When it comes to nature documentaries, there is David Attenborough, and then there is everyone else. The veteran BBC broadcaster has been making films and series about the natural world for 70 years, and shows no indication of wrapping up. Attenborough’s latest for the BBC, , is a sequel to his 2011 Frozen Planet series, which focused on life in the Arctic and Antarctic. For Frozen Planet II, he explores frozen regions around the globe, including Greenland, the Gobi desert and Siberian boreal forests, with an emphasis on how climate change is threatening them.
Attenborough introduces the characteristically dazzling footage of animals from the BBC Studios Natural History Unit by inviting viewers to “witness their wonders while there is still time to save them”, and the spectre of climate change hangs over every moment of the opening episode. He starts in familiar Frozen Planet territory, the Antarctic, with emperor penguins, the cute creatures whose 2005 mega-hit March of the Penguins brought nature documentaries to a whole new audience. It is a perfect way for Frozen Planet II to ease into the urgent message that Attenborough wants to convey.
The series traverses the distance between poles in a single episode that starts in the Antarctic and ends in the Arctic, moving from brief glimpses of the Andes to the Himalayas and the vast Eurasian Steppe, where Attenborough showcases another appealingly cute star, the Pallas’s cat. Throughout the one episode available for review, he alternates his familiar, soothing descriptions of animal behaviour with a more desperate plea to save the habitats that these creatures rely on, as has been his focus in recent years. Attenborough even appears on screen, still full of the passion and curiosity he has brought to all of his nature documentary work.
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Two new National Geographic series on Disney+ are no match for Attenborough, although one of them is explicitly positioned to launch another international nature documentary star. Â features the BAFTA-winning wildlife cinematographer travelling the world to capture amazing images of animals, although the image seen most often in the show is of Gregory himself. The first episode opens with him complaining about needing to charge the battery in his drone, and that sets the tone for a series that focuses on the filmmaking process more than the final result.
Gregory shares Attenborough’s passion and curiosity about the natural world, but he is otherwise a completely modern TV star, comfortable on screen and ready to make every discovery and experience about himself. Behind-the-scenes footage has been a staple of nature documentaries for years, and it can be fascinating to see the effort that goes into securing the awe-inspiring footage of swooping aerial predators or swarming sea life that viewers may sometimes take for granted.
In the five-episode series, Gregory places himself up close to the animals he is documenting, sometimes taking risks – like swimming alongside tiger sharks – for the sake of landing the perfect shot. His dedication and enthusiasm are clear, and like Attenborough, he emphasises the potentially devastating effects of climate change on the ecosystems he is exploring.
But Epic Adventures with Bertie Gregory often feels more like a candid reality show than a nature documentary. Gregory highlights the artificial-sounding deadlines for him and his team to score footage of a particular phenomenon, giving the episodes a contrived sense of suspense. As they prepare for each encounter, the series can come off like an ad for Gregory’s latest camera equipment. Even when he finally tracks down the animal action he has been seeking, there is always at least one camera trained on him.
When Gregory stops chattering and turns the camera away from himself, his footage is often breathtaking. He is clearly a talented cinematographer, which is what got him such a high-profile gig in the first place, and the series delivers images of dolphins and eagles that rival anything in Frozen Planet II. It is too bad that those last only a few seconds before Gregory inserts himself back into the frame.
There is a much bigger star at the helm of , but he stays entirely offscreen. Actor Benedict Cumberbatch narrates the show, which is executive produced by director James Cameron and harnesses his interest in cutting-edge technology to illustrate natural phenomena in a new way, jumping around the world in each episode. A disclaimer notes that “some sequences have been graphically enhanced”, and indeed there are moments in Super/Natural that look a bit like special effects demos. That is all in service of depicting extraordinary animal abilities, which the series treats with the kind of bombast usually reserved for superheroes.
The producers of Super/Natural are less concerned with environmental activism than Attenborough or Gregory are, and they even include segments that place positive spins on human disruption of animal spaces. Still, any documentary that makes animals look this spectacular is obviously advocating for their continued survival, and Super/Natural’s tone is one of constant wonder and excitement. “If you think you know nature, think again,” is the cheesy tagline that Cumberbatch intones at the beginning and end of every episode, but there is something endearing about a show that uses sophisticated special effects to depict the dissemination of hamster pheromones or to highlight the ultraviolet glow of flying squirrels.
Even Attenborough isn’t immune to the allure of new technology, touting the revolutionary use of racer drones in Frozen Planet II’s first episode. Nature documentaries have made massive strides since he began his career, many of which are thanks to Attenborough himself. If Epic Adventures with Bertie Gregory and Super/Natural represent the next step in that evolution, at least they still have the original around to remind them how it is done.
