Our Planet Season 1 Review

April 2, 2019 at 3:46pm
By Jason Stettner

This is a Netflix Original documentary series that's narrated by Sir David Attenborough, he's somewhat known for this type of thing. It's an eight part series that focuses on varying elements of the planet and adding a certain chilling factor. It aims to really push the point that things aren't going well for nature. A lot of doom and gloom in this. Look at this majestic forest, well it's gone now since we finished filming this.

It's just a bit focused on that sad element, which I suppose is a good thing in some circumstances. There are some moments of mentioning how certain elements of nature have bounced back, but it's always because we're not there interfering. As long as humans vanish, things are good! I would have liked more of an educational approach at points, instead of giving wonder to just take it all away at almost every shift to something new. That aside, there's a lot that's covered and I learned a fair bit.

Each episode has a different area of the planet, and it's not necessarily just focused on animals. You get to learn about the actual environment that life resides in, and that was appreciated. There are a wide range of topics, locations and sights to behold across the episodes. It definitely nails that educational element and it does feel similar to Planet Earth in general which makes sense. Fans of that series will love this quicker run through of things.

This is one incredibly shot show, with excellent editing. It brings many stunning scenes that are shown perfectly to highlight the narration that backs it. The slow motion of the animals was majestic and I loved seeing how certain plants would grow. This was particularly neat on the fungi that I found disgusting, but yet intriguing as it would sprout being sped up. A neat visual setup to show the growth.

This is one gorgeous series, it really does capture the various elements of the planet beautifully. This was true from the focused animal scenes, to the overall look at the larger area. They did a good job of keeping things focused on footage, minimally adding any sort of extra graphic to it. It was great that this documentary was focused on a clear showcase of the environments that were visited.

They had a nice sense of lapse in terms of showing how rapidly the areas had been adjusted in their time filming. This works great as an educational series, which each episode being useful for a certain topic. They don't exactly feel cohesive since each presents a different area of the world, but each episode does have similar themes that help make everything have a sense of structure to the overall season.

The Conclusion

Our Planet Season 1 really nails home the point of humanity damaging the environment set against some gorgeous cinematography. Each scene was an absolute treat and the way they altered speeds to showcase certain things was excellent. The narrative was on point, just a bit too much doom and gloom for me. It's important to deliver those darker elements in the sense that humanity is causing problems when it comes to connecting with the environment.

It just could have been used a bit less, or more sparingly for a deeper impact when it would arrive. It almost comes across as preachy. I'll elaborate, I liked that it was included. I just wanted to see it more focused on driving the point home as having something dark after every little portion of what was shown came across as repetitive and that's going to turn people away. Again, it's good to see that they want to remind us of what's happening in the greater world. These are things we don't get to see, expect for in these types of documentaries.

Yet using that after basically every single thing that's shown is too dark. You want to educate people on the problems, and keep them engaged to drive that point. That aside, this looks stunning visually and it covers some creatures you've probably never seen. It should feel similar to Planet Earth if you're familiar to that, just a bit more morbid.

Our Planet Season 1 Review at Home with Streamed Viewing
Screening was Provided by Netflix

Rating Overall: 8.0