Nick Baker's Weird Creatures

Chlidonias

Chlidonias

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15+ year member
this is a fantastic series which I have seen random episodes of every now and again when screenings coincide with my free time, and I really think its time it was discussed on Zoochat!! This is one of the very few GOOD wildlife tv series on nowadays with a presenter who has a genuine fascination and delight in the animals he's looking for, rather than the usual Animal Planet rubbish like Jeremy Wade's River Monsters and Austin Steven's Most Dangerous.

The episodes are as follows (asterisked are the ones I've seen):

Series One:

Horned Lizard*
Candiru
Pink Fairy Armadillo*
Lake Titicaca Frog*
Gharial
Basking Shark*
Star-nosed Mole


Series Two:

Olm
Tarsier*
Alligator Snapping Turtle
Hellbender
Chameleons
Wels
Aye-aye*
Mimic Octopus


Series Three:

Leafy Sea-dragon
Mexican Worm-lizard
Axolotl
Marsupial Mole (I really want to see this one!)
Bornean Slow Loris*
Horseshoe Crab
Anteaters
Pigmy Three-toed Sloth*
 
River Monsters is typical of the modern form of wildlife documentary, where a whole lot of nonsense is dressed up with pseudo facts and drama to make it appealing for the masses. If you don't know the subject -- and most people don't know much about fish -- then it all sounds very realistic, scientific even (especially when he claims to be a "fish biologist") but its not. I watched the "Flesh-ripper" episode with two other people. We all know NZ wildlife well and know long-finned eels very well, and we were laughing ourselves sick throughout the whole thing at how appallingly absurd it was. This was the worst of the episodes but they are all utter crap to put it politely.
 
I really love these programmes but find that few people I know seem to have watched them (but when they do they enjoy them).

What elevates them above most other nature documentaries, for me, is Nick Baker himself. He's very likeable and you can tell he's passionate (and always has been) about nature, rather than a nano-celebrity fronting a wildlife programme to pay the bills and get a little exposure. The one with the Wels Catfish is elevated to something beyond a wildlife documentary by the way it intertwines him bonding with his father. Also, on a more base note, he really does pick some awesome animals to pursue that get little exposure elsewhere.
 
Yes i quite like the Nick Baker progs too,but he must take some kind of award for frequently FAILING to obtain film of the required creature!This can actually be quite good as then they retreat to some captive situation or museum by way of consolation[as did "Last Chance To See" with Amazonian Manatees].
 
Shorts said:
What elevates them above most other nature documentaries, for me, is Nick Baker himself. He's very likeable and you can tell he's passionate (and always has been) about nature, rather than a nano-celebrity fronting a wildlife programme to pay the bills and get a little exposure.
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absolutely. He has a rather contagious enthusiasm for the subject, and each episode is sort of like a little travelogue following him actually going out and looking for the animals. Another reason I like the show is because it is exactly the sort of thing I'd like to do, and the sorts of animals he chooses are just the sort that I would choose myself.

Tim Brown said:
Yes i quite like the Nick Baker progs too,but he must take some kind of award for frequently FAILING to obtain film of the required creature!
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I think the only ones I've seen where he's failed was the fairy armadillo episode (I would assume also the marsupial mole but I haven't seen that one yet). I'm not sure what regular viewers think about watching an animal programme where they fail to even find the animal, but for me it just demonstrates how contrary animals are when you're trying to see them and what animal-watching is really like, so I approve of it.
 
Chlidonias said:
Another reason I like the show is because it is exactly the sort of thing I'd like to do, and the sorts of animals he chooses are just the sort that I would choose myself.
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[This might be a set of questions better suited for a conversation in the PMs, but] is this still something you'd be interested in doing? Or has the dream kind of faded as the last several years have passed? If not, what steps have you taken (or plan to take) towards making this a reality? I ask partly because this is something I myself have become more and more interested in doing lately, and partly because I haven't really known anyone else who's also wanted to. (I, of course, know there are probably many people out there right now who want to do this. I just mean I've yet to actually talk to someone who does.)

Chlidonias said:
I'm not sure what regular viewers think about watching an animal programme where they fail to even find the animal, but for me it just demonstrates how contrary animals are when you're trying to see them and what animal-watching is really like, so I approve of it.
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This is exactly why the behind-the-scenes portions of documentaries often appeal to me so much more than the rest of the documentary, and why that hypothetical saola film I described would be so interesting to me, even without a second's worth of saola screentime, haha. It's the search for such elusive animals itself that often heightens the sense of wonder for me.
 
AnaheimZoo said:
[This might be a set of questions better suited for a conversation in the PMs, but] is this still something you'd be interested in doing? Or has the dream kind of faded as the last several years have passed? If not, what steps have you taken (or plan to take) towards making this a reality? I ask partly because this is something I myself have become more and more interested in doing lately, and partly because I haven't really known anyone else who's also wanted to. (I, of course, know there are probably many people out there right now who want to do this. I just mean I've yet to actually talk to someone who does.)
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It was just a throw-away line - it wasn't actually something I had any intention of ever pursuing, just something that I thought would be neat to do. I prefer simply going looking for animals for my own sake.
 
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