Neanderthals: Meet Your Ancestors

Wow, this was very poorly done right from the opening. The presenter is clearly a lightweight, saying that until "the latest research" everyone thought the Neanderthal was a brutish protoype for modern humans.

Seriously that view was gone 25 years ago, it is not news. in fact for more than a decade we have known the more Neanderthal or Denisovan genetic material a population has the higher the average intelligence.

Really in the two hours, there is a total of five minutes of discussion with the actual experts in the field that is worthwhile, and the hour and 55 minutes is idiotic.

What a shame. Interest in Neanderthal is generally a very good thing since it tells us a lot about ourselves and hominid and human evolution, and where backflow of isolates may have given significant evolutionary advantages to a given branch.

A self-proclaimed scientist teams up with Hollywood special effects guys to create a pretend Neanderthal couple. Then she has them parade around naked. As entertainment, rather than education, it should have been no more than 30 minutes long, instead of stretching it out to 120 minutes.

Yeah, we know how blue screen works and how Hollywood can create pretend people by pasting tracking markers on actors, but what does that have to do with Neanderthals?

Too bad the "scientist" didn't pay as much attention to conveying useful information as she paid to her wardrobe.

Don't get misled: just because it came from PBS doesn't mean it's good.

She is much concerned about how she looks in front of the camera than provide scientific facts. Did you notice too? She had applied tons of make up and her hair curled and put on a lot of i-am-listening-very-attentively face. I have seen tons of documentaries presented by Western women, none of them tried to masquerade their inner mental issues by wearing tons of make up.

Worth watching but prepare to have your intelligence insulted . Anyone interested in watching a program about Neanderthals is hardly a 5th grade drop out. There was no need for the producers to talk down to their audience so much. The CGI and motion capture frequently degenerates into stupidity. When they stick to talking to the scientists actually involved in Neanderthal research the program is worth while. The scientists featured probably cringed in embarrassment when they saw the final cut of this show.

...although that is a great name for a pirate ship.

This swanky 2018 2-part doc will perhaps always stay in my mind as the show that first introduced me the idiosyncratic host Ella Al-Shamahi, part explorer, part adventurer, part anthropologist, part Stacey Dooley, mostly Alan Partridge. She adds a strange awkward edge to proceedings but it sort of works. It's nice to see scientists put center stage, it's groovy to see a bit on the process of motion capture animation - the results still look pretty good even and Andy Serkis is a lovely man. Beyond that it feels deeply padded, a little too melodramatic and full of strange assertions that will, knowing the science of prehistorical research, likely have already been disproven in the three years since this was made. Not exceptional, not as wholly authoritative as it might have been aiming for but it is relatively diverting.