Week of March 19, The Animalest of Animal Kingdoms

1) Frozen Planet on Discovery Channel

Thank god for online advertising. If I hadn't seen the myriad of ads for Frozen Planet on Sunday, I would not have seen the first episode of this insanely awesome series. I don't really know what to say except that this is a beautifully made documentary with amazing photography and intriguing wild-life scenarios. For every Killer Whale hunt, how many days, weeks, months did the crew have to wait? But wait, there's more! This Sunday...

2) Chimpanzee

Thank God for cross-promotion. If I hadn't watched Frozen Planet on Sunday, then I wouldn't have heard about this new movie coming out in April called "Chimpanzee" brought to us by the makers of said frozen planet. What a coinci-dance! The film crew followed little Oscar for three years in the wild. As they were doing so, his mother perished in what appears to be an attack. What happens next is a lesson in life--- oh wait, wrong movie. What happens next is that the elder male of the family starts to take care of Oscar. And it's the awesomest thing in the world. And here's the trailer.


3) American Experience: Into The Deep: America, Whaling and The World

This is a fascinating story about the oil before oil: whale oil. Ric Burns (brother of Ken) brings us another great American Experience with Into The Deep. And I mean, whaling is fascinating. That's all there is to it. It is quite literally what fueled the American economy and industrial revolution in its early beginnings. Now, to think that our economy was once so dependent on the genocide of an entire animal species is in and of itself interesting enough, but then you add to it all the other aspects, the dark mysteries of the sea, the larger than life creature, the hunt and the competition and you've got one of the most complete stories ever created. No wonder it inspired the greatest American novel of them all, Moby Dick. That the American people, and especially the Quakers, became the greatest whalers in the world is very telling about the American "character", at least, what it was back then. 

4) The Deadliest Catch

Thank God for Taxi Top advertising, for without it, I would not have known that the Deadliest Catch is coming back with a new season on April 10. It inspired a bunch of spin-offs but those are all boring and bad. This is the best reality show on television, hands down.