I started a journey to watch all 40 seasons of Nature

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Current Events » I started a journey to watch all 40 seasons of Nature
Yes, the educational show that's been going since the early Eighties. Of course, I've seen the 4-5 of the most recent seasons thanks to the good ol' PBS app and DVR stuff, so it's not a full forty, but I've always been curious about the earlier episodes and why so few are steaming in the digital world. I'll just write blurbs about whatever I'm watching.

[1982] S01E06: On the Edge of Paradise

Re: the fragile ecosystems of coral reefs, subsistence farming, and economic impacts in Caribbean island nations. They talked about idiots destroying mangrove forests and ruining coral reefs with runoff and underwater fishing cages that come loose. Oh yeah, and oil spills. If you thought the 1979 spill near Tobago was bad, PBS, just wait until the Exxon Valdez incident, et al. In brighter news, some of the parrots that were endangered back in '82 seem to have thrived relatively since then.

In the future I'll try to take a picture of whatever I'm watching, VHS-quality recording or not, but since I don't have any right now, here's a picture of St. Lucia. Every time you look at it, the coral reefs heal themselves a little more, I promise.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/7/78c1d84e.jpg
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See, that's the issue with watching documentaries that are so old. Given how they knew so much about those issues back then, we've surely solved it by now, so it's just a documentary talking about a problem that no longer exists.
https://i.imgur.com/Er6TT.gif https://i.imgur.com/Er6TT.gif https://i.imgur.com/Er6TT.gif
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Some things have improved in the last forty years, but the coral situation is still pretty messed up in many places, though maybe not all for the same pollution- and erosion-themed factors. Now we got increasing temperatures and acidity to worry about -- those poor polyps can't catch a break.

Still, these older episodes are pretty enjoyable. It's often just one host doing a little spiel at the beginning and end, then doing 50 minutes of natural splendor with a bit of voiceover. Nowadays they get all kinds of celebrities involved, but back then, it was so much simpler -- and, at times, better. It'll be fun to see how the show evolves, issues are tackled and retackled, and how the different eras treat the problems.
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pegusus123456 posted...
See, that's the issue with watching documentaries that are so old. Given how they knew so much about those issues back then, we've surely solved it by now, so it's just a documentary talking about a problem that no longer exists.

Hearing about a problem we solved sounds nice. Id expect to hear a lot about problems we knew about then, procrastinated and theyre just worse today.
"Something's wrong! Murder isn't working and that's all we're good at." ~Futurama
I remember watching a recent (last few years) environmental show about people replanting mangrove forests that had been destroyed by mankind, so some lessons apparently don't get learned. I forget if it was just a general "coastline erosion" program or it was about Hurricane Katrina. Either way, it's fun to see how things like this disseminate over the years until they're (hopefully) commoner knowledge.
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[1983] S02E01: Forest in the Sea

Re: underwater kelp forests, overharvesting, deleterious weather effects (El Nino), and the persecution of sea otters (what we'd now call keystone species) needed to prevent dead zones from forming. I meant to start watching in order, but as long as things get done, I guess it doesn't matter. This is another "throwback" episode in a sense, 'cause I've definitely watched latter-day programs about oceanic environments being overrun by those damn purple urchins. In fact, I think there was a startup trying to use the urchins as food for fisheries or something, which I'm sure many Californians would be in favor of.

The show didn't mention that the forests bank tons of carbon for the planet, so maybe that wasn't widely known at the time. What do you bank, Todd? Pokemon cards? In humanity's war with the kelp, I root for the kelp.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/2/2123fd51.jpg
Take me down from the ridge where the summer ends
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[1983] S02E06: Voices in the Forest

Re: the Huli people of Papua New Guinea and their relationships with birds of paradise, narrated by good ol' David Attenborough. Pretty enjoyable, although there was a lot of focus on the human side and less on the birds than I'd have liked. Not a big deal -- there's definitely later Nature episode(s) I've seen that rectify that. Of particular interest was the blue BOP that hung upside-down and made ridiculously loud noises that sounded like something from Close Encounters of the Third Kind . Shame a lot of life upgrades from the outside world led to a population boom, and thus, commercialism and all the usual things that start messing up the environment for the birbs.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/e/e6331415.jpg
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[1982] S01E08: The Discovery of Animal Behavior: Natural Mysteries

Re: early naturalists' efforts to understand the animals they see and learn the whys of what they're doing, as well as tackling bird-related canards -- no pun intended -- like geese sprouting from tree worms or the Greek belief some disappeared during winter due to hibernation. Once animal behavior is freed from the more fantastical (sometimes religious) baggage, it starts being studied in a more in-depth manner. No more spontaneous generation of rats or basilisks sucking your breath away!

