Les Mondes extraterrestres

Unfortunately, like in the headline said, this documentary is more about the life of single human-beings and their professions instead of alien life.

Maybe 40% of the documentary is about the real (how could it be) alien life. But the 60% rest of every and each episode is about a human being who does something in chemistry, biology or physics to explain behaviour of (alien) life.

CGI was awsome and it was an interesting series, but i wanted a whole documentary about extrasolar life, not about life on earth and the life of some individuals.

The theme of the documentary is perfect with great opportunity for creativity and many potential alien worlds to portray. Each episode revolves around a potential alien world and its animals living there, which have characteristics similar to the animals on earth. The show goes back and forth between the earth animals and its alien world equivalent. The artist impression of the worlds shown and the animals living on it is well executed. Unfortunately most of the 42-minute span of each episode is spend on the earth animals and we only get to see 8-10 minutes each episode which covers the alien world, in which the same images are used several times. This is a significant limitation and probably due to budget constraints and is a major downside to the show. Other than that the concept is great and so is the storyline for each episode. 7/10

70% of this show is about Earth and how the planet and everything on it adapts to hostile and ever changing circumstances and how this might be similar on other planets. And 'might' is the key word here because they present these alien worlds like they've actually been there when really, it is just something that could be and not something that surely is. Interesting for sure but not very convincing and pretty far fetched at times.

The thing that bothered me the most is that they overuse the images from the alien worlds to such an extend that is becomes ridiculous. If you would condens the unique material of the alien world for each episode it would probably just be 5 minutes. In the second episode I started tracking how many times they would use certain fragments and some are used more than 10 times throughout the episode.

So in the end this feels like a documentary about life on earth in hostile situations. With some cool images from made up places that could be in our universe.

6/10. Some neat visuals and interesting ideas sandwiched between padding that is borderline off-topic.

It's incredible just how far this documentary seems to miss the mark. Yes, there are about 2 - 3 minutes worth of fabulous effects shots and maybe 5 minutes worth of talk about how alien life might actually develop on alien worlds, but each episode is about 40 - 45 minutes long. What is this padded with?

How to film rhinocerous beetles having sex. Uh-huh. Interesting. Not why I'm here though.

Watch me go paragliding! Okay, really not why I'm here.

5 minutes talking in very general terms about how we discover exoplanets. Okay, at least related to alien planets.

4 minutes of a falconer training a falcon. What the... ARE YOU EVEN TRYING TO MAKE A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT SCIENTIFIC THEORY ON THE TYPES OF LIFE THAT MIGHT DEVELOP ON ALIEN WORLDS!!?? I mean, I like falcons and all, but again... and I cannot stress this enough... that's not why I'm here.

There's some neat stuff in here, so it's not a total wash, but the padding, oh my the padding. I mean, some of the padding is interesting, but it's so off premise, I have to wonder why they just didn't make a series of 4 - 10 minute mini documentaries called "Neat Things on Earth."

It is an undoubtedly fascinating hypothetical visualisation of what unique alien ecosystems might look like on other planets - if we apply our current understanding of the basic principles of life to otherworldly environments. That said, given the show's clear budgetary limitations (despite the impressive CGI) & the over reliance on repeated shots, they manage to competently make the best content imaginable with the limited resources they clearly have at their disposal.

That's why so much focus is shifted on to Earth, hosting interviews with experts giving expository information; the creators aren't simply justifying the theoretical realisations featured on screen but they're also clearly filling the run time - which would otherwise be vacant if the directors planned on featuring additional sequences elsewhere in these constructs.