Africa a new tv series premieres tonight on Discovery Channel.

I've really enjoyed it. I would like to see a sequel that just focuses on the Africa that people don't think of. The animals of the Atlas, the Ethiopian Highlands (Gelada Ethiopian Wolf Mountain Nyala), the Montane Forests, the Drakensberg etc.

Something that's a change up of Meerkats and the Savannah both in Zoos and in documentaries is always nice.
 
Episode 1 (Kalahari) aired last night in Australia, and I was impressed. For the last 30 odd years I have believed the Kalahari to be one big, flat desert pan, but last night they showed mountains. Mysterious circles, social nocturnal behaviour in black rhinos, a recently discovered oasis and a giant underwater lake in a massive cave system beneath the desert. Fantastic.

As always, the camerawork was exceptional.

Looking forward to next weeks offering!

:p

Hix
 
The cinematography was amazing. This is a must buy.


Surfing hippos are cool (and certainly surprised me when I first saw them), but a giraffe eating a cockatoo?! WTF?!
 
We've now seen the first four (of 6) episodes in NZ, and I think the best so far has been Cape, which focused on southern Africa, and had some brilliant footage of both marine and land life. The most interesting part was the Kingfish which swam into freshwater for no apparent reason - anyone have any theories as to why they exhibit this behaviour?

The Congo and Kalahari episodes were great too, but I thought the Savannah episode was a bit dull. Looking forward to Sahara this week though, apparently there is an 18-month time-lapse sequence of Libyan sand dunes, which sounds pretty cool.

@tschandler; the Sahara episode includes footage of life in the Atlas Mountains, while the final episode shows Gelada, and all the episodes have included sections on species and places that people probably wouldn't think of when thinking about Africa. The typical megafauna have basically taken a back-seat in this series, although unusual elephant, rhino and giraffe behaviour has been given a fair bit of attention.
 
zooboy28 said:
We've now seen the first four (of 6) episodes in NZ, and I think the best so far has been Cape, which focused on southern Africa, and had some brilliant footage of both marine and land life. The most interesting part was the Kingfish which swam into freshwater for no apparent reason - anyone have any theories as to why they exhibit this behaviour?
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my immediate thought when watching was to rid themselves of external parasites (generally speaking, marine parasites cannot take freshwater and vice versa).
 
Finally watched the first episode, it is available online at
Full Episodes & Videos | Channel Ten

David B the giraffe footage was very impressive, hoping to see similar quality with Gorillas.
 
So the first five episodes have now screened here in NZ, but instead of getting the sixth and final one next week, we are instead getting one TVNZ are calling Eye to Eye "Go behind the scenes with the dedicated camera crew that spent months capturing the world's last great wilderness on film." Which sounds suspiciously like they are just going to repeat the five 15min "making of" docos already shown at the end of each episode. I hope they do show the last episode here.

Speaking of the last episode, it appears that it caused some controversy in the UK - the BBC is removing a climate change reference according to their website: BBC One - Africa, The Future

There is widespread acknowledgement within the scientific community that the climate of Africa has been changing as stated in the programme. We accept the evidence for 3.5 degrees increase is disputable and the commentary should have reflected that, therefore the line is being removed from the episode repeat (10 February) and the iPlayer version replaced.
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There are a few more details here (BBC News - Africa TV series edited over climate change comment), apparently the edit was a result of "contact" from a Guardian newspaper journalist, who has written this (massively well-researched) article here: BBC exaggerated climate change in David Attenborough's Africa | Leo Hickman | Environment | guardian.co.uk This seems like a monumental effort that I'm not sure I understand the need for. It is then followed by 722 comments.

Did any of the UK ZooChatters hear anything about this? Does it really matter? I doubt very much that a minor error about anything else on the show (for example how many days it takes a Picathartes egg to hatch) would have generated any scrutiny. Thoughts?
 
I didn't like the Sahara episode so much. It seemed too preoccupied with cinematography and nice visuals; and there were too many obviously staged sequences for my liking.
 
I think if he said that "global warming is not real. Indeed, some parts of the continent have seen a 3.5C decrease in temperature in the last 20 years" then we could be up in arms.
 
Chlidonias said:
I didn't like the Sahara episode so much. It seemed too preoccupied with cinematography and nice visuals; and there were too many obviously staged sequences for my liking.
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Yea, it wasn't brilliant, but better than the Serengeti episode. Next week is repeats of the making of segments, and the week after is the conservation episode.
 
So, just finished disc-one. I'm glad I missed out on the Discovery Channel airing, because I've come to learn that they replaced Attenbourough's narration again.

Early impressions: Fantastic cinematography and visuals. Worth every penny on Blu-ray if you're so inclined. Overall though, it feels like the beginning of an outline. Maybe I'm supposed to feel like that, though?

For example, I immensely enjoyed the Congo episode. Yet, I want more. An hour dedicated to, say, the actual wildlife, another to the political situation and how it's affecting said wildlife, and maybe a way forward out of the situation; i.e., recycling your cell phones and other electronics to cut down on the demand for coltan.

In fact, I wish the Natural History Unit would focus on smaller, more regional productions to get that necessary depth. Madagascar, for example, I felt was incredibly well done. India should be done. Wild China remains my personal favorite.

I'll finish up the second disk over the weekend.
 
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