11 votes

Delightfully irreverent Underdogs isn’t your parents’ nature docuseries

6 comments

  1. [6]
    chocobean
    (edited )
    Link
    But I like my parents' docuseries. It's the ones presumably for my generation that I hate. Overall, I'm thrill that more people might be interested in nature because "lol Deadpool", but the...

    But I like my parents' docuseries. It's the ones presumably for my generation that I hate.

    Overall, I'm thrill that more people might be interested in nature because "lol Deadpool", but the hyperbolic bombast with with they are announcing this project has me recoiling and doubting their honest good faith intentions. We already have any number of "Nature's Blankiest Blank"1 that I got so sick of I stopped watching Discovery, TLC et al.

    these weird and crazy creatures that don't end up in the script because they're not big or sexy and they live under a rock.

    I'd like to counter with Sir David Attenborough:

    It doesn't get more underdogs than Life In The Undergrowth, which includes the Velvet worm, or the Kingdom of Plants

    Bad parents Barnacle Geese has been done as well.

    Ditto Bartering long tailed macaques;

    I can't now find the series it belongs to, but Sir David has a species of Jewel Wasp, Diversinitus attenboroughi, named after him. I'm nearly positive it's been mentioned in one of his series before. I also recently rewatched the episode Opportunists, from Life of Mammals, in which their cameraman went night after night into a wet cave full of flesh eating maggots, in 45°C heat, with a respirator for the guano sulfur, to film baby bats getting eaten by possums and raccoons. I have no idea what they're talking about docuseries being only about majestic lions and zebras. The same episode also showed a grizzly eating grass. Nature is already surprisingly weird without making a big deal about it.

    We also have animal episodes from Dropout's WTF101 and Ze Frank for all kinds of bizzare animals' butt, (Jerry!) here the film makers are claiming it's not popular or somehow implying it's not been done or seen?

    the pearl fish, which hides from predators in a sea cucumber's butt (along with many other species). "It had never been filmed [...]

    BBC 2016 Pearl fish

    I don't know, guys. I'll hate binge watch it, because I'm a sucker for Reynolds and animals, but I'm tempering my expectations .

    1: Futurama, "Single Female Lawyer", 1999: "I only watch shows that fit into the format, world's Blankiest Blank" "She is wearing the world's shortiest skirt?" "I'm in".

    15 votes
    1. Notcoffeetable
      Link Parent
      Exactly the same take I had hearing about this. I've watch the Blue Planet and Planet Earth series 10+ times each. OF course Sir Attenborough is quite on in the years but his voice and perspective...

      Exactly the same take I had hearing about this. I've watch the Blue Planet and Planet Earth series 10+ times each. OF course Sir Attenborough is quite on in the years but his voice and perspective are the standard. I struggle with other narrators because it isn't him.

      3 votes
    2. [2]
      DrStone
      Link Parent
      The worst I’ve personally seen so far is Tiny Creatures. Netflix pretends it’s a documentary, but it’s awful, staged, personified animal conflicts with overly dramatic narration and cinematography.

      The worst I’ve personally seen so far is Tiny Creatures. Netflix pretends it’s a documentary, but it’s awful, staged, personified animal conflicts with overly dramatic narration and cinematography.

      2 votes
      1. chocobean
        Link Parent
        I did not hate Meerkat Manor when it aired circa 2005-2008, with the American one narrated by Sean Astin (Sameise Gamgee). It was helping to fund actual research, they're narrating what's filmed,...

        I did not hate Meerkat Manor when it aired circa 2005-2008, with the American one narrated by Sean Astin (Sameise Gamgee). It was helping to fund actual research, they're narrating what's filmed, and it didnt feel manipulatively edited or scripted or overly anthropomorphic.

        But yeah some of them are basically edited to be "Jersey Shore: with claws!"

        2 votes
    3. okiyama
      Link Parent
      My takeaway as well, the fact the first picture is a honey badger let me know I'm not the target audience.

      My takeaway as well, the fact the first picture is a honey badger let me know I'm not the target audience.

      1 vote