Great Plains:
We explore the plains of the earth. It's episodes like this that make me appreciate how large the earth is. We are told that the Eurasian Steppe circles a third of the globe. A few episodes ago, we were told that the Sahara takes up a good fraction of the earth and a few episodes before that, the same about the poles. How is there room for all this stuff? Anyway, we watch some half-mad geese lay their eggs on the ground, chasing foxes away with hisses and hunched postures. There's a heart-breaking scene where a fox raids a nest, grabbing almost all of the goslings. It's mouth full, the parents come back and the fox scatters, leaving behind dead goslings in heaps. Then again, the fox has babies and is photogenic. Nature is complicated. We are treated to intentionally unintentional humour surrounding asses ("females asses are mysterious creatures." Indeed, David.) Colossal bison snort and fight, their great heads looking like walls with horns and eyes. They're pretty freaky and awesome. There's an adorable bunch of pygmy hogs which are, we are told, the size of rabbits. Adorable! Episode animal mascots: pika and those adorable pygmy hogs.
Jungles:
Jungles are awesome places. They're so bustling with life, like a metropolis for animals. There's the staid, antish regular folk, but also colourful crazies who are somehow able to exist. We open on birds of paradise who, as in the first episode, are always shot down by the females, no matter how crazy their display. When will we ever get to see them slake their filthy avian lusts? There's a sequence about frogs which is eerily pretty and a fairly freaky sequence about cordyceps. Somehow, it was the image of a mouldering moth that got to me. How alien and ghastly! The narration transitions smoothly over to awesome mushrooms. Monkeys are put on prominent display. Howlers are so cool looking. Chimps are shown flourishing and beating the shit out of each other. A raiding party of chimps lustily devours the baby of a rival troupe. Attenborough tells us that it is unknown why they resort to cannibalism. Nature is complicated. Episode animal mascots: Monkeys, frogs, and colugo
This week, Richard Attenborough died. This is a great pity. He had a marvellous voice and a kindly, kooky manner which he brought to nature documentaries he voiced. My film blog is full of ad hoc obituaries recently :(
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