PLANET EARTH: DYNASTIES
BBC America, 9:00 p.m. ET
SERIES PREMIERE: The latest nature documentary series from the Planet Earth group takes the very latest in modern technology (both the footage and audio are astounding) and pairs it with an unprecedented commitment of time, filming various creatures and their plights over months and years. In a way, this up-close-and-very-personal approach has a lot in common with those early Walt Disney nature documentaries of the 1950s and 1960s, giving animals names and families and dramatic story lines so that we care deeply about every life, and death, in the natural order of things. In the U.S., the first episode shown involves lions – and with the perennially fabulous Sir David Attenborough as host and narrator, you’ll care, believe me. It’s sad, and especially angering, when one of the most deadly elements encountered by this particular pride of lions turns out to be human beings. Then again, people doing horrible things pretty much describes the majority of documentaries in film and TV history. For a full review, see Alex Strachan’s TV That Matters. This latest series is simulcast across several sister networks in the Discovery pantheon – not only BBC America, but also Discovery, AMC, IFC, and elsewhere.