Africa

Planet earth has held the title for a long time as the best of Attenborough but ever since Africa has been released i personally have come to the conclusion of this series superiority, the updated camera work, the general renewal and new insights to animals behavior as individuals and as a society. Episode 4-Cape has raised the bar for all environmental/educational series to come, the diversity within each episode gives a viewer a sense of Range, scale and mass of the ecological system that is being reviewed and recorded. the variation from each environment allows a comparison to be made from Blue Whales to Monkey Beatles. the 'Eye to eye' segment of each episode allows the viewer to get an insight into the difficulty of the recordings and techniques used. The new best of Attenborough!

David Attenborough's wonderful voice narrates another incredible BBC nature series. Planet Earth, Life, Frozen Planet, and now Africa, each takes us on a High Definition trip to some of the most amazing places on Earth. If I had to choose one of these series as the winner for the most breath taking camera work, I would have to give the honour to Africa! If I had one grouch about most nature series it would be in the grisliness in showing predators bringing down and sometimes tearing apart their prey. Africa manages to show predators at work without the overt gore. The only thing that stymies me about all of these incredible series is why they felt it necessary to release an Americanized version of each with Sigourney Weaver, Oprah, Alec Baldwin and now Forest Whitaker narrating. Attenborough's narration is as clear and concise as ever, and I would think understandable by the American viewing public.

Lucky enough to have seen the first three (To date) episodes in this wonderful new BBC wildlife series I can safely say that the BBC still rules the genre. This series explores not just the wildlife, which it does with brand new spectacular scenes, but also the relationship of the ecosystem with the geology and unpredictable weather systems and natural events. The production team have taken extraordinary measures to provide us with breath-taking scenes and amazing footage, using the latest technology and techniques. So far this season has kept my family, including our 4yr old granddaughter fixed, silently to the screen! The addition of the "Eye to Eye" excerpt at the end of each episode goes a little way to help us understand how these production teams make these shows, and for me, I always look forward to seeing what they are prepared to do to get "the shot of a lifetime."

Wonderful stuff...

Like many of the BBC Natural History Unit documentaries, Africa portrays the diversity of wildlife in the African continent in spectacular fashion. With each episode focussing on a different region of the vast landmass, we get a glimpse into the local geographical, ecological and ecosystem features of that specific area. Not only are new and astonishing behaviours revealed, the adaptations that life can make and challenges it must overcome to survive and thrive in diverse (and often harsh) conditions are captured and described beautifully. We also get an insight into the practical difficulties in filming such captivating scenes in the end-of-episode 10-minute segments.

This series is a must-watch for any nature lover, especially those keen to learn more about the unique aspects of Africa.

I wasn't going to review because the others nailed it, but I have to add that beyond this being an amazing series among multiple planet earth series, there is some heart wrenching. In one they show a baby elephant calf die and if that doesn't rip your heart out I don't know what will. I've watched almost all of the series and there is natural life and death, but the one with the elephant was probably the worst. No way I could have filmed it without helping.