Lost Land of the Volcano...

[andyoxon]

Starting now on BBC1.  Should be good.  

[mattc]

It was good ...

if you like a constant "Look at Jack Bauer hunting his enemies in the jungle" soundtrack,
and a Lee Evans Soundalike who takes his shirt off whenever it rains on his rippling chest.

The actual wildlife bits were very good!

[Mrs Pingu]

Yes it was very dumbed down. If they'd cut out all the crap it would only have been about 20 mins long. It had that whole 'co-production with Animal Planet' type feel about it. The way the voiceover guy kept repeating himself every 10 mins made it seem like there should have been some adverts wedged in there somewhere 

The bat drinking out of the syringe was cool though 

[Kathy]

I enjoyed it, though I thought there was a lot of gratuitous chest-baring.

Oh, and their river-reading is pants. It wasn't a "whirlpool", it was an eddy. And they weren't "trapped in a whirlpool", they were sat on the eddy-line! If you're going to sit there then that's asking for trouble, but a couple of paddle-strokes would have moved them into the eddy where they could have safely sat and mended the outboard motor to their hearts' content.

The bat drinking out of the syringe was cool though 

It was, although they glossed over the facts that (a) they set up a load of nets to catch birds and flying mammals, and (b) if a bat like that is trapped somewhere and unable to feed for an hour or so, it will become hypoglycaemic. They simply presented it as an "injured" bat, as if they were helping it. 

[mattc]

Last night was more of the same. Some good stuff, but the dramatic music and faux heroics is deeply distracting. Not sure I'll manage another episode ...

One bit I _did_ enjoy was the wait to see what came out of the insect pupa cases*:

because they don't know the local species, they genuinely didn't know what to expect from some of these. When an unfamiliar multi-coloured moth emerged, there was real joy on the beardy naturalist's face - a lovely moment.


*Must check the jargon here ...

[andyoxon]

Well Steve Backshall is a bit of a 'character' but if you put aside the Indiana Jones meets Steve Irwin element, I think it's great - exciting to see new species being found.  But, depressing that logging was taking place down the road, and I wasn't surprised to hear the 'going rate' for a 150yr old hard wood tree was about $8 to the tribes people, and $1000s for companies further down the retail line.  Perhaps it's too much to hope that the BBC team will make a real difference, but in the previous 'Lost land of the Jaguar' there was quite a positive outcome with the Guyanan(?) govt as I remember.