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Who’s in it? Planet Wild - at least while we read the title on the DVD—seemed like Animal Planet’s riposte to my college English Literature professor, who often sarcastically remarked that the channel was only for ‘cute’ animals. When the episode played, my guests from Scandinavia, watching the marmots being featured, immediately said, “Oh, how cute!” More seriously, Planet Wild studies the survival skills and life patterns of animals, the predators that stalk them and the eco-system that they inhabit.
The story so far? The Marmots episode is filmed in Kazakhstan and the land’s natural beauty is breathtaking. Tulips originated here, the narrator’s soothing voice says, before adding that summer is Marmot paradise. It isn’t hard to imagine why. Typical to the troika of Discovery, Nat Geo and Animal Planet, each episode follows the animals through fast-winding seasons and life cycles–dating, mating and birthing little animals.
What’s hot? The interconnectedness of it all—the land (Kazakhstan was ravaged by large scale ploughing and rigging in land assumed to have oil in the Soviet era), predators and prey (marmots must die for eagles to survive) and the inevitable onslaught of humans is an important lesson for kids without television sounding like a lecture. The subtlety of it all is admirable. My 11-year-old sibling was certainly hooked. Maybe it was the sight of five marmots standing erect like humans, scouting the air for trouble.
That’s the other part. How the director creates suspense by zooming into field lizards, long shots of eagles and an impending storm. Another shot of tulip fields infested with millions of breeding mosquitoes is also stunning.
What’s not? The natural beauty and ruggedness of Kazakhstan certainly gets its tribute, but like some of the smaller towns in India, the bucolic idyll of the countryside is exoticised. The narrator is made to sound like he’s from some major city, and the poor guy’s actually only doing his job.
Should you be watching it? Planet Wild—we don’t know if all their episodes have ‘cute’ animals—continues in the same vein of many series on television— that the earth is a simultaneously beautiful and dangerous place to live in, its resources are depleting and it’s up to you to look after it. This series does it as beautifully and subtly as any of the others.
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