Our Planet
Saanika Joshi
Genre: Nature Documentary
Our Planet is a documentary series by the director of Planet Earth, Frozen Planet, and Blue Planet II; narrated by Sir David Attenborough; and released by Netflix. The series shows footage of many environments around the world, the amazing plants and animals within them, and how those creatures are suffering and dying at the extent of human caused climate change.
One of the most disturbing moments in the series takes place in the “Frozen Worlds” episode. The episode discusses how many animals’ habits and icy environments are changing due to the rise in global temperatures, causing more ice to melt much quicker. The end of the episode focuses on a beach on the eastern coast of Russia. Because all of the ice sheets melt during the summer now, the walrus population in that area of the Arctic must find land to rest on. Over 100,000 walruses would collect on this small island, causing random stampedes and death to individuals crushed by other walruses trying to move around the island. Some of the walruses would climb an 80-meter cliff to get space of their own. However, walruses do not have very good eyesight on land, leading to many walruses losing their footing on the cliff and falling to their death. There was a graveyard of dead walruses being feasted on by a lone polar at the bottom of the cliff. Attenborough notes, “The walruses have become a danger to themselves.”
Our Planet is beautifully filmed, narrated, and scored, and it notes how different environments are experiencing different effects of human caused climate change and global warming. However, the series is very similar to Planet Earth II and Blue Planet II in tone, cinematic style, and themes. The newer documentary series by BBC with an environmental theme all touch on conservation and climate change, with Our Planet doing more so than the others. That being said, Our Planet is not more notable than the other two series. Even certain animals are shown again in Our Planet after being shown in both Planet Earth and Planet Earth II, specifically certain birds of paradise like the western parotia. Similarly, feeding frenzies that occur with large school of small fish, like anchovies, are shown in Blue Planet II in a very similar way that they are shown in Our Planet.
Western parotia from New Guinea showing off its mating dance.
Dolphins and tuna corralling a school of anchovies to feed on.
Though Our Planet was well filmed and focused more on conservation than previous series by the BBC, it lacked in new content. This made it, for me, more boring and less interesting. Had the BBC taken a different approach to presenting information or even showing different species interactions that were never shown in other similar series, this show could’ve been more exciting to watch. I think perhaps the most attracting scenes were of the blue whales and the narwhals, as they are both not filmed often and have not been filmed and shown extensively in the other BBC nature series. Overall, the amount of conservation information discussed in the series was still rather minimal, making it a hit or miss with an informed audience. This series may likely be more interesting and informative to an audience new to understanding conservation and the impacts of climate change and global warming. With this, I would recommend this to people to watch before watching the other new Planet Earth series.