Planet Earth: still awe inspiring after all these years

I've been watching more TV than usual lately, a lot more. The show that's sucked me in is a new twist on an old subject, a Discovery Channel mini series about the natural world we live in, titled appropriately and simply, Planet Earth. Oh, and I fully admit, it sounds cliche, and unexciting, that is until you watch it.

Proclaimed, "the definitive look at the diversity of our planet," Planet Earth culminates four years of shooting in 68 countries, all in high definition. The camera crew captures jaw dropping footage from every angle, in every environment in the world. From a seat on my couch I have watched lions bring down an elephant, a shark jump out of the water to bite a seal in half, in slow motion, dolphins hydroplane in the shallows to nab fish, and other astounding footage. The directors rely heavily on stop animation and slow motion, as well as a variety of remote control ed cameras.

The mini series features 12 documentaries each with a specific focus. Tonight I watched "Jungles," which focused on the Amazon and Congo rain forests. This segment uses stop animation to show how various fungi grow and spread out over the course of several weeks. We see a vine plant snake its way around a tree branch as if it were a live snake slithering to the upper canopy. This section lacks the intermittent violence of the other segments, with the possible exception of the part about the parasite that infects ants so they become crazy and are carried away from the colony by other ants. After some duration of time the parasite begins to grow tentacles out of the head of the dead ant, looking for something else to infect.

Planet Earth airs Sundays at 8pm on Discovery Channel. Also, some of the episodes are listed on demand for comcast cable subscribers.

Click here to watch a preview.