As a huge fan of the original Planet Earth series I was eagerly anticipating this sequel. While the camera-work, editing, and score are second to none, the choice of subjects is heavily biased towards revisiting the same ideas and species as the original.
What Planet Earth did better than anything was target subjects and parts of the world that were unfamiliar to most people. Planet Earth 2 fails to do that, and I found myself multiple times during episodes groaning at a new scene or species which was all too familiar.
As a biologist and explorer I'm acutely aware of the diversity of life and wilderness habitats around the world, with kangaroos that live in trees, cockroaches that jump like grasshoppers and creatures almost beyond imagination in the deep oceans to name some examples. This series could have been much more.
What Planet Earth did better than anything was target subjects and parts of the world that were unfamiliar to most people. Planet Earth 2 fails to do that, and I found myself multiple times during episodes groaning at a new scene or species which was all too familiar.
As a biologist and explorer I'm acutely aware of the diversity of life and wilderness habitats around the world, with kangaroos that live in trees, cockroaches that jump like grasshoppers and creatures almost beyond imagination in the deep oceans to name some examples. This series could have been much more.