Don't forget to like, subscribe, and pour one out for your homie Frederick II of Hohenstaufen.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/a/a602c4f9.jpg
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[1982] S01E09: The Discovery of Animal Behavior: In Praise of God

Re: naturalists, in pursuit of studying the divine bounty created by god, inadvertently study behavior and instinct so much, they come to conclusions that challenge many religious concepts, such as man and beast being created separately or that looking too hard into nature's wonders is akin to religious heresy/impertinence. And although some end up fumbling the ball by drawing erroneous conclusions, the ideas of describing birdsong with musical notation or observing animals in their natural habitat (instead of relying on myths and legend) are still useful today.

One thing I like about these older episodes is that, because camera techniques can be a little more primitive compared to current standards, they rely a lot on vignettes with period clothing and acting. That doesn't seem to happen as much in the latter-day seasons I've seen, but I like it.

P.S.: Brits call puffins "coulternebs" lol

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/4/4864f577.jpg
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[1982] S01E10: The Discovery of Animal Behavior -- Search for the Mind

Re: Darwin's evolutionary theories bust it big while others also focus on the idea that behavior evolves and isn't simply fixed, especially in the sense that animals are meant to serve as lessons to humans (i.e. religious context). Some erroneous ideas come up here, such as animals being way smarter than they really are because observers didn't account for certain outcomes -- i.e. a dog opening a door on accident rather than knowing how locks work -- but the more evidence that accumulates, the better for scientific progress. Spalding studying inborn knowledge in animal infants was an interesting bit, although I hope the whole "separating chicks/piglets from their mothers" wasn't as cruel as it looked.

The dude who thought humans did everything because of tropisms was a little naive, though, even if did explain some plant and insect behavior. But enough about that -- look at the silly monkey!

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/0/0464df7c.jpg
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[1982] S01E11: The Discovery of Animal Behavior - The Question of Learning

Re: various behaviorists learn about behavior as it pertains to habit and rewards, which ingrain certain concepts into the brains of rodents, birds, horses, etc. It's a little startling to hear one guy almost happily describing the guy who took baby monkeys away from their mothers and put them in "warm cages" with "plenty of food," as if that truly makes it better. (To be credit, they did learn that the motherless, once grown, made poor parents themselves, which has parallels with child abuse, I'd guess.)

Makes me wonder what happened to the finches that were raised in soundproof boxes, so that when they hit adulthood, their warbles were completely janky compared to ones that more social upbringings. I'm sure their dating game eventually got on point...probably.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/1/1e2e5643.jpg

Ahhh, almost done with season one.
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[1983] S01E12: The Discovery of Animal Behavior - Signs and Signals

Re: naturalists open a window into the animal world by decoding the dances of bees, landmark-recognizing behavior in beewolves, and beak wrestling in kittiwakes. I particularly like stuff that explores animal imprinting, and it reminds me of that super-awesome episode from 2011 called "My Life as a Turkey," where a guy incubates and hatches said birds, they imprint, and he basically watches their entire life cycles. I only realized this a few minutes ago, but apparently it was so good, it won a friggin' Emmy -- definitely worth tracking down if you're one of the 0.01 people who cares about this topic, haha.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Life_as_a_Turkey

Forgot to take a picture this time, so here's some cliff-nesting kittiwakes.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/9/9c005630.jpg
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Tag.
While we count these petals to pluck them off a cosmos
The stem is likely to blast but never does the fate
[1983] S02E02: Fungi - The Rotten World About Us

Moving away from the naturalists overview, this one focuses purely on the fungal world and such beloved topics as how it devours dung, reproduces with insects and natural elements, traps nematodes with snares, and even clogs US Navy ships by eating diesel. Penicillin and yeast and all kinds of other good fermented stuff falls into this category to differing degrees.

