Unlikely Animal Friends

The animals should be the star of this show, National Geographic doesn't have faith that you, the listener, will be able to pay attention for more than 30 seconds if they don't apply a thick layer of loud, irrelevant music with lots of bass.

The music is louder than the narrator or the people being interviewed. I am trying to pay attention to what the animals are doing, and trying to empathize with them, imagine what they are thinking, but I can barely hear myself think. And by the time I am trying to hear the narrator, the wildlife rehabilitators and look at the animals, all buried under an onslaught of electric guitar and bass, I am exhausted.

It is truly amazing how little respect National Geographic gives to the experts who are kind enough to appear on their programs. At least this time they don't used gimmicky effects to make them look stupid, like some of the scientists they exploit. But when you can barely hear people talking, that's not very polite.

Background music should stay in the background, if it is there at all. It should not even be noticed. But here the animals and people are the sideshow to the soundtrack.

Beyond that, yes there are some cute scenes with the animals, though not earthshaking. I would have like to hear from some animal experts on what they think it all means -- what is going on inside the animals that allows them to become friends between species, and how common it is, or isn't in the wild. But perhaps National Geographic thinks the viewer would be bored with intellectual stuff.