Life is a ten-part nature series showcasing the many and varied forms of life on Earth, and is a joint production between the BBC and the Discovery Channel. Each network has released their own variant of the program, with the Discovery Channel's version — which is the subject of this review — featuring Oprah Winfrey as the narrator, and a beefier supplemental section to account for footage that was trimmed in order to fit standard US broadcast times.
The Series
Life is the grand successor to the highly acclaimed Planet Earth series, and takes a similar approach to revealing some of the wonders of our natural world. Where Planet Earth was an expertly compressed look at our entire globe, Life does just what the title suggests and focuses on the rich variety of life forms which populate our world. Each of the ten episodes focuses on a particular group (reptiles, mammals, fish, etc.) and highlights some of the unique aspects of their adaptive habits. The emphasis, as usual for this sort of show, veers towards unusual and polemic traits or representative species and makes for rather arresting nature studies.
As with any BBC Earth series, the visuals are the main reason for watching Life. This is pure eye candy and the film crew demonstrates some of the most impressive and seemingly-impossible nature shots you will find. Some of the footage shows animal habits never before captured on film; although really, most people probably have never seen the majority of Life's content whether it has been captured before or not. From the simply awesome slow-motion chameleon shots in the opening episode, on through the exquisite underwater whale and otherworldly suspended butterfly shots, this is the way nature programs should be done. Story transitions and pacing are engaging and build a genuine narrative, instead of just being a collection of cool footage. It's unfortunate that shorter US broadcast times forced the content to be edited down from its British counterpart. The locations where commercial breaks occurred are frequent and the transitions abrupt which can be distracting, a contrast from the natural flow of other titles from BBC Earth.
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