We've watched three episodes of Earth, more than enough to conclude that we won't be watching the rest.
The roughly three hours that we watched contain perhaps 30 minutes worth of useful and interesting information.
The other two and a half hours are padded out with the following:
-A hilarious Disneyesque anthropomorphized script describing the trial and tribulations of 'Life' as it tries to establish itself in an endless battle against the evil forces of Earth.
All of this is accompanied, or rather swamped by bombastic, overbearing apocalyptic music that would be better suited to a sci-fi horror film.
It was this music as much as any of the other irritating elements that made us loose the will to watch the entire series.
Back to the script, a few examples from episode 3:
"In the depths of the oceans... ..sheltered inside geothermal vents... ..are something miraculous.
Extremophiles.
An extraordinary form of single-celled life.
The ancestors of every living organism on Earth, including plants.
But they are stuck here.
At this point, their chances of making the leap onto dry land... ..are virtually nil.
CHRIS SIGHS."
Yes, we can clearly visualize these single-celled organisms desperately planning their escape from the bottom of the ocean!
If only, they think, with the brain that they don't possess, we could leave this dismal underwater prison and climb out onto the dry land, that we don't even know exists ..... because we live at the bottom of the ocean ... and don't have brains ... or legs ... or even fins ... Pure Disney!
A few minutes later we learn:
"If plants had any aspirations to leap out onto land, it was going to be very rapidly disappointed, because this land was very short-lived."
Right, so single celled organisms now have 'aspirations' ... got it!
And the part that made us laugh loudest:
"Life stayed in the water for 500 million years... ..until a moment about half a billion years ago, when, for reasons we don't entirely understand, plants' ancestors set off into the unknown.
Making base camp on rocky sediments at the water's edge."
My wife and I later discovered that we'd both had exactly the same image of a party of brave little proto-plants making their way up the beach with the classic sticks over their shoulders at the end of which dangle their little bundles of possessions.
Hilarious anthropomorphic drivel!
Oh, and here's a thought: if you're going to make a documentary about the history of Earth how about making it chronological instead of leaping forwards and backwards millions or even billions of years from one episode to the next.
The roughly three hours that we watched contain perhaps 30 minutes worth of useful and interesting information.
The other two and a half hours are padded out with the following:
- Increasingly repetitive scenes of fiery explosions and arctic wastelands.
- Increasingly repetitive Hollywood style cgi images of fiery explosions and arctic wastelands.
- Gratuitous slow motion shots of the narrator staring meaningfully into the distance as walks past the camera.
-A hilarious Disneyesque anthropomorphized script describing the trial and tribulations of 'Life' as it tries to establish itself in an endless battle against the evil forces of Earth.
All of this is accompanied, or rather swamped by bombastic, overbearing apocalyptic music that would be better suited to a sci-fi horror film.
It was this music as much as any of the other irritating elements that made us loose the will to watch the entire series.
Back to the script, a few examples from episode 3:
"In the depths of the oceans... ..sheltered inside geothermal vents... ..are something miraculous.
Extremophiles.
An extraordinary form of single-celled life.
The ancestors of every living organism on Earth, including plants.
But they are stuck here.
At this point, their chances of making the leap onto dry land... ..are virtually nil.
CHRIS SIGHS."
Yes, we can clearly visualize these single-celled organisms desperately planning their escape from the bottom of the ocean!
If only, they think, with the brain that they don't possess, we could leave this dismal underwater prison and climb out onto the dry land, that we don't even know exists ..... because we live at the bottom of the ocean ... and don't have brains ... or legs ... or even fins ... Pure Disney!
A few minutes later we learn:
"If plants had any aspirations to leap out onto land, it was going to be very rapidly disappointed, because this land was very short-lived."
Right, so single celled organisms now have 'aspirations' ... got it!
And the part that made us laugh loudest:
"Life stayed in the water for 500 million years... ..until a moment about half a billion years ago, when, for reasons we don't entirely understand, plants' ancestors set off into the unknown.
Making base camp on rocky sediments at the water's edge."
My wife and I later discovered that we'd both had exactly the same image of a party of brave little proto-plants making their way up the beach with the classic sticks over their shoulders at the end of which dangle their little bundles of possessions.
Hilarious anthropomorphic drivel!
Oh, and here's a thought: if you're going to make a documentary about the history of Earth how about making it chronological instead of leaping forwards and backwards millions or even billions of years from one episode to the next.