First Life

This series of three episodes is very distinct from the famous BBC nature documentaries. It depicts the story of how life developed, and therefore also uses animations. It is amazing to see how life developed such things as being able to move around and sexual reproduction. To me, fossils always seemed boring pieces of stone. But in this series, David Attenborough travels the world to show places and fossils that demonstrate pivotal developments in the early evolution of life.

After you've seen this, all other nature documentaries that depict the world's current nature may feel like merely portraying an aftermath of the journey this documentary takes us on. All life's current wonders become but a small moment in time in an evolution that has been going on for millions of years and in which the real leaps forward were taken long before life even came to land.

David Attenborough brings this rather mundane offering to life with his boyish curiousity over even the most plain looking rocks. For those of us who are curious about the origins of life on planet Earth this documentary is greatly educational, but it also lacks a real spark of drama that makes it seem more fitted to a school classroom than on any other screen. I appreciate the different direction Attenborough took in creating this, as it serves as a good entry point into learning about the first planetary species and how they evolved and coped with the world at that point in time. It's not the most vsiaully exciting material, but it is well made and backed by lots of research and of course the Attenborough Effect, which is the phenomen I describe as being enchanted by everything David Attenborough describes.

The question "How did life first come to be?" gets a lot of attention in media. What we fail to understand is that for the vast majority of time that life has existed, more than 3.5 billion years, it has been exclusively single-celled organisms. Only in the last half billion years have multi-cellular creatures such as plants and animals existed.

This documentary focuses on these themes: how, approximately half a billion years ago, the first complex organisms came to be and how these organisms quickly evolved to later become all macroscopic life forms such as plants, insects and dinosaurs.

What else can I say? It is written and narrated by Sir David Attenborough: that should be all you need to know. This series opened my eyes to the fascinating period in time called the Cambrian explosion, and made it clear how far life has come in a comparatively short time. It is one of my favourite documentaries of all time, and I highly recommend it.

As said many times, David Attenborough is a national treasure. He may apparently dislike the term, but it is hard to not say that about such a great presenter who has contributed significantly to some of the best programmes (of the documentary genre and overall) the BBC has ever aired/produced.

It is really hard picking favourites, let alone a definite favourite, among what Attenborough has done because he has done so many gems, it is the equivalent of trying to choose your favourite ice cream flavour or your favourite operatic role (for examples) and finding you can't pick. 'First Life' is not quite one of my favourites from him, there is a preference for the wildlife-oriented ones and other documentaries of his connect with me more emotionally somewhat. Nonetheless, 'First Life' is still great and in terms of the theme and the questions it raises it is very important. Learnt a lot from it and it is very much important and relevant.

'First Life' is a detailed and honest look at the origin of life and the investigation of the evidence is very thoughtful and comprehensive.

As always with Attenborough, 'First Life' looks great. It is beautifully filmed, done in a completely fluid and natural, sometimes intimate, way and never looking static. The editing is always succinct and smooth.

The music score fits very well, never overly grandiose while never being inappropriate while also being a beautiful score in its own right.

Narration by Attenborough helps significantly. He clearly knows his stuff and knows what to say and how to say it. He delivers it with his usual richness, soft-spoken enthusiasm and sincerity, never talking down to the viewer and keeping them riveted and wanting to know more.

Each of the two parts allows one to care for the information told and is structured and paced beautifully.

Overall, not one of Attenborough's best but incredibly well done and important. 9/10 Bethany Cox