Progressive Wednesday

Planet Earth as it’s never been seen

I’m not in the habit of promoting television shows for free, or at all for that matter. Nine times out of ten there is something to do that would be a better use of one’s time than sitting in front of the electronic pendulum watching some mindless blather. But, of course, not all programming falls into this category. So I’m going to against my usual standards and recommend that you watch Planet Earth on the Discovery Channel.

Planet Earth is an eleven-part series shot with state-of-the-art equipment that took over five years to produce. It covers all things “earth”: from mountains to the ocean floor; from 6-foot-long salamanders to snow-dwelling camels; with unique camera shot from outer space to ocean trenches. In their own words, they show:

Never-before-seen animal behaviors, startling views of locations captured by cameras for the first time, and unprecedented high-definition production techniques.

It sounds like a cheesy and obvious tagline, and I suppose it is. Still, it doesn’t even begin to describe the unique views, angles and picture clarity presented in this series. Okay, I’m starting to sound like an infomercial. See for yourself. Here are a couple of clips from the series. They’re not in high definition but you can get a good idea of the quality of the cinematography and how captivating the program is.

This first clip is the first time a snow leopard was ever caught on film. And they were even able to catch it in the act of hunting.

This one is my personal favorite shot. Have you ever seen a great white shark in an inverted leap 20 feet out of the water to catch a fur seal? The high-speed cameras allow the one-second-long attack to be slowed down to 47 seconds, in case you wanted to count the teeth. (Be patient. The most impressive shark attack comes about halfway through the clip, not that the shots before it aren’t breathtaking.)

You�ll have to check your local listings for times. It can be found on the Discovery Channel or Discovery HD Theater. If you have the capability, watch it in HD. If you don’t, watch it anyway. Make sure your bladder is empty when you sit down; you won’t want to get up until it’s over. If you decide you can’t watch it enough, you can purchase the DVD here. It comes in standard, Blu-Ray, and HDDVD formats.

They’ve also got a great website that does the program quality its due justice. Check it out and then meander on over their partner’s website, The Nature Conservancy, to find out what you can do for our beautiful planet Earth.