Sunday, August 23, 2009

Please Make It Stop!

OK I love wildlife documentaries - I like watching the scenery and the amazing animals and learning more about the world. So when I saw a new one on BBC One I thought brilliant and couldn't wait to put it on. But "Wildest Dreams" isn't really a wildlife documentary. It's a reality show in which budding wildlife documentary makers are pitted against each other in a pathetic attempt to create drama and tension and win a job making wildlife documentaries at the BBC.
Seriously I've had it on for ages and I've seen about 2 minutes of footage of wildlife and 30 minutes of people sat around a dessert oasis on camping chairs talking.
Worse still it's hosted by Nick Knowles. Why is he doing more and more stuff? He's really irritating - his idea of humour is cheap and uninteresting gags about the cliched "differences" between men versus women. He claims to do charitable work for anti-bullying charities (such as in the inappropriately-posed photo above - seriously, the two young women he is manhandling are in "act against bullying T-shirts) but then he treats the contestants on the show in a really manipulative and patronising manner.
And what exactly does he know about wildlife documentary-making? Why is he the "expert" dishing out the advice? If they had David Attenborough and Saba Douglas-Hamilton I'd at least think the show had some credibility.
This is STUPID. We do not need more reality shows and we do not need any more of that smarmy man. If we are paying a camera crew to go to Africa, they should film the sweeping savannah and the animals and the devastating impact of climate change, not Nick Knowles talking... Hire someone good and go out and make great wildlife films!

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