I've seen some modern shows on fungi and they made it seem like the mycelium (underground 'root' network of fungi) was more of a new discovery, but even back then, they knew about it. I guess when thinking things over, it'd be a little weird to land on the moon but not know basic things about fungi's spread -- or as George Page put it eloquently, the life that follows death. (He also coined "symphony of destruction" years before Megadeth. I doubt he got credit.)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/3/38199ed2.jpg

As far as eating mushrooms goes, I was never a fan. I will instead enjoy them from afar, from the puffballs and bird's-nest cups to the ones that shoot little spore projectiles like guns. Perhaps when we've wrecked the planet enough, those'll be the only weapons still firing.
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Good topic
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Needed a break from Witcher 3, so I did a twofer.

[1983] S02E03: Acacia - Tree of Thorns

This one entails the life cycle of the humble acacia tree, which grows from a stripling into a massive shelter-giver for just about everything, all year around. The way they tell it, successfully reaching maturity is almost like a kindergartener knocking out Mike Tyson -- the odds ain't good. If it's not the friendly herbivores we usually think about in terms of conservation (giraffes, elephants) messing things up, it's the insects that infest the pods, or monkeys eating the seeds, or brushfires, or acts of a hateful god knocking them down with wind and lightning strikes. Wouldn't be surprised if there were a few meteors doing 'em nasty, too.

Of course, part of the problem is mankind disrupting the harmony of everything (a true overarching theme for this series, no doubt). By forcing animals to graze in smaller parts of land than they did ancestrally, they overeat or bulldoze acacias and fewer get to become the big daddies of the Serengeti. No Hakunas, no matatas.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/d/d8381823.jpg

At first I thought this was the appearance of the famous "Nature tree" that appears commonly in its logo nowadays, but I guess that one's the camel thorn tree. Perhaps not the same type of acacia, but it's pretty close, I'm sure. And since I haven't mentioned it anywhere, the intro for Nature at this point is like an Eighties synth wash with a nice buildup -- a rather subtle sound compared to the modern intro that has tribal chanting and catchy-ass percussion.

It piqued my interest to know how the trees are doing forty years on, but apparently they face a lot of problems. Shame we wiped out those murder hornets -- maybe we could've sent a platoon over and won one for Vachellia.

https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/invasive-ant-ecosystem-food-web-kenya/
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[1983] S02E04: On the Tracks of the Wild Otter

Ahh, another in the series of "one guy with a camera tackles a creature that doesn't want to be seen". This time, it's the friendly aquatic otter, surviving in the Shetland Islands and nesting in isles once traversed by the vikings and Picts. Hugh Miles (who is still alive to this day) went out and filmed a year in the life of a female otter, from mating, to birthing a litter, to teaching them the ropes, and then repeating again.

Quite enjoyable overall, especially since this was one of the otter species apparently different from those seen in S02E01, on the Pacific coast -- so no "using rocks to break mollusks" tactics were shown. The main (albeit slight) downside was that there were two narrators that alternated their time, which isn't quite as effective a filmmaking technique and is mostly corrected by the later seasons. I wonder if the original part from Miles didn't have enough running time or something, so it was filled with extra preamble and shots of other creatures the otter encountered.

The California ones were mercilessly hunted 'cause they ate (no pun intended) into the abalone market, but these ones can dine in relative peace, since the Shetland chain doesn't seem like a very fun area for pelt hunters.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/6/6ef610d5.jpg

The show said that the Shetland folk like otters "nowadays," and maybe that's still true.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/offbeat/i-saved-a-starving-otter-and-she-saved-me/ar-AA1tqhbA
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[1983] S02E05: Secret Weapons

This time, Nature explores the somewhat hidden world of critters' chemical defenses, including:

  • aposematism
  • poisonous secretions (millipedes)
  • poisonous sprays (vinegaroon)
  • poisonous, scalding-hot projectiles (bombardier beetles)
  • a hemispherical shell and feet that use oil to adhere to leaves (Florida tortoise beetle)
  • tangled fecal fortress that provides camouflage (Florida tortoise beetle again)
  • smearing insect-repelling camphor oil onto itself (bee assassins)
  • eating and storing pine resin to ward off attackers (sawflies)
  • storing poisons acquired while pupae (monarch butterflies, crimson-speckled moths)
  • mimicking visual signals to kill others of their species for steroids (Photuris fireflies)


Although I said the dual narrator stuff didn't work as well last time, it dovetailed nicely here, since it had an almost Bill Nye-esque quality due to Thomas Eisner, who demonstrated many of the defenses listed above in a laboratory. That bombardier beetle shooting hot chemical quinones at interlopers seemed unbeatable, but in the end, it was eaten by a spider -- it was too wrapped up to get free.

