BBC's "Oceans" series

[drbill]

I recently received six episodes of the BBC series "Oceans" on DVD from my inter-library loan. I was really looking forward to watching this series because of BBC's great reputation for qualty.

Instead, I watched a rather dull set of episodes which often failed to hold my interest. The cast of marine "experts" did include Philippe Cousteau as an "explorer," but even his presence was not inspiring (I've worked with his grandfather JYC and his uncle JMC off-and-on for 35 years).

The so-called marine biology expert, Tooni Mahto's credentials included being a PADI instructor and a master's degree. I hardly thought that qualified her to be an "expert," in an around-the-world voyage like this (although she did appear to have credentials in the region of East Africa). She seemed to be chosen as eye candy for the male (and some of the female!) viewers... as I'm reasonably certain Philippe was for the ladies (and some of the men).

The commentary by most of the team was lacking in depth and full of "amazing," "incredible" and other similar words.

So disappointed by this series so far although some of the footage is nice... but little of it achieves what I consider to be BBC quality.

 

[Eau_Girl]

I saw most of the Oceans episodes when it originally ran on the BBC. I agree that the 'talent' was selected for audience appeal. And it definitely doesn't hit Blue Planet or other BBC great status.

Have you seen the BBC series South Pacific that was shown in 2009? It's now on DVD on AmazonUK. I enjoyed it much more.

 

[drbill]

I'll have to check that out.

 

[Eau_Girl]

Apparently it is called 'Wild Pacific' in the US market (hmmm probably an old musical has the US copyright?). Instead of structuring each episode by region, they had a topic and covered that topic across the span of the South Pacific from east to west. I don't recall that there was any 'talent' in the footage. I found the 5-10 minute 'making of' footage (for each episode) to be intereting. Of course I found it apropos because it aired within the weeks before I was leaving for my trip to Fiji & the Solomon Islands.

 

[RErb]

:cool2: