Geheimnisvolle Tiefen

I watched the second in the series, the Southern Ocean. It was filmed in Tasmania where I am from and so knew the locations fairly well. I have never seen a nature documentary try to be so dramatic, so intense and so in your face. Is this the legacy of Steve Irwin with nature being treated as a wild lion? This episode started out looking for the kelp forests of Tasmania. They failed to find any except a few strands. Judging from the background, they were still very close to Hobart, in an area known locally as "the Channel." The real kelp forests start much further out to sea down around Tasman Peninsula. It's akin to trying to find virgin rain forest on Copacabana beach. Then using the "one swallow makes a summer" argument they decry the effects of global warming. Hmmmmmmm.

They then attempted to "discover the origins of the Southern Ocean" by searching for fossils in some of the sea caves under "the largest sea cliffs in the world." Why? I am a geologist and I studied at the University of Tasmania in Hobart. I studied these fossils they were trying to find but I didn't need to go into any sea cave. There are plenty of sites where you get the sea cliffs exposed at low tide and the fossils are there for the taking. Why risk going into an underwater sea cave--purely for dramatic effect. "Air is short, we have 20 minutes to find the fossils and save the world" stuff.

Yet the laughable thing--the fact that really made me aware that this was a series conducted by pseudo-scientific idiots--was when they eventually got into the cave and started picking stones off the sea floor containing fossils. That is, these are stones that could have come from anywhere. They were not part of the cave walls or ceiling or floor. Fossils from those parts MAY have been valuable but picking a stone off the floor of the sea tells you nothing about the sea caves AS IT DOES NOT COME FROM THEM. And then what, they get the fossils back to the boat and their "expert" goes: "Yep. Brachiopods." Didn't even try to identify them. That's like going to a car wreckers, dragging home a wreck and going: "yep. A car." The Brachiopods they examined are very common all around Hobart -- you can drive to outcrops and get them.

The whole episode smacked of "high seas adventure" -- sensationalizing the mundane or normal to make it look so much more dramatic that what it really was. Whatever their message -- and perhaps it was serious -- got lost in this over sensationalism.

There are many more criticisms: when the leader dives to explore a wreck in deep water, they say: "Only he was qualified to dive at this depth." Well what about the cameraman?! Why does the leader "check things out" alone -- isn't this contrary to normal scuba procedures when you have your buddy? Oh, I forgot, the cameraman was his buddy.

I could not watch the episode to its end. Pathetic is too kind a word. David Attenborough and all the great nature documentary makers would cringe watching this. Let's hope the BBC stop trying to chase ratings and get rid of this "action-based" environmentalism and get serious again.

Like the excellent review of roguegrafix already stated this is a very poor nature documentary. Unlike him I did have the stomach to watch the episode to it's sad and funny conclusion. The team learns, at least they were told but their closed minds didn't allow them to absorb, that overfishing of rock lobsters caused the sharp rise in the sea urchins in turn causing the reduction of the kelp. They help combat this by releasing lobsters in the damaged kelp patch(and for some reason in a patch where the kelp has totally disappeared). Then they go on again about global warming like the unscientific brainwashed hysterical hippie sheep they are, convinced they have just struck a blow against man made climate change by reintroducing an over hunted animal. The end. As a serious documentary it fails on all fronts. They show no respect for nature and have no understanding of it whatsoever. They find some "weird creatures" and then start poking them. Poor old Jacques must be spinning in his grave by the harm his ADHD offspring is doing to his name. As a spoof on a nature doc and a critique on the sorry state of the over-emotional climate 'science' it works very well however. Too bad it wasn't intended as such. But that didn't stop me from laughing my a$$ off. 4 stars for the nice pictures and the comedy relief.

I have to concur with roguegrafix's review of this series completely. Well intentioned as it may have been, this series is severely flawed by the way it was presented.

The opening of each of the episodes points out that the Oceans cover two-thirds of the surface of the earth...unfortunately the series itself spends about four-fifth of its running time talking about the personnel involved in producing the series, not the oceans.

You are told about two dozen times about how meticulously experienced and intrepid a diver Paul Rose is; Mr. Cousteau Jr. is genuinely enthusiastic but the timing and number of his many mini-lectures gets tiresome very quickly. The countless shots of the perpetually worried diving safety director becomes an unintended on-going gag.

Do we really need to see Paul Rose jogging around in Messina or Lucie and Philippe baking bread in the sand? Surely Toony getting an emergency filling on board or throwing up on deck could have been consigned to the extras DVD.

All that being said the series is still worth watching for the handful of memorable scenes and some potentially meaningful scientific contributions the expedition may or may not have made. It's just too bad the production decisions took away so much from the magic of the oceans itself.

Interested viewers should seek out the 4-part series ONE OCEAN from CBC's Nature of Things, for a more compelling and moving depiction of the state of our modern Oceans. I believe it is still viewable on-line through CBC.ca.