Wild Isles

Few television experiences excite me more than a David Attenborough nature documentary.

Wild Isles is a tremendous exploration of the wildlife of the British Isles. The landscapes of Great Britain, its surrounding territories, and Ireland are magnificent and provide a beautiful backdrop to the action.

I find it genuinely difficult not to award 10 stars, but I just felt like the series forced the "this is Britain and it's fabulous" message a little too much, making it fall slightly short of similar programmes like Planet Eart II.

It would be a shock to most people if you don't like this show.

BEST documentary I've ever seen! And I've seen a lot. The cinematography is fantastic, and each scene is better than the previous one. How many have sat down, committing time and energy, to see a documentary, only to be disappointed with viewing something you've seen a million times before? Not with one! Everything is unique and refreshingly new. The dedication the camera people, producers, and crew put into this final product is not short of outstanding.

Last but not least, I must take my hat off to David Attenborough. I mean, the man is almost a 100 years old and still he continues to work and astound! Kudos!!!

Wonderful images, beautiful views, amazing how Attenborough and his workers managed to create all the scenes. It is also frightening to see how much species dissapeared over the years.

The only thing in my opinion that made it difficult to watch is the continuous music in the background. For example in episode three,Grasslands, you can hardly hear the beautiful sound of the lapwings and other birds in the fields. Why oh why is background music in films about mother Nature necessary?

Buf furthermore, compliments to the crew about this amazing serie.

Hopefully Attenborough will make it in good health till he is 120 years, almost irreplaceable.

Silverback Pictures give us another beautifully filmed nature series - this time the brief was "don't say the B word" and so we have a deeply nonconfrontational and nostalgic series all about the natural and globally important beauty of the sovereign United Kingdom and its surrounding territorial waters. The music has strong 90s nature doc overtones and the whole vibe is tremendously serene. In fact it was so soporific I found myself dozing along to most of it. I say this not to denigrate the series but to highlight its supreme peacefulness. There was some contemporary fuss about the final "episode" which amounts to an extremely passive little overview of some carefully selected projects which are in no way going to set anyone off. This is Britain and everything is alright. Everything is alright. It's okay...it's fine.

Taking placed in and around Britain and Ireland, the old master in perhaps his final presentation, avidly narrates alongside views of exquisite wildlife footage in this 5 episode series, showing us the remaining pockets of land and water which are home to remarkable animals. This series on wildlife is as fascinating as any that have come out of more exotic locations. Britain or Ireland could build a zoo just showing these local creatures and it would be a smash.

Sadly, we are reminded that due to human encroachment, pollution, farming runoff, overfishing, few such areas remain and the population of the various species examined have dropped up to 90% in recent years. Hopefully though unlikely, these trends will be reversed.