This 2018 wildlife series unexpectedly returned in the winter of 2020 with a Meerkat special which encouraged me to come back here and re-assess it. With Attenborough on narration duties it's a classic slab of BBC wildlife fare - the shtick in "Dynasties" is that you're following, per episode, a different familial legacy of one species. Often when trying to make a narrative out of an animal's life the temptation is to fall into comforting anthropomorphic cliches and it really is the lowest form of nature doc. However the BBC wildlife unit are a hardier bunch and so Dynasties is often extraordinarily brutal - the lives of a wild animal are often ones of hardship and extreme struggle so it's done with an admirable detachment.
That being said - like a handful of modern nature docs it is often so detached that the obligatory behind the scenes segments end up being more engaging, diverting and fascinating than the bulk of the programme itself. Full of the human of struggle of filming the thing - I still keenly remember the stark moral dilemma facing the crew of the penguin documentary to this day. So beautifully shot, of course, but I'm often more drawn to the last ten minutes than the sterile brutal realities of living the animal life.
That being said - like a handful of modern nature docs it is often so detached that the obligatory behind the scenes segments end up being more engaging, diverting and fascinating than the bulk of the programme itself. Full of the human of struggle of filming the thing - I still keenly remember the stark moral dilemma facing the crew of the penguin documentary to this day. So beautifully shot, of course, but I'm often more drawn to the last ten minutes than the sterile brutal realities of living the animal life.