Earth

Once in a long eon (or so it seems) there is a moment in TV history that puts your faith back into the idea that there is some kind of plebian brain cells left somewhere at the bbc! 'EARTH' the 5 part brilliant, informative, expertly presented (by Chris Packham) tv series has been a long awaited revelation! Out of the Crass, Vile, cheap mush that clogs up all the channels a beautifully constructed series about how our cold ball of rock transforms into the amazing Blue/Green pearl over millennia is so gratifying. Chris Packham is gradually progressing to fill the shoes of the 'Father of the planet' David Attenborough. Deep praise to all concerned.

This was all over the place, if you're after a decent version of our Earths history, that's in layman's terms for us dumb a**es, this isn't in, half the sentences in this show made little sense in correlation to what was actually on screen.

Apparently, primates learnt to walk because of the huge new distances between trees (due to asteroid impact) and that's why gorillas & chimps can't get about without swinging from tress, because they were not met with this issue...excuse me! What! I'm no expert on primates, but I'm pretty certain I've seen both gorillas and Chimps roaming the flats without the need of a branch.

I often lamented how the demise of BBC's Horizon represented an inability and lack of confidence in the BBC to aim high when considering how to present a documentary. Well, perhaps there is a resurgence on the way. I binged all 6 episodes.

This series is presented in a logical mature style where the story of the earth unfolds 6 episode, with each episode covering the essential elements that supported the creation of Life. From the atmosphere , to the evolution of plants and humans. There are gaps in the narrative and a few leaps of faith, but the story is well presented by Chris Packham in a personal but still scientific manner.

Now what is absolutely surprising, and a credit to the BBC, is that it was co-produced by US based NOVA and GBH-Boston and does not suffer from being dumbed down but most importantly there are no talking heads interfering with the narrative. The producers have sensibly pushed them to the end of each episode, so that if you want to listen to them if you want to get some further background you can or not. Thank goodness they were not part of the main episode, their style of of presentation would have detracted from the integrity of the Packham's delivery.

A series that tries to condense approximately 4.6 billion years of history into five hours, is inevitably going to be highly selective about what to include. The astromological impacts, the changing geology, and the consequential impacts on the atmosphere, were fascinating. The origins of plant and animal life and their subsequent developments were also interesting. The part I found wanting, was an exlanation for the origins and devlopment of fungi. Whilst plant life was demonstrated to have evolved from the sea, when it hit land it developed a symbiosis with fungi, according to the program, resulting in the origin of lichen. But there was no expalnation of where the fungi originated. Furthermore, some early species of fungi were apparently enormous, towering over everything else that grew at the time. Yet, how these enormous structures came to exist, when according to the program the world was still made of bare rock with little or no organic material, was not explained.

The series could have been longer and more detailed, but it is in my view, one of the most important natural history series in a long time. It clearly demonstrates how major and sometimes minor changes to the environment can produce dynamic and sometimes unexpected and profound changes to the ability of life to maintain itself.

In these present times of uncertain climatic forces, this is a very timely series.

Beautiful, awe-inspiring and emotional. It tells an amazing story and, in more places than is usual for this kind of show, actually explains the evidence for the statements.

Chris Packham surprised me at being able to hold a bombastic show like this together. His shows are usually much smaller and more informal. He even sounds like Attenborough on occasions!

But the glaring problem? The script keeps using the language of creationism around evolution. It implies evolution had purpose, that organisms chose to evolve, that the Earth created conditions specifically to allow humans to exist. None of this is true. Evolution has no direction or purpose. It is just "whoever had the most grandchildren, their traits will spread through natural selection". I get that it makes for flowery prose, but it is misleading at a time where we need to be literate about this stuff.

The message it gives? Don't worry about climate change. The Earth chose to save us before and will eventually do it again (with volcanoes probably) so don't sweat it. We might even choose to evolve to cope with it. We need to understand the opposite.