So our countdown to the greatest show of 2006 is over, and unsurprisingly, Planet Earth has come out on top.
Planet Earth has, without question, provided us with some of the most enduring images ever screened. It's difficult to write about the show without running out of superlatives as the shots given to us were so incredibly beautiful, the action so intense and subject so important.
It is difficult to imagine a programme that can match this. The whole thing felt like a swansong. It may well be the last programme that David Attenborough makes, and with that feeling, it reminds you of how brilliant he is and what a loss to our screens... and our lives... he would be. Apart from that, the show feels like a swansong for the planet on which we live. The weight of the show, the glorious breathtaking footage of our humble and fragile planet, left me feeling like the creators of the show were giving us one last snapshot before we ruin the whole thing.
To try and pick one moment from this incredible programme is nigh on impossible. However, if forced, the chase sequence of a snow leopard pursuing its prey down a sheer cliff face is one that with stay with me for the rest of my days. The camera work was mindblowing and the action and tension was almost unbearable. Like I said, it is almost impossible to single one segment out... the shots of the birds of paradise were like nothing I'd ever seen before and the shots of luminous creatures from the deep left me feeling (and reeling) like I was witnessing some strange alien drifting through space. No other programme has ever given me the feeling of being in another world, and at time, another age completely.
What seems fitting about Planet Earth is that all the technological advances made by man have culminated into us looking at nature and capturing it in all it's strange and savage glory. Never one to shy away from the brutal nature of the animal kingdom, Attenborough deftly guided the show away from cutesy and saccharine images to bring us horrifying battles between chimpanzees and a pride of lions attacking an elephant for food.
This was a series that, like nature itself, was dramatic, inspirational, beautiful, heartwarming, cruel and fascinating. There is still much to learn of our planet, and as Attenborough pointed out, we are in danger of losing our most beautiful creatures and landscapes. If anything has ever restored my faith in TV it was Planet Earth and TV has already lost its greatest show. [Mof Gimmers]
damn good choice. It really was monumental.