I feel like most people who see these will run for the flyswatter, not the electron microscope. But just remember: every time you're poisoned in the middle of Veridian Forest, that weedle is just carrying on Eisner's work by using pikachu's face as indicator paper.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/1/13194ec2.jpg

Didn't know much about the professor, but apparently he's known as the father of chemical ecology and even won some awards for this enlightening episode (perhaps explaining the two-narrator structure). He also discovered, on the last day of shooting the show, an unseen phenomenon: horsefly larva eating recently hatched frogs by dragging them down into the mud to dine on their bodily fluids. Ain't nature beautiful?

RIP
Take me down from the ridge where the summer ends
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[1983] S02E07: Osprey

This episode focuses on everyone's favorite bird of prey, although this is the Scottish version, not the American one. Responding to ancient instincts that call them to the highlands, they arrive at the very start of spring and need half the year to raise their young, not to mention build/renovate their bed-sized nest and ravage the local fish population. Later, they flee the winter cold and travel three thousand miles south to the Gambia.

Scotland hasn't always been nice to the birbs and basically extirpated 'em in the early 1900s, and it took fifty years for 'em to start coming back. Sadly, they came back to pesticides and crap-tier weather reducing their fledgling population (as George Page put it eloquently: a cold chick is a dead chick), and some dumbasses were robbing eggs or cutting down their trees. Then, many would die en route south over the next several months.

Kinda makes you wonder why they'd ever leave the fertile tropic fishing grounds, but they were apparently quite acclaimed back in the Eighties and still are now. Recolonization happened in Wales and the rest of Britain, and apparently some pairs were exported to Spain, etc. Still gotta keep their nests secret, though, to avoid eggnappers.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/2/2d45fb09.jpg
Take me down from the ridge where the summer ends
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I seen a video on youtube of wild dogs attacking a deer. Then the deer was able to crawl over to a hippo for "safety". The hippo body splashed the deer. Then the dogs dragged it away. Nature's kinda not cool. :(
Italian, French, German.
Hippos hate everything, lmao. Deer didn't read the brochure.
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There are 40 seasons? Vivaldi had better get to work!
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[1983] S02E10: The Masterbuilders

I was having trouble finding this one, but whaddya know, someone eagle-eyed preservationist put it up on Youtube. Another bird-themed episode, this time it's a look at avian architects and their nest habits, from the camouflage of the shoveler duck to the floating platform of the dabchick to the unique chimney-toppers from white storks. Apparently aesthetes like the nest of the long-tailed tit, which is stretchy and thatched with down and lichen, resembling a black coconut cake or something.

The episode also manages to squeeze in the Seychelles' fairy tern which, unlike most birds, employs "fuck building anything" logic and just balances its egg on a branch, brooding even if humans come near. Of course, the island chain is substantially threatened by rising ocean levels, so someday, the fairy might need to change its attitude.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/e/e7956d1c.jpg

Cinematographer Michael Richards did the shooting for this episode, so I'd be remiss if I didn't also show his most famous bird:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/a/a114a2fc.jpg
Take me down from the ridge where the summer ends
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TC, where do you get the older stuff? This sounds like a challenge I could enjoy.
evening main 2.4356848e+91
https://youtu.be/Acn5IptKWQU
I was having trouble sourcing stuff and did a lot out of order because of it, but with the recent success of Youtube, looks like I'll be checking there first. I think archive.org had most of this stuff at some point, too, which is nice even at crummy VHS quality. The more recent stuff is either free on the PBS app or available with the subscription service, though I'm not sure how deep the catalog really is. The eps they show on the app listing are sparse and cherry-picked, perhaps the award-winners of their day.

So, there's a lot of routes to tackle. The DVD-era stuff is probably easier to find than the really old eps, and I'm sure Nature, at some point, didn't want to show episodes that might be outdated, in poor taste somehow, etc., which perforates their library a bit.
Take me down from the ridge where the summer ends
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Sounds like a bit of a dig, but that has a kind of appeal to it, too. Maybe I can find a CRT for the old stuff, really hit that nostalgia.
evening main 2.4356848e+91
https://youtu.be/Acn5IptKWQU
Yeah, these old eps are pretty good and written fairly well. They're not bush league or anything. Since I only started watching religiously when I got my smart TV, I never really got to experience the George Page era, so it's a nice walk down memory lane.

