Planet Earth Poster

The other day I was at my brother’s place and he has HD programming. I switched over to Discovery channel to see how good it looked and I saw a commercial for a new series called “Planet Earth”. It looked pretty good but I dismissed it from my mind. A few days later - while looking through the program guide (on my DVR) I saw an entry for “Planet Earth”. I just kept the timer ’cause there wasn’t much to watch anyways !

Last night, I switched on the TV and saw that 2 episodes of Planet Earth were recorded. I started watching it and within 5 minutes I was in awe ! This series is amazing - it may be a documentary but it is so good that I didn’t even forward 2 seconds of it ! The episode that I was watching was called “Fresh Water” and it explored all life that revolved around fresh water - be it from lakes or from mountain streams or the big rivers ! It absolutely blew my mind - and that too on the Simple Definition of it !! The DVDs and the HD versions (Blu-Ray and HD-DVD) come out next week - this makes me want to buy a High Definition player (PS3 ? HD-DVD player? Combo drive?). I would love to have this set of DVDs.

Apparently, the series was 5 years in the making. It is a co-production between BBC and Discovery Channel. There are 11 episodes in all :

  1. From Pole to Pole
  2. Mountains
  3. Freshwater
  4. Caves
  5. Deserts
  6. Ice Worlds
  7. Great Plains
  8. Jungles
  9. Shallow Seas
  10. Seasonal Forests
  11. Ocean Deep

Looks like I missed the first 2 episodes ! Here are some of the things that come to my mind while watching the series…

  • How do they keep the camera so steady !
  • What a place !
  • How did they get a camera there !
  • Wow !! Wow !! Wow !!
  • Amazing !!
  • How do they string the story from one place to another with the same subject / story line !
  • What a fly by - Would love to see that in IMAX !
  • Nice music !
  • Love those underwater and slow-motion shots !
  • Those facts are amazing !

Here are some of the amazing shots / memories (wish I could post a video here instead of this list :( ) of the episode that I saw last night - titled “Fresh Water”

  • Otters under water
  • Giant salamanders hunting fish at night
  • Monkey diving into the Ganges/Brahmaputra from Mangrove trees in the Sunderbans and swimming / grabbing food / playing (underwater swimming for fun)
  • Up-close shot of a Bear fishing in a mountain stream
  • Group of Otters harassing a crocodile (20 times their size)
  • Shot of a crocodile taking down a buffalo (shown at a speed that is slowed down 40 times the normal rate)
  • Billions of lake flies mating over a lake -looks like smoke over the lake !
  • Piranha Feeding Frenzy
  • Bear diving to hunt fish

Some links to more info…I know I am getting these DVDs (or HD versions) some time !