There’s absolutely no such factor as Attenborough fatigue – both for the viewer or for the good man himself – however we’ve been handled to so many exceptional pure historical past programmes over time that generally one will get a way of déjà vu. Sweeping drone pictures of flamingos on a Tanzanian salt lake? Seen it. Wildebeest being stalked on the Serengeti? Commonplace fare. Bears catching salmon? So acquainted that they despatched it up on a John West advert.
A Excellent Planet (BBC One), Sir David’s newest, gave us all of those. However the high quality of the images was so beautiful, and the narration so spare and clever, that it was nonetheless required viewing. And the attitude of this sequence was one thing new. It explores the good forces of nature that allow life on Earth, with the primary episode specializing in volcanoes. If solely college geography classes had been this awe-inspiring, we’d have generations of mini-Attenboroughs on our fingers.
Why do 1,000,000 wildebeest assemble on this nook of the Serengeti? As a result of the grass is wealthy in calcium and phosphorus, important minerals for the pregnant females, and people minerals are the product of volcanic ash. The identical goes for the ash-rich waters of the Kamchatka peninsula, made fertile for visiting salmon and thus an ideal lunch spot for bears. Though that also doesn’t make the salmon straightforward to catch initially of the season; there was fantastic footage of 1 old-timer taking a leisurely dive for lifeless fish from the lake-bed, whereas his brethren wasted power attempting to land dwell ones.
No one roots for the salmon in these conditions, however elsewhere it was watch-through-your-fingers time as a marabou stork picked off a fluffy child flamingo and a hyena chased a younger wildebeest (the latter assault thwarted by a headbutt from a protecting dad or mum).
The how-we-filmed-it part is now compulsory on sequence like these, and all the time fascinating. We found that the cameraman in Tanzania craftily disguised his disguise with some cardboard cut-out flamingos, and that native Masai ladies used their stitching abilities to restore the group’s hovercraft. The section additionally reminded us how gruelling it should be to get this footage – A Excellent Planet was 4 years within the making.
Additionally compulsory: a warning about local weather change. Humanity “has change into a brand new sort of super-volcano”, Sir David knowledgeable us, every year releasing 100 occasions extra carbon than all of Earth’s volcanoes mixed. A sobering message which this sequence will drive house over the course of its run.