[1984] S02E08: Big Business in Bees

This episode shows the TLC given to the bee industry, ensuring they can flourish while pollinating commercial crops or, as focused on here, forage crops that the cattle industry needs (alfalfa). Yes, humble alfalfa, spread by Romans and Moors and conquistadors until it's on every normal continent.
The artificial ways in which humans were getting bees to do their bidding is interesting, from importing cubes of pupae-rich dirt to making mobile beehives for the European (homebody) bees.

Didn't really think about all the labor-intensive stuff that went into beekeeping, but I've got a new respect for it. Farmers thought up ways to manipulate leafcutter bees to nest in certain places they made, then they move the "bee boards" to temperature-controlled areas, sort out the resting pupae into giant trays, and search for signs of parasite/wasp eggs, and can even give chlorine baths to the bees (or at least this kind) to remove fungal infections. As George says, "It was never like this in the Middle East."

Part of the ep also focuses on the invasion of Africanized killer bees, a honey bee hybrid that was tearing up South America at the time. They said some theorized that the bees would lose their aggressiveness as they went north, but that definitely didn't happen, and their appearance and prevalance has jeopardized the survival of other bee types (like the stingless variant normally cultivated). At least we got rid of the murder hornets in the meantime.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/7/7cbeefb2.jpg

I also appreciated the soundtrack in this episode. When they were doing helicopter shots of the alfalfa fields in the US, they played some wistful western-style themes, like it was straight out of The Searchers .
Take me down from the ridge where the summer ends
And watch the city spread out just like a jet's flame
[1984] S02E09: Jet Set Wildlife

This episode focuses on Florida and how, just like humans come to the Sunshine State and thrive in the hot weather, so, too, does every animal dumped into the wild. This includes relatively harmless creatures like proliferating jackrabbits and cross-breeding scarlet ibises, to well-known invasive species like giant toads, Burmese pythons, and African fish. Of particularly funny (in a sad way) use was the two Australian brothers who introduced melaleuca trees because they didn't like Florida's swamps and wanted more timber. Well, melaleuca proliferated and now threatens many native species, as well as being fire-resistant due to its paperlike bark.

Since this is a forty-year-old episode, I decided to look up some of the threats to see how they were faring nowadays. Well, melaleuca is still around and annoying people, and we all know how efforts to curb foreign snakes are going. Formosan termites spread out, too, though not as much as I'd have thought (Louisiana got the worst of it somehow). Rhesus macaques still exist in their little colonies, though most people like 'em, even if they're herpes- and TB-carrying pests for farmers.

Also funny to see that the show puckishly called Mickey Mouse an invasive species, too, for Disney World's attempt at using invasive water hyacinths to purify its sewage. When you think about it, their territory was one small breeding pair on a single steamboat and now it controls much of Florida...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/1/1066d594.jpg
Take me down from the ridge where the summer ends
And watch the city spread out just like a jet's flame
[1984] S02E10: Plight of the Bumblebee

I initially thought, "what, we're back to bees already?" but the last one focused on honeybees, not the bumbles, which can sting repeatedly and spend 99% of their life as pollen junkies. To be honest, I wasn't that interested in the life cycle of these ones as much since they did much of the same thing as the alfalfa aficionados, but when the onset of winter came, the death cycle got interesting. As the virgin queens leave the colony to mate and hibernate, the rest of the cast-off drones and other types could do nothing but slowly die, their society collapsing and the threats kept at bay during the warmer months (ants, fly larvae, dampness, mice, mold, etc.) started to get in and either kill or infect them. Rather harrowing, especially the mite infestations that gave gross-looking bumps on their furry hides. No one should have to witness that, and commemorate that notion, here's a visual aid:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/6/6e3a9148.jpg

No need to say thank you.
Take me down from the ridge where the summer ends
And watch the city spread out just like a jet's flame
[1984] S02E11: The Missing Monsoon

Continuing with some high drama, this chronicles the 1979 monsoon season (actually, the lack thereof) in India's Keoladeo Nat'l Park and how the animals cope with the extremely lean times. Apparently this happens about once every thirty years and starvation starts warping the critters' behavior, as apex predators might have to scare others away from meals they'd normally get by right, or creatures have to switch to different meals as they take care of themselves and their young.

