284. Web-series Reviews – 117

More web-series reviews – this time Nature😊

Surviving Paradise – Came out in 2022.  Okavango Delta, a vast oasis, isolated from the rest of the world by unforgiving desert. It's also a refuge, built and maintained daily by its inhabitants; in return, it caters for their every need. Big cats may appear to reign here, but in reality, the fate of every creature, great and small, is intertwined.

One of the reviews from IMDB... 

Netflix usually has a tough time being tough-it frequently cuts out rather than observe violence. Perhaps in a family-kind way, it repeats that pattern to a lesser degree in Surviving Paradise: A Family Tale, in which directors Matt Meech and Renee Godfrey take a year on the Okavango Delta of the Kalahari Desert to trace how prominent animal families survive the hostile home.

As motifs go, this survival doc goes as far as it can, to a successful degree, to hammer home that survival for the constantly-moving animal population is family, whether lion or painted wolf, water buffalo or impala. If they stay within the circle of their family, usually headed by mother, they will be safe, fed, and loved.

Amidst the gorgeous photography, be it aerial shots of the expansive desert over which countless herds roam or the hypnotising eye of a lion, is the constant hunt of one species for another. While occasionally a kill happens, Netflix can be counted on to avoid the blood or just cut away once an animal has another with the deadly vampire neck bite.

Surviving Paradise is appropriate for family because it is about family and its warm, protecting embrace in the face of ever-present danger. The sequences with the lioness guiding and protecting her pride are saturated with sweetness, and, well, humanity. Dad is older now and unable to protect them, adding a modern touch to the emergence of women as primary providers. The baby elephant couldn't be cuter or safer when trotting under mother.

Credit should be given to the narration by Rege-Jean Page, whose soft modulation sucks out the terror and makes us believe it is all Nature's way. His veiled allusions to climate change is a tribute to all the filmmakers-the truth they show with their cameras is all you need to know about our responsibility to protect in the way the lioness does her babies.

Netflix gets it right, perhaps erring only on the side of innocence, an unwillingness to show the gory reality of the hunt. I can think of worse faults.

My Take – Worth a watch!

 

Wild Babies – Came out in 2022 and voiced over by Helena Bonham Carter. Follow the adventures of baby lions, elephants, penguins, pangolins and more as they learn to navigate the highs lows of life in the wild.

One of the reviews from Decider...

Wild Babies is an 8-part docuseries, narrated by Helena Bonham Carter, that takes a look at the tough starts baby animals born in the wild have during their first weeks and months. As we jump from locale to locale, we follow the plight of a particular baby animal as it struggles to be independent from its mother while being under constant threat from predators.

WILD BABIES: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A scene of a baby sea turtle making its way out of the sand where it was born to waddle out to sea. Over scenes of other baby animals, narrator Helena Bonham Carter says, “Every living creature starts life as a baby.”

The Gist: In the first episode, “New Arrivals,” we see a baby Cape fur seal born to his mother on the coast of Namibia. He’s helpless, of course, but needs to be on his own quickly as his mother leaves to feed at sea within a few weeks of her baby’s birth. In South Africa, a lioness hides in a thicket of grass to hide her three cubs from predators. In Kenya, a baby elephant still tries to get his footing, and his mother has to judge if crossing a rushing river with the rest of their family will be a safe thing for her calf.

As we go through the three stories, we see the seal cub on his own, wandering from the colony and being the lunch target of a hyena. The elephant family has trouble crossing the river, and the baby almost gets swept out by the current. When teenage lions in the pride try and fail to hunt buffalo, the lioness stays back; her cubs aren’t ready to be exposed yet.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Wild Babies seems to have a similar premise as the 2016 PBS series Animal Babies: First Year On Earth.

Our Take: Listen, we’re not going to run down a show that’s basically full of baby animals being cute and struggling to survive. If there’s any secret to being critic-proof, featuring baby animals is the closest we’ve found to that secret.

But we’re also glad that Wild Animals plays things pretty straightforward and traditional with its narrative. Carter’s narration has a modicum of cheekiness to it, but for the most part, she plays things seriously, because the early lives of these animals should be treated like the struggle it is.

Of course, the vistas put together by the various cinematographers and director-producers Sally Cryer and Gemma Brandt are spectacular, especially in 4K HDR, and that always helps shows like these. But the storylines that the show’s writers have created make the scenes of these struggling pups and calves and cubs interesting to watch.

