Saw the first two episodes in a documentary series about humans surviving in interesting and extreme environments. There is of course lavish worship of rustic survival, but this fetishism is tempered by an acknowledgement of the economic realities that drive people into these habitats. The nomads, I suspect, would really prefer an SUV if they could only get the money. Anyway, such first-world sniping aside, the show is most interesting as an exploration of niche cultures and subcultures. As with the incredibly similar Planet Earth, it's just a bunch of stuff coming at you, so my "review" will consist mostly of just listing things. So, let's get to it!
Episode 1 - Oceans
We open on a pair of Spanish dudes harvesting goose barnacles, a high-risk, high-reward crop that grows on dangerous, rocky, wave-beaten areas just above the low-tide mark. The show then conflates the individual with the communal by asking "what drives us to these extreme habitats?" Well, for those two dudes, I bet it's money. Anyway, inspired by this question, we soar of to tiny whaling villages who still hunt by spear and row-boat. We then make a short jaunt in the surfing beaches of Hawaii and are told that surfing is a dramatic show of how we've tamed nature. I snorted into my tea but lo and behold, the show then pivots and talks about hurricanes, so well done show for not being as humanity-aggrandizing as I thought you were being. We then hit the climax of the episode: the compression-divers who dive dozens of meters with nothing but a plastic tube feeding them oxygen. The bends, where nitrogen bubbles form in joints which have decompressed too quickly, is everywhere. A melancholy, but visually splendid sequence. We end with a nomadic, sea-dwelling tribe of folks one of whom can hold his breath for five minutes. Incredible.
Episode 2 - Deserts
From wet to dry, we now open with the a metaphor: the amniotic sac is the ocean and we are born out into the desert. This episode begins with a young cow-heard driving elephants away from a watering hole so his cows can get a drink. I admit to thinking of elephants as being essentially gentle creatures, so I don't understand the danger, despite what the show tells me. Anyway, we then move on to wells in the desert. A troupe of women travel many kilometers in search of a well which, when it's revealed, looks to be the size of a welcome-mat (in the desert of course.) They also ration water and drink sweet tea, which sounds awesome. We then discover which side the film is on when two Mongolian nomads in the Gobi desert take shots at the evil wolves (Attenborough must be rolling in is grave.) We then see a group of men digging a well and adding it to an apparently gigantic network of wells which all feed a nearby city. Las Vegas is name-dropped but we don't linger there. We move on instead to a male beauty contest which is held during the lazy rainy season (feast your eyes!) We're following one dude who's hoping to land a lady. He's married, we hear, but his wife is both there and cool with it (and hoping to score a dude herself.) This is treated as not a huge deal and as simply another culture on this diverse planet. Very progressive. I'll have to come up with an equivalent of the animal mascots I did for Planet Earth. Maybe human super-powers? If so then maybe breath-holding and partner-swapping for this pair.
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