Unmissable television, Born To Be Wild. Picture Supplied Family television does not have to be sitcom time. There is a show that is so meticulously crafted and oh so very emotionally tingly that scrolling past it would simply be streaming sacrilege.
It’s called Born To Be Wild on Apple TV and this is not your average wildlife programme, nor is it a bleeding heart extinction piece. It is just, quite simply, gorgeous, heartwarming, educational and nailed-to-the-screen intriguing. All the things you’d normally expect from the master of conservation shows, Sir David Attenborough.
Except, this six part series picks up where the master left off, and checks every box on the entertainment check list, too. Each episode follows young, endangered animals around the world, from an elephant calf in Zambia to cheetah cubs, Cape Town’s penguins, a moon bear, a lemur and Iberian lynx kittens. Each story begins at a point of vulnerability, whether a rescue narrative or a birth into a managed programme, and then tracks the animal from baby to grown up.
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This is simply put, but each episode has nuance that you must watch to appreciate. What makes the series so incredible, apart from the emotional attachment viewers develop with the characters, umm, animals, is that it does not judge in any direction, especially when it comes to the role human beings play. That is, the destruction of nature and, in ways, its saviours, too.
It’s almost an outside-looking-in feeling throughout. We hear how elephants are poached, and then we see Wam, short for Wamway, the orphan elephant being raised and loved by a human caregiver. Wam was rescued from a muddy puddle where he was stuck, by people, but in the same breath the narrator tells us the parents were never found.
The suggestion is clear. In the Western Cape, SANCCOB (Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds), incredible work is being done in saving the endangered African Penguin. Eggs are collected, gestated and chicks’ hand reared before reintroducing them to the wild, and creating a new colony of penguins.
It’s a fascinating watch, and you quickly come to appreciate not only the delicate nature of nature, but the powerful impact that conservationists have on preserving wildlife for generations to come. The crushing impact of humanity s obvious. So too, is the adage that the future belongs to the youth and Born to Be Wild makes the adage come to life in the animal kingdom.
Narrator Hugh Bonneville holds the pictures together. His clear, Attenborough-like style of plain speak storytelling sews the seeds of emotional reeling-in of audiences, just enough to make viewers realise that we all have skin in the game. The editing and cinematography are superb with upsounds and interviews succinct and to the point, paced to compete with general entertainment.
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