THERE ARE WILDEBEEST IN THE Serengeti who yawn when they see yet another camera team from the BBC approach. There are meerkats with their own agents. Even in the depths of the ocean, wildlife filmmakers have penetrated to the darkest regions to give
obscure anemone their own close-ups. Everyone knows the BBC do nature better than just about anything, but they must be running out of flora and fauna to cover that Attenborough and co haven't tramped past a dozen times already.
Thank goodness, then, for China – not a phrase many people have been saying lately – which opens the prospect of new wonders for the BBC to cover. The accessibility problem in the past wasn't so much about capturing the animals, it was down to human issues: the Chinese weren't keen on western film crews. Now, anxious to promote their natural resources pre-Olympics, Beijing's China Central Television has done a co-production deal with the Beeb that serves, more or less, as an advert for the PRC.
What
Wild China shows, however, goes beyond transient nasty regimes and political disputes. Here we have striking scenes that stretch back to ancient times. For example, the terraced paddyfields of Yunnan province, built hundreds of years ago and plunging 2,000 metres down to the Red River. From above, an aerial shot makes them look like pieces of a giant mosaic. Then there is the stone forest of jagged limestone peaks, the jumping black monkeys clambering across near-sheer rockfaces, almost like cats, clutching their little ginger babies. Or the extraordinarily poetic night-vision images of bats hunting fish.
The series, which concentrates on the sub-tropical south in this first episode, aims to show rural Chinese life as well as the animals and landscape. Certain passing scenes could have been expanded into a whole programme, such as the school in a huge cave – like something out of a particularly odd Enid Blyton story. Under its roof, there's a large hut without a ceiling where local pupils come to learn; 18 families live in the cave as well, with their livestock. It would have been nice to hear more about this, or about the fishermen who train cormorants to hunt underwater for them – apparently, the birds can keep track of their catch and go on strike if they are not given corresponding rewards.
The novelty of wildlife filming in China provides strange "new" creatures, such as the "puffy-faced baby fish", a giant salamander so named because it cries like a baby (and no wonder – it's endangered due to illegal poaching).
There will be many shows about China this year, but this will surely be one of the most spectacular. Its only negative is a slightly pun-tastic script, read by Bernard Hill.
The Doctor, as his ninth incarnation once said, doesn't do families. And yet tonight's standout episode of
Doctor Who is brazenly titled "The Doctor's Daughter". But ... but ... how? Who? Why?
It would be mean to spoil things, but I'd caution a slight lowering of expectations here: if you think you'll get an explanation of Susan, the mysterious grand-daughter from the series' early days, or find out that one of his previous companions turned out to be rather more than a friend, or even – as the nuttiest theory has it – that Time Lords are actually grown on genetic looms (don't ask), then you might be disappointed. It's not as complicated as all that.
As played by Georgia Moffett – clearly cast because she is fifth Doctor Peter Davison's real daughter, though she turns in a perfectly good performance – daughter Jenny is a perky blonde teenager, which finally makes good on the reinvented show's debt to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The episode is a classic exposition of the Doctor's pacifism and commitment to finding ways out of a conflict other than fighting. It's what that makes him so wonderfully unusual compared to the trigger-happy heroes churned out by central casting.
Sadly, the distinctly non-pacifist Gordon Ramsay is not bucking any trends, but jumping on the tired "celebrity" bandwagon. Why telly producers think any programme is automatically better if it features a few D-listers is beyond me.
Gordon Ramsay's F Word was never the chef at his best (that would be the more focused Kitchen Nightmares), with an unwieldy format that veered between raising animals for slaughter to a competition for the best assistant. But the change this series to having his kitchen staffed by celebs is deeply annoying – especially since one of them is Geri Halliwell, squawking about meatballs. Enough to put you off your dinner.
The full article contains 793 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
