learn about how the band came to be etc. His description of each song on each album, which is incomplete as it goes no further than Big Generator, makes you wish the book had built in mp3s, as reading about it doesn't quite make clear what he is discribing and as such adds nothing of value.

3.5 out of 5
It's a fairly good album with a few strong songs and other less memorable one. It's a fairly diverse styled album and much more organic than many who think only think of 80s A-ha would expect. It's not synthy fluff. The singing is good, music is variably good, while the lyrics a bit weak on many tracks.

The best songs (the ones I include in my A-ha mix tapes) are Ready to Come Home, A Kind of Christmas Card, Los Angeles, Lay Me Down Tonight, and Stay.

It's better than A-ha's weakest albums - Stay on these Roads and Analogue (which aside from the title tracks are rather dull). Not as good as A-ha best albums - Minor Earth Major Sky, Scoundrel Days, East of the Sun. Not quite on level with their next best ones either - Lifelines, and Hunting High & Low. It's more on par with Memorial Beach.

Not as good as Savoy's first 2 albums, but on par with their 3rd one. While way better than Magne's solo album.

It worth getting of course if you like A-ha in general.