Michael Palin: Into Iraq

At the grand age of 78, our young at heart intrepid traveller Sir Michael Palin ventures out to the fascinating country of Iraq. Obviously most well know for its troubled recent history SMP gives his customary gentle narrative set to the backdrop of a country most people in the Western world would never dream of going to! He manages to show us the country is so resilient about its present condition and that the people seem to be for the most part confident of a better future, despite the still lingering threat of Isis and global warming.

SMP is undoubtedly a national treasure and this latest short series is on a par with any of the other wonderful travel shows this great man has made over the years. Great stuff!

Very interesting. Age (78 when filmed) does not seem to be hindering him to any great extent and this series is as good as the previous ones. As always, very well written, put together and presented, with some stunning photography. Covers many of the main features/places of significance in this vast and varied country, although I would have expected a little more focus on Baghdad and perhaps a bit of focus on Basra and the Kuwait story (once part of Iraq). This could quite easily have been a six part series, rather than a three part, and could have covered more things. Highly recommended for anyone interested in this intriguing and historically significant country, or simply for the travel enthusiast in general.

The latter day Palin travelogues which have both been screened in the UK on Channel 5(!) see him going to misunderstood/dangerous countries. He's on a very short leash often, and is mostly just shuttled from hotel to "event" and back again, both for safety reasons and more befitting of his age I imagine! We still see Palin doing what he's best at, being a human to other humans, and in Iraq he has fairly unvarnished responses to the wonders and horrors he encounters. There's some beautiful photography in this one, particularly the amazing Kudish celebration of spring in Akre, and his scalings of both the Great Mosque of Samarra's spiral minaret and the partially reconstructed great ziggurat of Ur. It's just so wonderful to see him still rambling about. Even if he was just in Norwich. I wonder if we'll get another?

I love Michael Palins travel documentaries, but two episodes in, and I'm disappointed by the lack of research? Into Iraks recent history, and the easy conclusions that are presented on several topics.

• Yes, Saddam was a bad guy, but the war on Irak, committed by US and UK was illegal in accordance with international law. This is never mentioned.

• There are estimates ranging from 155 000 to 1 million Irak deaths due to this illigal war, and US and UK's actions. This is not mentioned.

• One could also say that the problems Irak have faced in recent history, where caused by UK colonial policies and western oil companies "greed" that started in the 1930s, but this is not mentioned, other than that it was UK companies that started the oil production.

• The Iran-Irak war, that are mentioned trough the showing of the "victory arch", again does not mentioned that it was a horrific war from 1980 to 1988, with an estimate of 1 to 2 million people that died. An again Saddam was whole heartedly supported by US, UK, France, The Saudies, Kuwait, and even the Sovjets.

So in my mind, when the series and Palin does not also present/discuss the enormous guildt/dept the western nations should have, and his own UK should have, for all the atrocities that have befallen Irak since the 1930s, then it would have been better to just do a travel documentary, without mentioning any of the things that have happened in the past.

...but it's not easy to make an interesting and entertaining documentary of a war-torn country in a desert like Iraq. As someone else pointed out, the most difficult topics are left alone, yet the legacy of war is everywhere. Somehow the series feels also a bit rushed at times, and lacking in proper research.

Palin does his best to make the little the country has to offer tourism-wise seem as interesting as possible, but the results are often sad and underwhelming. Even the most important historical sites were practically destroyed by "re-building". The end scene falls flat in a very similar way to the whole series, instead of getting to finish the journey on the shores of the Persian Gulf, the road stops in the middle of a salt desert. I don't think the rating would be anywhere this high if it wasn't for Michael Palin.

But, if you genuinely liked this, I'd like to recommend one of my favourite documentaries: Darwin's Nightmare. Worth the search!