Life Story - Many Lives, One Epic Journey product reviews

Since I was a child, I have always been fascinated with the natural world. First thanks to Steve Irwin, and then thanks to David Attenborough. The "Life of" DVD series were always a favourite, due to the short stories, packed with amazing facts that were easy to remember and repeat in conversations with friends. As the "Life of" series was completed, and different styles of documentary were being created, I found they started spending more time on each animal; sometimes only one or two species per episode. While this gave you more facts, it became tiresome after a while, and certainly was a lot harder to remember the stories that go along with it.

Life Story, is a series that tries to get the most of both worlds. Short stories, that are easy to remember, but also spending more time with each species. This is achieved with the simple use of alternating story lines. With the overall story arc of watching animals from birth, through childhood, adulthood, and parenthood, Attenborough and the BBC team weave a number of species into a single episode, switching from one to the other. Honestly, it works amazingly well. I never once got bored, as I felt like I was jumping from one exciting event to the next.

And the events are indeed amazing. Every time something was introduced, I would compare it to us humans; life expectancy, hunting methods, teamwork, social circles. So many amazing things to find happening in the world without human intervention. There were also parts of the series that were difficult to watch. While I applaud the BBC team for not pulling any punches, and for showing the cruelty of nature as well as the beauty, some of the scenes (african wild dogs versus the hyena) left me cringing.

The "diary" at the end of each episode were equally awe-inspiring. I'd always imagined that someone was just doing research and sending camera people to the right places at the right times. But you get to see how that is not the case. How they are searching for things that have been talked about, but never filmed. And searching for years on end. You get to see them sitting around for weeks on end, surrounded by mosquitos, stuck in blizzards, living in forests, all to grab that 10 seconds of footage. It is quite surreal.

There is much to see. Meerkats, tigers, whales, lions, ants, sharks, birds, and many more animals, that you can watch grow up from tiny fluffballs, into fearsome predators...sometimes. Because it is nature, and it all comes down to survival.