As the six-month drought turns the park into a heat-baked cemetery, only the resident undertakers -- the carrion feeders -- get their meals easily. The others who can't make it to the forests must adapt or die. In at least one case, the ground got so hot, a python couldn't cross open ground to eat defenseless curlew eggs -- an example of a drought miracle. In the summer, the temperature got up to 122F.

Overall, a very enjoyable episode. The second half was about the replenishment of the park when the monsoon did hit, but it doesn't strike as much of a chord as the first. You get some feels when you see a marsh completely dry up, with no life anywhere...except a single terrapin scrambling to safety while every buzzard in the tri-county area eyes it greedily.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/f/fab950c1.jpg

The change in eagles' noble behavior to something a little more base reminds me of that Days Gone quote: "there's no such thing as a starving patriot". No other human would praise the game's dialogue, so it can have a rare 'W' this time.
Take me down from the ridge where the summer ends
And watch the city spread out just like a jet's flame
[1984] S02E12: Resurrection at Truk Lagoon

This episode deals with a tiny atoll in Micronesia and how it's doing decades after the U.S. attacked the Imperial Japanese navy there during Operation Hailstone. The Japanese were routed with their air cover stripped and the lagoon became a mausoleum of metal and fire. But, as time rolled on, the hidden benefit revealed itself: the wreckage formed substrates on a once-featureless lagoon bed, increasing livable space for many species.

There's something about water episodes that just seem better than others and Nature hasn't filmed a dud one yet. It was also interesting to know that some Japanese wrecks still cause tiny little oil slicks on the surface -- leaks from oil tankers and cruisers. This is the same phenomenon that happens with our (U.S.) ships in Pearl Harbor, most famously the USS Arizona .

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/a/aff63dc8.jpg

Only true WW2 history buffs probably even know about Truk Lagoon, I'm sure -- it didn't ring a bell for me -- but it's a nice little footnote in the Pacific Theater and overall war. Can you imagine if the Japanese had persevered here? The U.S. were apparently considering nuking the position, so thankfully it didn't come to that.

That's the end of the season. The first was pretty good overall, but I feel like S2 had a higher mix of great episodes, no doubt in part to lacking a six-part naturalist spotlight. I always like bits that focus on one species and sometimes one family, so the otter episode rated highly with me, but this (Truk Lagoon) has to be in the top five at least.
Take me down from the ridge where the summer ends
And watch the city spread out just like a jet's flame
[1984] S03E01: Krakatoa - The Day That Shook the World

In the season opener, Nature brings a retrospective on the aftermath of the 1883 Krakatoa explosion, the largest (natural) explosion in history and the loudest sound ever heard on the planet. Though it destroyed its namesake island, few were killed in it -- it's the apocalyptic 100-foot-high tsunamis that devastated Indonesia. The episode focuses mainly on the Java island of Ujung Kulon, never resettled after its population was wiped out. Now a national park, it plays host to the descendants of animals who survived the tsunamis, most notably the rarely glimpsed Javan rhino. (Interestingly, this program was the very first time they were seen in color...and it only took six months of waiting.)

I love shows about volcanology and glaciology, and this is the first Nature episode to do the former. It's also the first to have a celebrity narrator (Andrew Sachs of Fawlty Towers fame), as well as one of the best-shot episodes. I probably won't mention the latter as much because you expect technology to improve over the years, but it's true -- this is a gorgeous episode. It makes season one look like it was shot on a potato with a particularly foggy lens. Hopefully George Page hasn't been kicked to the curb, though, 'cause he had enjoyable narrations.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/e/e6db5d18.jpg

Sadly, all signs point to the Javan tiger which lived in the park as being extinct. But, if big, fat rhinos could survive all this time, hopefully a camera-shy population lives somewhere deeper than humans would dare go.
Take me down from the ridge where the summer ends
And watch the city spread out just like a jet's flame
[1984] S03E02: Treasures of the Gulf

This episode focuses on life in the Persian Gulf and the important bottleneck Strait of Hormuz. Half shows what's going on "now" in 1984, from habits of the Marsh Arabs to the oil boom; the other half, sea life adapting to the oil rigs and construction projects affecting coastal areas.

