Speaking Volumes

For the past 5 or so Sunday nights I have been sitting in front of the TV from 8:00 to 10:00 completely mesmerized. Now, I’m not a huge TV-watcher, but I did not want to miss a minute of the series Life. Life was a BBC co-production on the Discovery Channel by the same people who made the series Planet Earth. The series covers the amazing stories of living creatures big and small from all over the globe, with episodes entitled:
 
Challenges of Life
Reptiles and Amphibians
Mammals
Fish
Birds
Creatures of the Deep
Hunters and Hunted
Insects
Plants
Primates
Making of Life
 
Life took over four years to make and featured many never before caught on film moments, including komodo dragons hunting a water buffalo (say what!?!), and cheetah brothers taking down an ostrich for supper. My personal favorite was the episode on primates, which featured a HUGE baboon battle, Japanese snow monkeys bathing in hot springs, and the *cutest* primate of all the spectral tarsiers of Indonesia.
 
Japanese snow monkeys:
 
  
 
Spectral tarsiers:

  
 
 
I forgot to mention these guys. Phayre leaf monkeys! That is a REAL baby monkey - not a stuffed animal!!
 
  
 
If you missed this series, don’t worry. If you visit the Life website it looks like they are running the episodes again on Animal Planet in June. The series will also be out in DVD on June 1^st.  In the meantime, get your nature fix by checking out Planet Earth here at the library.
 
There is a bit of a controversy going on around the series that I should mention. When Life aired in Britain it was narrated by British naturalist David Attenborough, while in the U.S. it was narrated by Oprah Winfrey. I guess Oprah has some haters, because critics and viewers have been completely outraged by her narration. In fact, if you look up the Life DVD’s on Amazon right now, the British version has 5 stars while the American version has a measly 1 ½ stars! Oprah’s narration didn’t bother me a bit, but I guess I’d have to watch the British version to compare. If anyone has seen the British version, comment here and let us know what you thought!