Planet Earth

So last night we watched the first episode of the much acclaimed Discovery series Planet Earth. It first came to our attention because my cableless dad asked us to record it.

What was not surprising to me was how now being a mother I view an animal documentary differently. Now those parent/child scenes touch me in a way they didn't before. The polar bear cub slipping on the snowy grade reminded me of Tobey trying to climb up the hill at the snow park. And the elephant calf who, blinded by sand, walked straight into a tree? Eli, all the way. And at certain "times of the month", I'm sure I would have started crying when that wolf caught the baby caribou after such a valiant effort by the calf to run away.

What was surprising was how much I didn't care for Sigourney Weaver's voice (wished they had kept the British David Attenborough voiceover, so much more sophisticated I imagine) and the self-promoting documentary narration. The narration kept mentioning how they used such-and-such high def filming for this amazing shot and such-and-such special cineflex camera for a first time ever seen footage. I found that REALLY annoying because, while I'd want to know if such a rare animal was seen for the very first time, mentioning the technical details during the show somewhat ruins the timeless potential of it. Ten years from now, HD and helicopter cameras are probably going to be no big deal so why mention it in the narration? Besides, after each episode, they always have a 5 minute behind-the-scenes of what it took to get some of the footage so why do they need to mention it in the actual documentary? Of course, easy to me to say from the couch. That someone would even think to make a documentary basically about the whole world is pretty amazing.

Tom likes Blue Planet better. I like it better for the quality but it would be invaluable to be able to show both to our kids as they grow older.