Life on Our Planet

While comparison to both "Walking with Dinosaurs" and "Prehistoric Planet" is unavoidable it isn't the most fair way to judge a show. Both of the aforementioned shows are the cream of the crop of prehistoric documentary series and at least one of them also holds a fair bit of nostalgia for a lot of people (me included). It is unavoidable that in at least some ways any prehistoric documentary series would fall short if held to such high expectations. Being worse than those shows doesn't automatically make a show bad.

With that out of the way, let's actually try to review this series in an as objective way as possible.

First off, visuals and sound design. They're good, great even. The CGI could have been better but is still more than adequate. The animation is a bit floaty on occasion and if you really pay attention to it it will slightly break the immersion. I find the soundtrack to be great, it doesn't bother me or pull me away from the action and on at least a couple occasions I was actively appreceating it. Animal and surrounding sounds are fine, nothing stood out to me as bad, which is really all it needs to do. I also really like Morgan Freeman as a narrator.

The storytelling choices leave me a bit puzzled though. First of all, there is the addition of modern filmed documentary bits, which to me feel really unnecessary. They could have just made 30 minute episodes instead of padding the runtime in this very strange way. Because shooting nature documentaries isn't cheap or easy. Another problem with these are that they often aren't new for frequent documentary viewers and break your immersion.

The documentary is very informative and explains a lot of interesting concepts extremely well. The way it explained the great dying (Permian extinction) was amazing for example. There are some things that could have been improved though. The time period we find ourselves in often isn't made clear, especially in the first few episodes this can be annoying. They also tend to jump from here to there a bit too much, instead of just going chronologically.

It covers a lot of different species and stories per episode, which is great. I do wish that they would have been a bit more original in their choice of creatures instead of going for the more well know ones. There are a few mistakes (conscerning science and realism) but nothing terrible in my opinion.

I've focussed a lot on the "bad". But let me make clear that this series really isn't a bad one, not even in the slightest. It does fall short when compared to the giants that "Walking with Dinosaurs" and "Prehistoric Planet" are, but has a lot of merit in its own way and definitely deserves to exist and be watched.

It was entertaining enough but for me it was a slightly dissapointing. There was hardly any mentioning as in wich era or epoch the events took place. The millions of years are mentioned but not if it was the Silurian or the Carniferous or Plioceen, to name a few. Furthermore there were too much images of modern animal life. The prehistoric life was ofcourse GCI but I've seen better in BBC documentaries. Morgan Freeman does a good job narrating this series but he is certainly no David Attenborough. All in all it was a good production but could've been better and even great if they showed more prehistoric life and less contemporary ones in this tale of the evolution of life on earth.

So yeah..its poor timing. But i thought Netflix was pointing me at a show I had just finished watching. But no. It is different.

This show..is amazing. With amazing voice over and amazing animation...at least until they move. THen it gets a little wonky..but still not bad.

My only complaint...and its a big one. IS that I absolutely hate the fabled story telling sections. This catbird species's males danced together for male dominance..and then they continue that trend, talking about how it probably did this and probably did that. But they don't say probably. They show and say with certainty that these fabled stories happened.

That was my biggest complaint with the previous morgan freeman documentary..the forced storytelling. Its such a lame device.

And i had just seen the same octopus male pretending to be a female at least twice before this. And it is even the same footage.

As someone who is new to this subject, I found the series fascinating and informative. The nature footage is spectacular, as to be expected by a British natural history show! But I also really loved how this felt different and fresh as a concept. The CGI animals from the past were used in a clever way to bring the past to life, and though jumping through time from past to present was confusing at times, the overall message was clear and I learnt a lot.

Morgan is always great, though I love Attenborough too. Just one more to watch and I'll have binged it all! I hope there is more content like this on the way from Netflix.

The new Netflix series "Life on our Planet" is really good. I liked it a lot.

It is a mix of astonishing wildlife photography and animation - the latter being so good it is difficult to tell which is which.

The sound production is also awesome (if you watch it you'll see what I mean).

I learned stuff, which is always good. I like how it focuses on the five mass extinctions. It motivated me to do some further reading about them.

Morgan Freeman narrates it brilliantly. He speaks clearly and with passion.

I really have nothing negative to say about it. There are people who compare it negatively to Attenborough series but I've not watched the latter and so... oh well. Nor have I seen the series people mention that is on AppleTV.

So... I happily recommend this series. I liked it a lot.