3 out of 5

Executive Producer: Mike Gunton

Some amazing footage (par for the course for these BBC nature docs, which have seemed to always use the newest and best camera tech for this stuff) and some super cute footage, but ‘Hidden Kingdoms,’ as compressed as it is, only seems to really realize its pitch for about half its total runtime of three episodes.  I realize that once you’ve run through some of these things, its hard to find ‘wow’ moments, but I’d offer that you shouldn’t be funding yet another feature if you don’t have something new to bring to the table.  And most of the time they do, but ‘Planet Earth’ definitely shook things up, finding, somehow, bold ways of connecting with us – through the narrative as well as visually – in almost every episode.  ‘Hidden Kingdoms’ does right by going a little lighter with the VO than Attenborough – Stephen Fry doing the chore admirably, and without direct jest, but with a tone of mirth that can sometimes be missing in Att’s gravely readings.  And the miniature camera work is undeniably stunning, but it often lacks purpose.  Episode 1’s grasshopper mouse and elephant shrew are examples of the benefits of the style, and the shrew a further example of something I’ve seen before, but the new footage giving it more depth: being up close with these creatures absolutely added to their stories.  But episode 2’s chipmunk and tree shrew – again, cute, and the chipmunks have a really great story wended into things – don’t seem to require / use the ‘from their point of view’ effectively, especially the high-in-the-sky tree shrew, its aerial footage all CGI’d and repetitive, something that also plagues episode 3’s rhinoceros beetle and marmoset, although in that case, we do get some great insect footage with the new tech.  Each episode tries to give its featured animal a story, generally one of adaptable survival, and this is also a bit shaky – ep 1 is solid, 2 and 3 seem half and half, 2’s chipmunk bit well told and 3’s marmoset the same, but the other halves too piecemeal to seem like more than the cobbled together shots that they are.

I do appreciate that they’re now bundling all of these episodes with making ofs, because it’s just as fascinating as the show, and except for the third episode skipping the making of the insect focus (which is unfortunate), every piece is spoken to.

It seems like focusing on the ‘Hidden Kingdoms’ of tiny animals would’ve provided us with a full season’s worth of interesting stories, but I think the curve with docs is tough: new technology, and you have to get funding to employ it ASAP before someone else does, but practice would make perfect…  And there’s probably just not time or money for that.  Thus, its something of a crapshoot – some of these animals lent themselves to more organic stories and presentations, which are the best episodes, and some had to but cut and pasted together with CGI, with only about 50% of the features seemingly realizing the ‘kingdom’ aspect vs. just getting slo-mo footage.

Still, y’know, cute animals and cool bugs.