Leben auf unserem Planeten

It's visually beautiful and since Spielberg's name is attached to this series you can expect a visual spectacular which it is.

I loved every episode and as much as some complain the going back and forth during episodes to illustrate time periods this non linear change didn't bother me at all.

My only complaint..... I was expecting the full story of the human species just like they talked about every other species but they didn't it was like as if it was a second thought or ran out of time or funding. It was a very disappointing end to say the least. The final episode barely had 20 minutes of human species discussion.

I was left wanting more and there for was disappointed. But besides that it is a good documentary. Morgan Freeman as usual is a legend narrator.

Although I was a little disappointed by the quality of the CGI compared to prehistoric planet, it is very fulfilling to have a longer period and many more types of species covered. I am very excited about that. I also like that they connect the continental context, and the atmosphere with the life that existed.

I don't know enough to state the extent of how accurate or not the depictions are as the other reviewers mention, so I'll leave that up to the palaeontologists.

However, it does a great job in exciting us viewers for the amazing history our planet has. Morgan Freeman's voice is very calming and relaxing.

It was entertaining enough but for me it was a slightly dissapointing. There was hardly any mentioning as in wich era or epoch the events took place. The millions of years are mentioned but not if it was the Silurian or the Carniferous or Plioceen, to name a few. Furthermore there were too much images of modern animal life. The prehistoric life was ofcourse GCI but I've seen better in BBC documentaries. Morgan Freeman does a good job narrating this series but he is certainly no David Attenborough. All in all it was a good production but could've been better and even great if they showed more prehistoric life and less contemporary ones in this tale of the evolution of life on earth.

As someone who is new to this subject, I found the series fascinating and informative. The nature footage is spectacular, as to be expected by a British natural history show! But I also really loved how this felt different and fresh as a concept. The CGI animals from the past were used in a clever way to bring the past to life, and though jumping through time from past to present was confusing at times, the overall message was clear and I learnt a lot.

Morgan is always great, though I love Attenborough too. Just one more to watch and I'll have binged it all! I hope there is more content like this on the way from Netflix.

While comparison to both "Walking with Dinosaurs" and "Prehistoric Planet" is unavoidable it isn't the most fair way to judge a show. Both of the aforementioned shows are the cream of the crop of prehistoric documentary series and at least one of them also holds a fair bit of nostalgia for a lot of people (me included). It is unavoidable that in at least some ways any prehistoric documentary series would fall short if held to such high expectations. Being worse than those shows doesn't automatically make a show bad.

With that out of the way, let's actually try to review this series in an as objective way as possible.

First off, visuals and sound design. They're good, great even. The CGI could have been better but is still more than adequate. The animation is a bit floaty on occasion and if you really pay attention to it it will slightly break the immersion. I find the soundtrack to be great, it doesn't bother me or pull me away from the action and on at least a couple occasions I was actively appreceating it. Animal and surrounding sounds are fine, nothing stood out to me as bad, which is really all it needs to do. I also really like Morgan Freeman as a narrator.

The storytelling choices leave me a bit puzzled though. First of all, there is the addition of modern filmed documentary bits, which to me feel really unnecessary. They could have just made 30 minute episodes instead of padding the runtime in this very strange way. Because shooting nature documentaries isn't cheap or easy. Another problem with these are that they often aren't new for frequent documentary viewers and break your immersion.

The documentary is very informative and explains a lot of interesting concepts extremely well. The way it explained the great dying (Permian extinction) was amazing for example. There are some things that could have been improved though. The time period we find ourselves in often isn't made clear, especially in the first few episodes this can be annoying. They also tend to jump from here to there a bit too much, instead of just going chronologically.

It covers a lot of different species and stories per episode, which is great. I do wish that they would have been a bit more original in their choice of creatures instead of going for the more well know ones. There are a few mistakes (conscerning science and realism) but nothing terrible in my opinion.

I've focussed a lot on the "bad". But let me make clear that this series really isn't a bad one, not even in the slightest. It does fall short when compared to the giants that "Walking with Dinosaurs" and "Prehistoric Planet" are, but has a lot of merit in its own way and definitely deserves to exist and be watched.