The alleged big event this weekend is Star Trek making a television comeback. It's so big I can't even think about it. Also, it's not available for review.
Star Trek: Discovery (Sunday, CTV, Space, 8:30 p.m.) is part of an elaborate plan to boost streaming service CBS All Access in the United States, where viewers will need to sign up for the service to see the second part of the two-part premiere. A cunning ruse, as is not making it available in advance for review.
In Canada, it will air on Space, then later on Crave TV. Sunday's CTV premiere is just the first part and you need Space to see the full, two-part premiere. Got that?
As far as I know, the main character is one Commander Michael Burnham, a human raised on the planet Vulcan by Ambassador Sarek and Amanda Grayson, the parents of original Star Trek main character Spock. This will mean a lot to some people. Not being a Star Trek devotee, I cannot say I'm intrigued. I mean, I have a life and I like talking to people of the female persuasion. Star Trek would get in the way.
You don't have to be intrigued, either. Let's see what the fuss is about first. The ultimate purpose, one can safely assume, is to makes sure CBS All Access lives long and prospers. So, there's Star Trek and there is earthbound material this weekend. Let's choose Earth.
Take, for example, your wood frog. The wood frog is an odd fella, and as exotic as all get-out. The most northerly amphibian on the planet, he survives the winter covered in ice without breathing or his blood flowing. He literally exists in a state between life and death all winter. Then comes a strangely magical transformation.
The Wild Canadian Year: Spring (Sunday, CBC, 8 p.m.) shows you a wood frog taking its first breath after being frozen for months. It is as startlingly bizarre as anything seen in your Star Trek things. Also, it's utterly real, not made up. The program is a five-part special series, an intricately made and huge undertaking to show never-before-seen footage of wild animal behaviours across the four seasons. (The fifth part is about making the first four.) It is stunningly beautiful, engaging, heartening and has some truly compelling characters – all you want in a good drama.
Your Arctic fox is cuteness itself. Honestly, watching these fuzzy wee creatures wake up, emerge and start rolling and frolicking in the dirt, following mom around, is an absolute tonic. Soon after those wee creatures, the viewer meets much bigger things. We see grizzly bears telling each other where they are by rubbing up against a tree and lumbering along, sure in the knowledge that friends and family know what's going on.
The yellow-bellied sapsucker is another intriguing character, an engineer of sorts and, as you can see in the footage, providing goods and services for many other critters, including hummingbirds. Listen, you haven't lived until you've seen a tiny hummingbird feed its young chicks, and then you must contemplate that this tiny thing is going to head to Mexico in a few months. As for the choreography of a posse of white pelicans in the water, it is breathtaking. You will thank me later.
Now, there are, of course, certain issues when watching nature documentaries, no matter how breathtaking. There is the suggested "neutrality" of the nature documentary, which means the viewer feels he or she is watching the natural, organic unfolding of things without the intrusion of a fictional narrative. That is, it is not concocted entertainment – such as Star Trek – but the natural wonder of the world itself. It is bogus to think of nature docs in this way.
There is also the instinct to anthropomorphize nature docs and see wildlife as cartoon humans. We know it is wrong, yet we do it almost instantly and we are often scolded for it.
But there has to be a point in watching engaging nature programing on TV where such issues are put aside. We are all smart enough to understand the pitfalls of our perspective and almost everything we watch in the nature-program category is educational in some way. We're not dumb and we know we're not watching a version of the Garden of Eden on the screen. Humans interfere, from the making of the program to their impact on animal habitat. There is no cunning ruse to avoid that.
An educational part of The Wild Canadian Year is a segment about sea otters. Once considered endangered, they are thriving. The program doesn't enter into the tricky issues of why they are thriving and the impact that will have on the local ecosystem, but the assertion of their return is enough.
Sometimes the Earth offers us the most engaging of entertainment. Star Trek be damned, you won't see the kind of stardom and grandeur that truly astonishes anywhere but here, among the frogs and the foxes, the birds and the bees.