25 Oct '10

“The “earlier” captions were only the second most irritating aspect…The most irritating was the withholding of information from the viewers. The second hour was better because [it] deigned to tell us enough to be getting on with.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“It helps to have a spreadsheet open if you want to keep track of things here, because the time jumps come at you like wasps at a picnic and there’s more than one set of Theys too.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

“[It] revealed the remarkable extent to which Attenborough is, behind the scenes, all one might have hoped: charming, funny, engaging, uncomplaining, extraordinarily well-informed and pleasant without being too nice.”
Tim Dowling, The Guardian

“What was special about the documentary was that it let you see the relaxed, funny mischievous, private man.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“It got off to a cracking start.. It’s quite funny, deeply gory and more than a little in love with its own sense of transgression. I have no idea where they go from here. They used up a season’s worth of fake barf in one go.”
Tim Dowling, The Guardian

“[It] doesn’t exactly deprive the audience of simple narrative pleasures…But it beds those simple pleasures in something a little more complicated: a genuinely attentive account of how compromised many strong emotions are.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent