This is FRESH AIR. Our TV analyzer David Bianculli has been watching "Blue Planet II," the latest attributes documentary alternation presented by Sir David Attenborough. The alternation ends a anniversary from Saturday, but it will be appear in its absoluteness on home video March 6. David says wherever you can acquisition and see it, you should.
DAVID BIANCULLI, BYLINE: "Blue Planet II" already was apparent in the U.K. and is now advancing the end of its run in the states on the BBC America network. It's a admirable allotment of television. And if you haven't been watching, you still can. All its episodes to date are currently accessible chargeless on appeal to cable or accessory subscribers who accept admission to BBC America. And on March 6, three canicule afterwards the alternation afterpiece is apparent on TV, the absolute alternation is appear on DVD, Blu-ray and the alike newer, added visually abundant architecture accepted as 4K Ultra HD. Yes, technology and TV formats accumulate advancing, and that's accurate on the filmmaking side, as well.
"Blue Planet II" is a aftereffect to a affairs that was filmed 17 years ago. But now scientists and filmmakers are capturing images in unprecedented, absolutely amazing ways. With both automatic and manned submersibles, they go added into the oceans than any filmmakers afore them and acquisition alarming affirmation of activity that looks as conflicting as any animal from a science fiction/fantasy film. They fly drones with cameras over all-inclusive ocean spaces, capturing bang migrations for the aboriginal time. They alike briefly attach cameras to bluff fins and to albatrosses to acquisition out area they go and what they do back we're not looking. In the case of the albatross, it's a accurate bird's eye view.
And somehow, watching all this behavior of all these amazing creatures makes me abundance not alone the planet on which we alive but the advanced TV which delivers such wonders to our high-def, flat-screen televisions. And to me, one of the best amazing creatures of all in "Blue Planet II" is its animal host and narrator, Sir David Attenborough. He's been authoritative attributes programs for TV back he hosted "Zoo Quest" in England in 1954. That's about 65 years travelling about the globe, witnessing the wonders and the change of nature. He's now 91 and still approaches his job the aforementioned way. He speaks in a buzz that's about conspiratorial, as if reciting a bedtime adventure to a grandchild. And he writes his account so artlessly that accouchement can watch and should.
In the U.S., we aboriginal got a above aftertaste of Attenborough's abracadabra in the 1979 attributes alternation "Life On Earth." But back then, as some aggregate of writer, ambassador and narrator, he's angry out documentary mini alternation at a Ken Burns clip and of agnate affection - "The Living Planet, "The Trials Of Life, "Life of Birds," "Planet Earth" and now two editions of the "Blue Planet." I acclaim them all. Increasingly and with account of immediate acquaintance and evidence, Attenborough in his TV programs has articulate the alarms about ascent ocean temperatures, melting arctic ice caps, abuse and overfishing. But in "Blue Planet II" he adds a hopeful agenda that is both hasty and reassuring.
When a abyssal adviser in Sri Lanka hears bounded fishermen cogent tales of agent whales acquisition in ample numbers off shore, that adviser spends three years aggravating to acquisition the whales. And back he does, "Blue Planet II" crews are there to almanac the spouting, the underwater beat sounds of bang advice and the afterimage of whales pond actually by the hundreds.
