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Planet Earth II - David Attenborough BBC1 8-9pm Sunday 6/11/2016 (1 Viewer)

The highlight of the first episode had to be the hatchling iguanas. When one appeared out of the sand and Attenborough mentioned danger, I was expecting the usual story of avian predators. So that instead it turned in to snake horror show both surprised and delighted me.
 
Telephoto Paul said:
The highlight of the first episode had to be the hatchling iguanas. When one appeared out of the sand and Attenborough mentioned danger, I was expecting the usual story of avian predators. So that instead it turned in to snake horror show both surprised and delighted me.
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aeshna5 said:
Superb programme!
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I was thinking that the programme would cover the same old animals in their usual environment, but it was not the case and Sir David was at his 'enthusiatic' best as always. :t:

The Racer Snakes where so frightening like something out of a horror movie - ganging up on their prey as a large 'slippery' group and attacking their prey from all angles - never seen any team work like this from any snakes :eek!:
 
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Amazing programme and brilliant filming, I just wish those Chinstrap Penguins would find a safer alternative nesting ground ! some of it was gruesome to watch

Mark
 
There must have been kiddies having nightmares all over the UK last night after watching those Racers: the fact that they were all over the place, and if you outran them there still might be one in ambush - yikes! I'm mildly surprised I wasn't among the nightmare victims, just too tired even to dream after a strenuous weekend of twitching, curry and beer...

Fabulous camerawork though, especially the moving camera shot following across the amphitheatre-like beach with the iguana legging it at max chat and the snakes piling out from the edge of the rocks all the way along! Drone shot I imagine, great stuff all the same!

Looking forward to the mountains programme next week!

John
 
Peewit said:
A must see Euan :gh: - watch the snakes in action..... :eek!::eek!:
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http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/planet-earth-iis-snake-army-9214021#rlabs=4%20rt$category%20p$4

A couple of clips to show the snakes in action
 
JWN Andrewes said:
My two loved it! It really was the stand out sequence, but all of it was good. Astonishing pieces on scrapping Komodos & extreme Penguins, superb.
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Your two have been brought up properly!

I agree it was the stand out sequence. In fact the word epic springs to mind!

Dave's boy Max has decided he doesn't approve of skuas. He acknowledges that everything has to eat something, but would prefer it not to be penguins. He was a bit shocked by the damaged ones covered in blood as well. He is still only three....

John
 
Didn't really like last nights one much only bit I enjoyed was The Flamingoes. Next weeks episode looks abit better.
 
Enjoyed the Snow Leopard stuff and the Bobcat (I always like the Cats) but otherwise it's stuff we've pretty much seen before. I know it's difficult to stay fresh after so many years of wildlife film making but surely there are other things that have never, or rarely, filmed before. Still the quality of the show was still there and eminently very watchable.
 
I thought the Ibexes were the stars of this episode. Seeing them apparently defying gravity on the cliff face with no visible footholds was amazing. It has to be said that the youngsters were ridiculously 'cute' too.

Ron
 
I haven't seen either episode yet, but am looking forward to them, especially after what has been said here. Everything Attenborough does is well worth seeing. I remember watching Zoo Quest back in the 1950s, on 405 line black and white TV (though our set was more "green and white"). He set the standard for proper natural history programmes. Although Johnny Morris did some good work on kid's programmes, his anthropomorphic way of presenting animals on TV had to give way to Attenborough's consummate ability to combine educational life science with (in the best sense of the word) entertainment.
 
Steve Arlow said:
Enjoyed the Snow Leopard stuff and the Bobcat (I always like the Cats) but otherwise it's stuff we've pretty much seen before. I know it's difficult to stay fresh after so many years of wildlife film making but surely there are other things that have never, or rarely, filmed before. Still the quality of the show was still there and eminently very watchable.
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Probably are, and I know where you are coming from: at one point I did think - Ibexes again? Snow Leopards again? Then I thought: are we spoilt or what? And we are.... so lets just enjoy the camerawork and the behaviour. At least its not Meerkats in clothes!

John
 
When got to the Alps I half expected to be shown Lammergeiers eating bones again. I do enjoy this kind of stuff but was relieved it was at least on Golden Eagles, would have preferred vertical footage of Wallcreepers on the cliff face though.

Timing seemed impeccable, such as the shot of coming up and over the mountains just as the Grizzlies were exiting the den, but again thought Rockies = Grizz.

Still great footage of getting that difficult to scratch itch....

The bar was set extremely high in the previous episode with the Racer Snakes, outstanding.

Despite the minor gripes it's still programming that shows other wildlife makers how it should be done and far better than some of even the best NatGeo Wild programmes.

Sir David is a remarkable national treasure but then so are the camera men and women, the sound recordests and everyone involved in making these great programmes.

Roll on the next episode.
 
I agree that BBC would be even better with novel topics.

They should employ two people as consultants: Vlad Dinets and Darren Naish. Or at least look at their blogs.

Both are dying breed of naturalists interested in nature itself (not ecology, genetics etc). Vlad is originally Russian and is a sort of adventurer, Darren is English and hasva special interest in small and obscure amphibians, rodents etc.

Both regularly put on their websites sights and info which I never saw in any popular book. I did not know before there is in USA a cave called Eternal Flame, with a gas seep producing fire burning forever, or there are pools in Altai made of pure quicksilver, or a cave in Mexico full of multi-meter perfect crystals, or that crocodiles catch herons by balancing sticks on their noses (really), or there are transparent frogs which fight with bony spurs on their arms, and lots more.
 
I think the problem is the commercial imperative to sell these programmes worldwide to as large an audience as possible. There's a fairly small range of really popular subjects so we get the same few species again and again. Especially with the blockbuster Attenborough-type series which are obviously very expensive to make so they want to be sure of making a good return. Instead of baby elephants etc. they could no doubt make an excellent documentary about the life history of the tapeworm, but hardly anybody would watch it so what's the point. I think I read a comment somewhere that they wouldn't show penguins being eaten because the audience would find it too upsetting.

The quality of the filming so far has undoubtedly been very high, especially the Racer Snakes which I agree have been the highlight so far. I do find the music generally very irritating though - this is consistently the worst feature of Attenborough's series. It's all about exaggerating the drama/comedy of the action, at the expense of the natural history and the actual sounds of animals in their environment. Unfortunately though it seems that's what people like to watch.
 
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