So irritating

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Published by: AlanP on 10th Nov 2011 | View all blogs by AlanP

Documentaries are supposed to be factual. Almost journalism I contend. At least that's what I think. This evening I watched a Ray Mears wildlife thingy. Brushing his way noisily through the undergrowth he gave a short lecture on how the Water Vole (Ratty from the Wind in the Willows) is now in serious decline and really rather rare. He set up his gear on the riverbank and expressed a hope that he might be in luck. Whoop de doo, in no time at all he was getting the most wonderful pictures of Ratty.

The reality is that the pictures were taken by painstaking researchers and camera persons who scoured the area for days to find that nest and lay in wait in a damp hide for hours and hours to capture that few minutes of film. Yet wanting to convince us that these creatures are rare, in decline and hard to find the presenter pretends to wander up to a likely site and manage to capture a few minutes perfectly focussed film showing the little chap with no effort at all.

Mr Mears isn't alone in this. They all do it. Why do they follow this daft convention? Rare creatures are hard to find. That's surely the point! He was not incredibly lucky.

Why do they do this nonsense?

Comments

13 Comments

by Wrathnar the Unreasonable 6 months ago

Dude, would you rather watch a twelve-week series of hour-long shows where absolutely nothing happens until the very end when you finally get a few blurry seconds of something which might be a water vole, half-obscured by foliage?
by AlanP 6 months ago

No, I wouldn't. I suppose I'd rather watch a documentary about the wildlife than about the presenter.
by Wrathnar the Unreasonable 6 months ago

They've been making wildlife documentaries for decades, they're just going over the same ground again and again. Unwow! It's another small brown furry thing that eats, mates, makes a nest and generally sucks ass.

They need to find a way to make these things more original and interesting, like you could gene-splice them into fun combinations, eg crayfish-weasels or woodlouse-badgers, then make them fight each other with medieval siege weapons.

Nature totally lacks originality, and it needs to be more commercial in order to survive in today's market.
by John Taylor 6 months ago

I must admit that in the latest edition of the David Attenborough show, his scripts sound increasingly like the old Walt Disney features. 'And now, as the sun goes down on...' HIs narration is completely redundant half the time, but I suppose they need him to make the programme 'important'. It's all packaging, in the way that prog. rock albums used to have gatefold sleeves to make them seem more than tarted-up R&B.
by Caducean Whisks 6 months ago

I haven't heard much of the latest Attenborough epic, but I've watched it avidly. His voice is just background soothingness. We all know those progs take 2 years to make, employ some of the best wildlife cameramen in the world, who live for 6 weeks in arctic hurricanes to capture a few shots of a penguin - and they're totally stunning! The beauty they manage to capture is peerless, IMHO. How about the killer whales popping up through a hole in the ice, or the narwhals swimming along a fracture line? Exquisite work. They're worth the licence fee alone, to me.
As for Ray Drears? He just makes me cross. I always switch over.
by Gerilyn 6 months ago

Bear Grylls makes me really cross- he kills everything he finds. At least Ray Mears didn't skin ratty, pee in his pelt then wear him round his neck. (Like BG did with a snake) Yuk.

Steve Irwin taught us that snakes and crocs just want to be loved too. God bless, Steve Irwin. Mate.
by Spangles 6 months ago

A few years ago we lived on Romney Marsh, full of reed-fringed dykes (steady, boys, steady), swans' nests and, strangely enough, water voles. When we went for a walk I would often mentally hear David Attenborough narrating what we are doing in the way John describes - 'And as Jane passes by on this sleepy summer's afternoon, a moorhen wakes from a short nap and a heron flies overhead.'
by AlanP 6 months ago

Everyone's right of course. There are no new jokes, no new stories and no new wildlife documentaries. What will we do? Oh woe, woe.
by Jill 6 months ago

David Attenborough's epics are my favourites, not only for the reasons CW cites, but because he has been a hero of mine since early childhood. Won't hear a word spoken against him!!
by Mcallan 6 months ago

Yes Attenborough rocks! He would be one of my imaginary dinner party guests. Along with Michael Palin, Roy Hud, Barry Cryer (just to hear those two outdoing each other on the memory lane tales would be fab) Joanna of course...cos she can just whisper to me..and...emmm...where am I going with this?.....
by AlanP 6 months ago

That's an interesting point, Mac. Possibly a blog discussion in itself. Who would you have as your fantasy dinner party guests. Sort of Desert Island Dinner.

They have to be in some way well known/famous or it won't be fun. For me Pamela Stephenson has to be there. These days she's a psychologist specialising in sex, which makes for interesting conversation I should hope, but above all she is dead fit. What's not to like?

Oh, John Cleese can come.
by Mcallan 6 months ago

Ohhh..forgot about Pammy!..and if she comes will Billy be invited?
by AlanP 6 months ago

Only if he promises to behave himself.