TOTG is probably one of the few episodes where the human side is a little more interesting, and that's hard to admit, since it's a water episode. Most of this is due to the episode being shot during the Iran-Iraq war, which had its own trials and trevails for maritime life, such as the March '83 oil rig attacks that spilled thousands of tons of crude. Many places were already dead zones due to the gulf's high salination, but the beach-ruining oil certainly didn't help.

Also interestingly, George Page wondered what the price would be if a fiercer war broke out in the region, which prefigures the Gulf War (1991) and all the environmental catastrophes that followed. I'm not familiar with all of 'em, but I know about the Mesopotamian marshes being drained as retribution for the Marsh Arabs -- the Ahwaris -- supporting an insurrection against Saddam. The marshes are reflooded now, but the amount of time it would take to restore the land back to where it was is a big question mark, even to this day.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/a/a57f5904.jpg

Speaking of environmental catastrophes due to mismanaging land, I wonder if there'll be an episode about the Aral Sea sometime. It's a shadow of what it once was (even in the Eighties) due to damming and diversion projects that have all but turned it into a desert.
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And watch the city spread out just like a jet's flame
[1984] S03E03: Sexual Encounters of the Floral Kind

This time, it's a globe-trotting mission to see some interesting plant species, their feeding habits, and reproductive prowess. In Australia, a rare orchid's shape mimicks a female wasp's scent to pollinate; in many areas, grass releases pollen in a big spurt, literally casting its reproductive fate to the wind. The African water lily gives a smorgasbord for insects on its first day open, but reveals a poisonous pool on the second, digesting victims and robbing their pollen in one evil stroke.

This is actually a rerun of an 1981 "The World About Us" episode, but it fits in well with the Nature lineup and has darkly humorous narration from long-time actor Freddie Jones. Apparently an Oxford studio made it over the course of nine years and George Page gave it glowing reviews in his preamble. Once viewed, it's easy to see why it's become something of a classic. Even the sound effects -- unsettling dripping and creepy synths -- work to its advantage.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/f/f6e288d4.jpg

Surely Fandom wouldn't be against bee-on-stamen action?
Take me down from the ridge where the summer ends
And watch the city spread out just like a jet's flame
[1984] Fragments of Eden

This time, the Nature crew takes a look at the granitic Seychelles archipelago, a living time capsule from the time when Africa and the Indian subcontinent were joined at the hip. The title comes from Major-General Charles Gordon who saw the Valle de Ma's splendor and thought it straight out of Genesis.

The wildlife is pretty cool, many unique to the isle or rare elsewhere. The giant tortoises were almost hunted to extinction and were said to taste like beef, though sailors eventually stopped eating 'em because they were too ugly. One bird, a magpie-robin, was almost murdered by cats introduced to its islands, and its population only started to bounce back when the putty-tats were corraled and removed. In terms of fauna, the coco de mer -- the world's largest seed -- grows nowhere else in the world, and due to few predators, there's a larger chance they can be dispersed at sea, washing up on India's shores (which started the legend of the mysterious "sea coconut").

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/f/fabfebdc.jpg

I looked up some of the endangered species and it seems like they're still around, a little better than where they were in the Eighties but perhaps declining after a brief peak later. Interestingly, the official bird of the islands, the black parrot, is sweating bullets due to introduced rats. Gotta get yerselves some of our bald eagles, son.
Take me down from the ridge where the summer ends
And watch the city spread out just like a jet's flame
[1984] S03E05: The Face of the Deep

Another water episode, this one explores the strange lifeforms that call the Sargasso Sea home. I thought the Portugeuse man-o'-war was kinda cool due to its stingers' length (up to 100+ feet), but then they talked about a predatory sea slug that can eat the stingers whole, without triggering them, and can fire them at enemies itself. Water hasn't been this metal since Isis' Oceanic .

