Review of Life on Earth

I thought this was the most impressive David Attenborough documentary I've ever seen. The scope and scale of what it achieves here is wonderful. The series first and foremost is about setting out to educate us not to entertain us or make us gasp. It looks at things in terms of the population level and not at the individual level. The range of locations covered is brilliant, Attenborough essentially tells the entire story of evolution right up to the present day and the innovations mankind has made over the last few hundreds years, not bad for such humble origins. The series employs lots of things to visually aid the story including both fossils and modern comparisons of animals today which highlight key changes such as the mudskipper and lungfish. The cinematography is lovely and it uses a lot of tripod shots so we don't have all the swirling and panning and constant movement that modern BBC series seem so obsessed with.