Hyperbole comes with the territory in “Great Migrations,” a seven-hour series that begins with two episodes on Sunday night on the National Geographic Channel and continues on Tuesday and Nov. 14 and 20.
To wit: the largest migration, one of the most feared migrations, one of the most curious migrations, one of the longest migrations in the Americas, the longest migration in the Americas below the Arctic, the longest elephant migration, the largest toothed predator alive today, the largest fish on earth, one of the richest panoramas of wildlife on earth. The superlatives just keep coming.
For the record, those labels apply to plankton, army ants, the zebras of Botswana, the peregrine falcon, the pronghorn, the desert elephants of Mali, the sperm whale, the whale shark and the Okavango delta. But the measuring sticks that National Geographic is really interested in don’t involve animals or landscape.
“Great Migrations” has clearly been designed in response to the success of programs like “The Blue Planet,” “Planet Earth” and “Life” on BBC and the Discovery Channel. National Geographic wants its own showcase of glossy, high-definition wildlife cinematography, whose success will be measured in marketing terms: sales of DVDs, books and overseas broadcast rights.
In competitive terms, the main and perhaps the only question is, how does it look? Is the photography, done over the course of two and a half years in 20 countries (and involving 420,000 miles of human travel), sufficiently spectacular?
At moments, the answer is yes. In the first, second, fourth and fifth episodes of “Great Migrations,” which essentially contain the program’s content, there are images that will stick with you. A shark tearing apart an elephant seal underwater, the seal’s detached head and shoulders hanging from the shark’s mouth; those army ants, like a living carpet in the jungle, devouring, in close-up, everything in their path; and, most amazing of all, a sandstorm in the Sahel, south of the Sahara, approaching like a red nuclear cloud and slowly blotting out the entire horizon.
And yet: if you’ve seen the many hours of “The Blue Planet” and “Planet Earth,” or are a regular watcher of the nature documentaries constantly available on cable, then you’ve already seen most of what “Great Migrations” has to offer, or some version of it. The salmon jumping into the bear’s mouth, the seabirds taking off in clownish slow motion, the big cats stalking, the elephants walking — it’s all pretty familiar by now, and National Geographic hasn’t done much of anything to make it feel new.
Each of the four primary episodes examines the migrations of four or five different animals, cutting back and forth among them as Alec Baldwin narrates. There is a minimum of science (beyond the recitation of greatest and longest) and a maximum of anthropomorphizing drama: the watchful eyes of concerned parents, the tender wisdom of mothers, albatrosses “renewing their vows,” the zebra father and son who have “thrown in their lot together.”
Migration may be a cyclical phenomenon, but it’s not good when a nature documentary’s story lines blur together into a clichéd cycle of drying river, fighting males, skittish females, spindly offspring, heart-tugging death (cue the vultures), heroic struggle and eventual arrival (cue the triumphal music).
“Great Migrations” suffers, in this regard, from storytelling that’s slightly more mawkish than the norm and writing that’s sometimes beyond the pale. We hear of “a place without pity,” “a whirling dervish of sex and death,” a “path aflame with sun-fired dust,” “slipping the surly bonds of earth,” “a 150-mile slog into hell” and — hold your nose — “the pungent aroma of hope.” There’s only so much that majestic photography can do to make up for that.
Less lofty, and more interesting, are the third and sixth episodes (Tuesday and Nov. 14), which drop the voice-of-God omniscient storytelling. Tuesday’s hour looks at some of the scientific projects, involving the tagging and tracking of animals, that were carried out along with the filming. “Great Migrations: Behind the Scenes,” on Nov. 14, which shows the rigors faced by some of the camera crews — including the one that captured the sandstorm in the Malian desert, and was trapped inside it for four hours — has all the humor and drama that the highly massaged animal stories lack.
To wit: the largest migration, one of the most feared migrations, one of the most curious migrations, one of the longest migrations in the Americas, the longest migration in the Americas below the Arctic, the longest elephant migration, the largest toothed predator alive today, the largest fish on earth, one of the richest panoramas of wildlife on earth. The superlatives just keep coming.
For the record, those labels apply to plankton, army ants, the zebras of Botswana, the peregrine falcon, the pronghorn, the desert elephants of Mali, the sperm whale, the whale shark and the Okavango delta. But the measuring sticks that National Geographic is really interested in don’t involve animals or landscape.
“Great Migrations” has clearly been designed in response to the success of programs like “The Blue Planet,” “Planet Earth” and “Life” on BBC and the Discovery Channel. National Geographic wants its own showcase of glossy, high-definition wildlife cinematography, whose success will be measured in marketing terms: sales of DVDs, books and overseas broadcast rights.
In competitive terms, the main and perhaps the only question is, how does it look? Is the photography, done over the course of two and a half years in 20 countries (and involving 420,000 miles of human travel), sufficiently spectacular?
At moments, the answer is yes. In the first, second, fourth and fifth episodes of “Great Migrations,” which essentially contain the program’s content, there are images that will stick with you. A shark tearing apart an elephant seal underwater, the seal’s detached head and shoulders hanging from the shark’s mouth; those army ants, like a living carpet in the jungle, devouring, in close-up, everything in their path; and, most amazing of all, a sandstorm in the Sahel, south of the Sahara, approaching like a red nuclear cloud and slowly blotting out the entire horizon.
And yet: if you’ve seen the many hours of “The Blue Planet” and “Planet Earth,” or are a regular watcher of the nature documentaries constantly available on cable, then you’ve already seen most of what “Great Migrations” has to offer, or some version of it. The salmon jumping into the bear’s mouth, the seabirds taking off in clownish slow motion, the big cats stalking, the elephants walking — it’s all pretty familiar by now, and National Geographic hasn’t done much of anything to make it feel new.
Each of the four primary episodes examines the migrations of four or five different animals, cutting back and forth among them as Alec Baldwin narrates. There is a minimum of science (beyond the recitation of greatest and longest) and a maximum of anthropomorphizing drama: the watchful eyes of concerned parents, the tender wisdom of mothers, albatrosses “renewing their vows,” the zebra father and son who have “thrown in their lot together.”
Migration may be a cyclical phenomenon, but it’s not good when a nature documentary’s story lines blur together into a clichéd cycle of drying river, fighting males, skittish females, spindly offspring, heart-tugging death (cue the vultures), heroic struggle and eventual arrival (cue the triumphal music).
“Great Migrations” suffers, in this regard, from storytelling that’s slightly more mawkish than the norm and writing that’s sometimes beyond the pale. We hear of “a place without pity,” “a whirling dervish of sex and death,” a “path aflame with sun-fired dust,” “slipping the surly bonds of earth,” “a 150-mile slog into hell” and — hold your nose — “the pungent aroma of hope.” There’s only so much that majestic photography can do to make up for that.
Less lofty, and more interesting, are the third and sixth episodes (Tuesday and Nov. 14), which drop the voice-of-God omniscient storytelling. Tuesday’s hour looks at some of the scientific projects, involving the tagging and tracking of animals, that were carried out along with the filming. “Great Migrations: Behind the Scenes,” on Nov. 14, which shows the rigors faced by some of the camera crews — including the one that captured the sandstorm in the Malian desert, and was trapped inside it for four hours — has all the humor and drama that the highly massaged animal stories lack.
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