I've had a few conversations about tbis. If they want a 'new attenborough', long term, rather than a jobbing presetner, then it has to be someone with an academic background like Attenborough's, to have the credibility to carry the weight of knowledge across. That only leaves Uhlenbroek. Virtually all of the rest have backgrounds in children's TV or as cameramen. I think the public does, just, still want a zoologist or biologist.
Unfortunately, however, since the BBC went to bed with Discovery and turned all their productions into the modern equivalent of Gentle Ben (contrived cutesy storylines, anthropomorphic dubbing, heavy editing to remove any scenes of sex or actual blood, a focussing on pretty cuddly things or stuff with big teeth, and a subtle eradication of any notion of evolution, all to please the USA market), anyone could now do Attenborough's narration in recent shows. He doesn't actually 'present' anymore, does he?
My heart sank when i read the Times re this new show, and the BBC guy saying it was about 'extremes of predatorial enviornments', and the 50% of life that has to kill for a living, and how they wanted to convey the "emotional" aspect of predators and their prey. So, it sounds like we're in for another show full of lions and killer whales and sharks *almost* killing things before any blood is edited out, and cutesy stories of lost little wildebeest calves who always manage to survive and arrived here through immaculate conception. All to the backdrop of a towering orchestral score that tells when to be impressed with their new camera mounted on the nose of a gnat. While actually telling us absolutely sod all about the natural world.
