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Tonight's episode was all about our earth's fresh water. It had some awesome underwater camera footage of feeding piranhas in the Amazon as well as some amazing cichlids from lake Malawi. Any of you guys see it?! If you haven't heard anything about the series you can find all about it here http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/planet-earth/animals/animals.html

I had to work last night so I had the spouse record it for me. Looking forward to watching it

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There is water at the bottom of the ocean

My TiVo has been busy recording them the last couple of weeks. I've only had the time to watch one episode so far. Excellent!

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I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.
~ Mae West

I haven't been watching it on TV, mainly because I don't have a TV, but also because I don't want to listen to Sigourney Weaver ruin it. It annoys me that Discovery replaced David Attenborough with her. Planet Earth is Attenborough's last project in the "Life" series, and apparently one of his best, so I don't want to listen to anyone but him narrate it. It would totally ruin it.

I pre-ordered it on Amazon though (the BBC version), it's being released on the 24th.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

I have it on dvd already ,and its fabulous, but i cant imagine sigourney will be better than david, aside from which for a presenter of his magnitude it seems almost sacrilegious to dub over his own written work and utterly disrespectful to bugger up probably his last major work before he retires. The BBC shot most of the footage anyway. Discovory never did anything of remotely comperable quality on their own. David attenborough through his life series, and some of his work for bbc 2 as director produced and was responsible for some of the best television ever aired. You just dont take the work of someone with that talent and knowledge and edit him out unless your a complete moron. Dave knows best!

Being given a story by an actor is just not the same as the voice of the man who gives it the knowledge , the passion and the authority of his learned years.

All we need is for some more of BBC natural history units fine footage being disnified and made sentimental like that bloody "march of the penguins" crap, full of anthropormorphisations, innacurate behavioural record, and general artificial construction of a plot that simply didnt exist. This is dishonest representation, and I dont bloody like it!

Booooooo.

Be a damn shame if nature documentaries become pure entertainment and eye candy rather than maintain an educational perspective. Why are we as a culture always dumbing things down, and whatever happened to the highest common denominator rather than the lowest. Let the idiots go watch childrens television.

If you watch early episodes of life on earth, the living planet etc, they look positively hardcore in terms of natural observation compared to modern series, and so its pretty obvious dave has made quite a few concessions to accessability anyway. I'm not sure we need yet another retrograde step.

Take acessability too far and you bugger the content, and that leaves you with childrens entertainment for cheesebrains. If I could handle "life on earth" when I was little, what the hell does a modern series like Planet earth need dumbing down for? I swear people get progressively more stupid with each generation. As I recall, the point was to perhaps watch something you hadnt seen before, so as to illuminate yourself and stimulate further interest, not just to sit there and complain that it was a bit hard to understand. Its almost as if any level of education is considered elitist now, and that is a very dangerous trend.

Ummm, well....I liked it, although I enjoyed March of the Pengiuns too

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There is water at the bottom of the ocean

The female narrator does detract a bit from the experience. That's why I torrented my "copy"--most of the ones available are of the original BBC broadcast.

Git, you expressed what I was thinking far better than I could. Probably because I still can't get over the fact that Discovery had the audacity to replace David Attenborough.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

Mna, you guys;

Narrators. Serious business.

Aside from stylistic linguistic flair, I was under the impression that not all that much has changed between the two airings... And given that the main attraction of the piece[s] are the visuals, the program on a whole is, IMO, perfectly fine the way it is. The content of the narration has not been altered to any significant degree. Thus, given that factual commentary is still presented, and is, perhaps most importantly, accessible (let’s face it--the American populous is not exactly the best at deciphering British verbiage), I don't really see a gaping problem. So, really, your berating of the show is, totally unfounded—yeah, it’s cooler with Dave rattling at it, but the US broadcast is hardly the crud you make it out to be. Chill a bit, maybe.

Also, march of the penguins was cool. Elitism should never go so far as to insult others for enjoying something as unassuming as a movie.

It's not just a narrator... It's David Attenborough.

My younger sister watched an episode of the US version, and she said that Sigourney Weaver made it sound horribly depressing, even though it wasn't even depressing material. The Culture Show's website sums it up pretty well: "Whether he’s chilling with chimps or freezing with polar bears, Attenborough always reassures with his signature dulcet tones. Many have tried – and most failed – to capture his hushed, reverential whisper, full of barely contained excitement."

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

It seemed to me like the show was made as an exposition of hdtv. I enjoyed it very much. I don't think it is anything to argue about. All points made were valid, in the show and in the conversation here. As a theatric presentation I think it is excellant.

Wow I learned a lot reading through your posts. Today was Earth Day and Discovery Channel played all the previous episodes of Planet Earth alllllll day long. It was great.

I had no idea the 'lady' narrating was Sigourney Weaver, I have to admit that before I even knew who it was I found myself thinking "this lady annoys me". Now that I know who it is, I'm even more annoyed haha.

Doesn't take away from the footage though! Especially if your TV has a mute button!