Even if you haven't actually seen it, you've probably at least heard people talking about the program Life, narrated by Oprah Winfrey, that aired on the Discovery Channel. The 11-part series presents amazing footage of animals and nature from around the world, and what is so cool about it, is that it categorizes the footage in a way that is highly educational, intelligible and interesting for kids. The first episode, called "The Challenges of Life," is kind of an overview or preview of what the rest of the series has to offer. After that, the content is presented in the following episodes:
- Reptiles and Amphibians
- Mammals
- Fish
- Birds
- Insects
- Hunters and Hunted
- Creatures of the Deep
- Plants
- Primates
- The Making of Life
I am really impressed with how they broke down the episodes. Parents can easily teach kids about the different classes of animals and their characteristics. The narration by Oprah often times even sounds like it is narrated for kids, but there are a couple of mating scenes in which Oprah uses words like "sex" and "sexy," which may throw parents for a loop.
And while we're on the subject of narration, I know a lot of you are disappointed with the Oprah narration. I have a couple of points on that: First, I have not yet seen the BBC version narrated by David Attenborough. I plan to view this within the next week and offer a full comparison and review. I tend to think though, that while critics of the Oprahized version may be correct in their assessments that the narration is dumbed down and condescending compared to a more scholarly and heart-felt Attenborough version, it may be true that the series has gotten a great deal more publicity and notice thanks to Oprah's affiliation. While it doesn't seem right to alter the quality of a program in order to get a big name celeb to bring publicity, if it works, you can't blame BBC and Discovery for doing it. Maybe, now that people in America are seeing what great stuff this is, a big name celeb won't be needed for the next release.
(Photo © BBC Worldwide Ltd.)
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