Ice Age - Giganten der Eiszeit

Alice Roberts is a good choice for a TV natural history presenter but she doesn't quite save this program.

For me there is too much repetition of the animations. There is also no overall progression or narration to the show and the series doesn't quite get anywhere.

To sum up why this isn't that great.... too many animation repetitions, no substantial questions that lead to roundly answered off answers using overlay shots, animations and narrated explanations. Also too many nice fly-by shots of Roberts on a rock, Roberts on an icy rock, Roberts on another rock in the desert.

I like that they tried - the program makers just need to try harder and learn from great documentaries (Planet Dinosaur or what she did in the Origins of Us).

This has all the mistakes of the current crop of BBC documentaries.

1. An extremely painful style of delivery in voice over. This one is not quite delivered as 'reading to 4 years', but Alice Roberts is nearly that bad. That contrasts sharply with when she is talking to scientists; then she is just fine.

2. Irritating techniques of direction. I lost count of the sections delivered with her walking away from the camera, talking over her shoulder. It was supposed to be lively and engaging, in fact it came across as just bad manners.

3.More seriously, a complete failure to distinguish between 'fact' (or nearly certain fact) and conjecture. The often repeat CGI of the mating battle of male Glyptodons is pure conjecture. OK, but based on what? We weren't told. We weren't actually told it was a guess a either. There were many other such instances.

I can see what they are trying to do, but people who are satisfied with Eastenders et al (long running UK soap) are never going to watch a program about science, no matter what you do to make it 'accessible' and undemanding.