The Discovery Channel billed this as a show that would show us things we have never seen before. By the time the four hours are over, you will see the same things over and over and over but little of it will be new to you.
The cinematography in this production was fabulous. The way the footage was put together was terrible. The same footage was used many times. In some cases the narration was practically a word for word repeat of a segment shown an hour or two before. I lost count how many times we saw feeding frenzies of tuna/dolphins/sharks/diving birds preying on sardines/herring/mackerel.
There are so many wondrous things in the oceans. Unfortunately this show doesn't show many of them. *At least* half of the four hours was spent on Tuna, dolphins, whales, sharks, sardines, mackerel, polar bears, penguins and the like. I think most of us have seen them on film before ;-)
The amount of time spent of the unusual things was so disappointing. I would have liked to have seen more on the phytoplankton and zooplankton. They are so tiny yet are the basis of life in the ocean and they have such beautiful shapes. More time could have been spent on the deep sea animals (although seeing the same footage two and three times over the course of the four hours was useless). So many things were left out it was frustrating.
Another really big failing was the lack of a logical flow or progression. It was sometimes difficult to keep track of where in the world the action was happening. The action moved from ocean to ocean and from surface to deep sea and back and forth again and again in a very confusing manner.
A sense of the scale of many of the animals was totally lacking. In many cases you had no idea if the creature was microscopic or several feet long.
If they had cut out the repeats and had progressed logically from the ocean surface to the sea floor this could have made a great two hour show.
In short, I loved the cinematography, it was beautifully shot, but whoever put it together and wrote the narration blew it.
The cinematography in this production was fabulous. The way the footage was put together was terrible. The same footage was used many times. In some cases the narration was practically a word for word repeat of a segment shown an hour or two before. I lost count how many times we saw feeding frenzies of tuna/dolphins/sharks/diving birds preying on sardines/herring/mackerel.
There are so many wondrous things in the oceans. Unfortunately this show doesn't show many of them. *At least* half of the four hours was spent on Tuna, dolphins, whales, sharks, sardines, mackerel, polar bears, penguins and the like. I think most of us have seen them on film before ;-)
The amount of time spent of the unusual things was so disappointing. I would have liked to have seen more on the phytoplankton and zooplankton. They are so tiny yet are the basis of life in the ocean and they have such beautiful shapes. More time could have been spent on the deep sea animals (although seeing the same footage two and three times over the course of the four hours was useless). So many things were left out it was frustrating.
Another really big failing was the lack of a logical flow or progression. It was sometimes difficult to keep track of where in the world the action was happening. The action moved from ocean to ocean and from surface to deep sea and back and forth again and again in a very confusing manner.
A sense of the scale of many of the animals was totally lacking. In many cases you had no idea if the creature was microscopic or several feet long.
If they had cut out the repeats and had progressed logically from the ocean surface to the sea floor this could have made a great two hour show.
In short, I loved the cinematography, it was beautifully shot, but whoever put it together and wrote the narration blew it.