Queens

Visually stunning at times and some very cool animals/interactions captured but far too much anthropomorphic language and not enough science of behaviors. Angela Bassett does a great job with the delivery of the dramatic lines and I can't fault her for iffy writing. The music is at times too much "girl boss" and sometimes takes away from the show. Really impressed with the video they managed to capture and what little science was in the show was fascinating but it heavily leaned on big dramatic phrases to explain normal animal behavior that is not "ruthless" or "hungry for power", it's simple animals surviving based on their instincts and needs.

It's an all female produced, edited, and narrated documentary that spotlights female animals which I can only assume provoked the 1 star reviews. How sad that such an amazing piece of work is overlooked due to sexism. The cinematography is thrilling. Capturing these clips takes extreme talent and experience and we see that here, but what I absolutely loved is the soundtrack and editing. It worked so well with the shots and I have rewatched the end of the hyena episode over and over. I've never had a documentary evoke the emotion this series made me feel. Angela Basset is a force of nature and her narration seals the deal for me.

Beautiful cinematography, interesting subjects, but good God it was hard to stick with it as every 25 seconds there's another forcibly inserted pop song that tries to amplify the scene, but instead it just takes away from the entire experience. Each episode feels like it has 30 different clips of pop music. If you're used to the quality of a BBC type documentary with well chosen atmospheric music that enhances the scenes, this will feel like fingernails on a chalkboard. I liked the tenor and pacing of Angela Basset's voice, and again - the camera work is top notch. I hope the team behind this production keeps at it - but next time don't try to make it a music video, please.

The "Queens" documentary left me profoundly disappointed. Despite its visually stunning presentation, the experience was marred by a soundtrack that clashed horribly with the breathtaking visuals. Instead of enhancing the storytelling, the intrusive vocals turned the documentary into a misguided musical experiment gone awry.

The lack of harmony between the audio and visual elements left me questioning whether I was watching a serious documentary or a failed attempt at a Broadway adaptation.

But the disappointment didn't end there. The narrative felt superficially constructed, tailored to a specific audience rather than genuinely exploring its subject matter. Rather than delving into the complexities of queendom, the documentary presented a shallow portrayal that lacked depth and substance. It reduced the concept of being a queen to a mere caricature, devoid of the genuine struggles and triumphs that define the title.

In many cultures, being a queen is about earning respect and authority through merit and leadership. However, in this documentary, it felt like the essence of queendom was lost amidst contrived drama.

The narrative resembled a poorly written love-drama story, with animals awkwardly cast as the protagonists in a human-influenced drama. The overall result was a forced and artificial narrative that lacked authenticity and gravitas.

Rather than shedding light on the true essence of queendom, the "Queens" felt like a misguided attempt at entertainment with little meaningful insight to offer. In fact, the documentary may have been more enjoyable if watched without the sound altogether. It's a shame that such visually stunning cinematography was overshadowed by nonsensical soundtrack that failed to complement it.

The main problem of this documentary serial is the narrator, whose voice is way to low, vague and spiritless without energy. Even by increasing the volume, her low tiresome voice still became so difficult to catch sometimes. To tell the stories about the queens in the wild animal kingdoms, you need to use clear, strong and energetic voice to deliver the powerful, sometimes predictable, sometimes not quite predictable situations when those queens of the different species become weak and old and inevitably ousted by the young, upcoming and more vicious ones who come to take over and become the new queens. Yet this weak narrator's voice simply failed to deliver such wild animals' world.

The other weakness of this documentary is the random editing that jumped around. Often when we just got into that specific animal's world, it suddenly cut it short and began to tell another animal's stuff. Besides, all the contents of this documentary are already well-known and old information that we don't really want to renew or relearn. This is a very boring fact finding documentary that we could do without, especially with such terrible choice of a weal, seamless female voice just because the documentary needs to tell, that in animal kingdoms, the female ones usually reign over the males and the other females. Sounds more like a feminist's production, don't you think?

I could only watched the first episode and decided to quit in the middle.