Pole to Pole

I came to this right after watching Palin's "Himalaya" and thinking that his earlier work could not possibly be as magnificent. I was dead wrong.

Pole to Pole is not just entertaining or informative or impressive. It is important and relevant and borderline awe-inspiring. Palin is the perfect prism through which to view a disintegrating Soviet Union or the most barren and inhospitable parts of Africa: the man manages to never be patronizing or negative or simplistic; even though, am sure, not everything is impromptu and unstaged, even though there are the "this is gonna make a great TV moment" scenes, his timing and comic genius and general sense of the surreal, combined with enthusiasm and warmth and basic humanity, canvas out a lot of what is great and diverse and sad and decent about our world. This is one of the greatest travelogues of all time.

Special mention has to be made of Palin's utter unpretentiousness and honesty. And fearlessness. He is bloody fearless in the sense that he chooses not to edit out scenes where he is butt naked, visibly drunk, awkward, or overwhelmed.

This is grand stuff, TV at its very best.

While it's obvious that not every leg of Palin's journey is equally interesting, he and his team manage to make every stage a nice watch; we meet everyday people as well as particular ones, we see well-known landscapes as well as completely unknown ones, and I'd bet there's at least one new or interesting item for you in every episode, usually more than one. It's no travel-guide, but it's also not "adventure" except maybe in Africa - more of an experience. I'd recommend watching it only one episode per evening, so the experience can linger - first in chronological order, and maybe later re-visit some episode you liked particularly well.

As someone who has backpacked around the world a bit I take my hat off to MP and team for doing this trip of a lifetime but its a No thank you very much from me.. I know its 30 years ago and lots have changed in Africa but seeing poverty myself around the world many times this is on a different scale.. Its disgusting and horrendous. There's no way I could stomach it. Not for my pity but for their sake.. I wish I could help these people.. Well done Michael. 💚

This is a superb follow-up to "Around The World In 80 Days" in which Michael Palin travels from the North Pole to the South Pole. There is no time limit on this journey, (it lasts over 200 days), but there are still things that can very definately go wrong. Palin's sharp wit and informative nature is on show once more, and the sites ranging from Finland to South Africa are as stunning as you would expect.

I highly recommend this to fans of other travel series.

This series has it all: humour, adventure, action and suspense. After the excellent 80 days around the World travelogue series, former Monty Python Michael Palin travels with his team, from the North Pole to the South Pole along a 30 degrees longitude trip (Well ... at least he tries too !)

This is fabulous entertaining and educational stuff. He never ceases in being slightly British in appreciation and humour, without the stuffiness and the arrogance he sometimes encounters in other ex-British patriotes located in the countries he sometimes visits. He is always quirky and easily adaptable to the circumstances and adversities he encounters. He is always respectful of other human beings he encounters even in dire and sometimes miserable places. A remarkably truthful and funny human being we should all be proud of in sharing his travels and observations with us. He travels to places and shows really pleasure in sharing with us our world, even if only flirtingly, places we can only dream of perhaps, one day of also being able to visit.

Thanks to the excellent crew and all at the BBC.