It’s not all cuteness; there’s certainly an element of danger in the series. But we have watched enough nature series to know that, when the animal the camera is following is given a name, there’s very little chance we’re going to see them even come close to getting killed. Still, the series does a good job of showing just how self-preservation is usually the first thing these little babies learn.

What Age Group Is This For?: While the series is rated TV-PG because of the mild danger the baby animals are in, the show is appropriate for all ages.

Parting Shot: Tabo, the baby seal, barely escapes the hyena. “Soon, Tabo will need all the courage and bravery he can muster when more danger comes calling,” says Carter. We end on a picture of a skull in the sand. Is it a seal skull?

Sleeper Star: We’ll give this to Tabo, because we get to see him the moment he’s born, and we’re really hoping that he doesn’t get carried away by that hyena.

Most Pilot-y Line: Carter calls the lioness “a single mom” because she alone protects her cubs while the males go and hunt. That’s one of those lines that just crosses the line into “too cheeky.”

Will you stream or skip the 8-part nature docuseries #WildBabies on @netflix? #SIOSI

Our Call: STREAM IT. Wild Babies has baby animals, spectacular scenery, and a lively narration. What more can you ask for?

My Take – Worth a watch!

 

Our Universe – Came out in 2022.  Follows different aspects of the natural world, from an expansive look into the origin of the Universe, to life on planet Earth and how its oceans function. Narrated by Morgan Freeman.

One of the reviews from Decider...

Our Universe, a six-part nature narrated by Morgan Freeman, takes a look at how the formation of the universe, and the elements that make up our solar system specifically, created this planet that we live on, full of millions of different life forms, that have evolved over millions and billions of years. It sounds immense in scope, but creators Naomi Austin, Stephen Cooter and Alice Jones couch these universal concepts, represented by spectacular CGI special effects, with the stories of individual animals in their native habitats.

Opening Shot: We see closeups of various animals. Narrator Morgan Freeman intones, “In the lives of every creature on Earth are echoes of events that occurred a long, long time ago.”

The Gist: In the first episode, the creation and power of our sun is discussed; graphics show the explosions that occur on the surface that equal the power of millions of atomic blasts, then tunnels deep inside the core to show nuclear fission of the atoms banging around there.

On earth, we see a cheetah on the Serengeti during dry season, trying to hunt to feed her two cubs. Food is scarce, and while the adult cheetah can go days without food, the cubs can only survive a day or two. Without the power of the sun, though, the plains wouldn’t be able to go through the rebirth that happens when the dry season ends and grass and other plant life returns to the area; with the grass come herds of wildebeest looking for places to graze, giving the cheetah ample opportunities to feed herself and her cubs… if the cubs haven’t been taken away by hungry lions or hyenas in the meantime.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Name a nature show on Netflix and Our Universe will feel similar to that. It’s like Our Planet mixed with a wide-ranging, Freeman-narrated series like The Story Of God.

Our Take: While the photography is spectacular, the special effects are amazing, and the narration has the usual gravity that Freeman brings to such projects, it feels like Our Universe strains to tie its massive concepts down to the nature footage that it shows in each episode. Other episodes of the season will examine the cosmic clock, the changing of the seasons, the elements that make up all matter on the planet, and the miracles of water and gravity. Each massive concept is seen through the story of one particular species: A sea turtle, a brown bear, a chimpanzee, a herd of elements, two king penguins, a cheetah.

It feels like a lot of back and forth and when things shift it’s sometimes pretty jarring. In the first episode, for instance, we were hooked on the story of the cheetah trying to find food during dry season, hoping her cubs don’t starve to death. We saw her chase a gazelle and stop when she ran out of energy to run at top speed; it’s fascinating to see how the cheetah is a solo hunter who needs copious amounts of rest to essentially “power up” for the next chase. But then we go from there to closeups of the sun, then down to a microscopic view of a blade of grass.

And while we admire the attempts by the producers to bring such massive scope into something of a focus in 58 short minutes, there’s a lot of whiplash involved that brings us out of the story.

Parting Shot: Previewing the next episode, we see a graphic of a fetus, and Freeman says, “Would any of us be here without time?”

Sleeper Star: Lux Aeterna did the visual effects for the series, and they’re nothing short of amazing.

Most Pilot-y Line: A side trip to see some of the other subjects of this series — the chimps, the elephants, the bear — foraging for food seemed unnecessary to us.

Our Call: STREAM IT. As much as it feels like it’s two docuseries combined into a big unwieldy mess, Our Universe‘s graphics, photography and narration still make it a compelling watch.

My Take – Saw the first episode and skipped the rest😊!  Seemed so boring!