They also go into the history of the sea a little, mentioning how (in an apocryphal tale) Columbus' crew, on the brink of mutiny, decided to continue westward after the drifting seaweed they hauled up had crabs in it. They didn't really delve into other famous incidents, though, such as Donald Crowhurst's disappearance as he fudged numbers while "circumnavigating" the world. (For CEmen who know, the Wikipedia article on missing people through recorded history is my fave article.)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/d/da8ef459.jpg

Overall, a nice episode, even if it went a little too hard on the sargassum's myriad plankton habits (even for me, that's a little boring). The strange environment where so many things depend on floating seaweed in the North Atlantic gyre is interesting, though -- miles of nothing else laterally and miles of open water below. Kinda sucks that humanity pollutes it with their cast-off trash (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Atlantic_garbage_patch), but maybe all the barnacles and baby squid will appeciate their new plastic life rafts.
Take me down from the ridge where the summer ends
And watch the city spread out just like a jet's flame
[1984] S03E06: Yellowstone in Winter

Yellowstone claims to be a way to see the natural Montana-Wyoming wilderness in its natural form, but as it turns out, the best way to do that is seeing how it looks in winter, when the tourist season ends and the rubberneckers vamoose. (Or, as George Page puts it, "Old Faithful plays to an empty house.")

There's a bit about prelude activities like rutting season and the onset of species' hibernation, but the main focus is listed in the title, when Mother Nature shuts Yellowstone's doors and temperatures can get to sixty below. Even with the heated areas known to animals, survival is hard mode. As someone raised in Montana, I did learn a few things this time, such as the Fish & Wildlife Service feeding elk tasty alfalfa pellets when their ancestral grazing grounds get too lean. (You...did watch the alfalfa episode, right? Bueller...?)

Of course, the cool thing about Yellowstone is that, no matter how cold it gets, there will always be warm, steamy areas where the bubbling hot springs and geysers do their thing all year 'round. Animals are smart enough not to jump into the boiling water, but not so with fording frozen rivers. There's a sad part where snowmobilers (presumably) try pulling a bison out of deep water, but to no avail.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/7/722ae272.jpg

Some of the camera shots -- like seeing how pikas move around under snowbanks -- would've been pretty badass by Eighties technology standards, too. I guess that was due to the experienced hand of Wolfgang Bayer, who died a few years back. RIP
Take me down from the ridge where the summer ends
And watch the city spread out just like a jet's flame
[1984] S03E07: Winter Days

After Yellowstone's frost and fountains, it's a look at the British Isles in winter. Tempered by the Gulf Stream, winters here aren't always as extreme, so even as cold-blooded species retreat underground, migratory birds might be flying in from Iceland, Scandanavia and Russia. In the polar opposite of the monsoon episode, avians adapt new behaviors, such as forming mixed flocks and eating things they might normally not (like carrion when the ground's too hard for worms).

Humans putting up bird feeders apparently really helps throughout the winter months, tiding birds over when there's nothing else. Seems one winter was so harsh in Britain, it killed over 60% of the wren population -- things are always hardest on the smallest. They've gotta stay active to avoid the chill of death, so they can waste tons of time and energy searching fruitlessly. Now I feel bad for not restocking the feeder in my yard for my feathered friends.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/8/87e4a988.jpg

The image of a little forest path (shot by Hugh Miles from the kickass otter episode) really makes me want to watch the classic British flick "The Secret Garden". Loved the version from the early Nineties, but I might have the older one recorded, too. Who knows what cool things you could find if you went off the beaten path and looked down in some hole? Hopefully not the Isles' only adder hibernating in a huge-ass snake pile, as they do.
Take me down from the ridge where the summer ends
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Tag, this is a cool topic.
- The user formerly known as WafflehouseJK
[1984] S03E08: Kilimanjaro

Ahh, the highest mountain in Africa. To some, its name sparks phantom memories of travelers and myths, like the Ring of Solomon; to others, they remember the day they used up all their life's luck to kill seven people in Halo. The air can be so oxygen-deprived and the temperatures so cold that animals (birds) who scavenge during the day have to descend before night, lest they die from exposure. Oddly, a leopard's corpse was found up there in the '20s, making you wonder what the hell it was doing.

It's an interesting climate. High, high up, it's almost a killing ground where nothing grows except ice reforming from the day's thaw; below, in the alpine desert's crags, every plant plunges into a midwinter thaw nightly and all life has to find its own particular refuge to (barely) survive. You need to be halfway down before most animals get the all-clear. In all, it's savannah, tropical rainforest, and Arctic conditions rolled into one.

The episode showed a never-before-seen process that occurs at night: dirty ice tendrils coming up from the ground en masse. George said it looked like something out of nightmares, but to me, it's more like meat pushed through an extruder, with clumps looking like brain wrinkles. That's metal, baby.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/2/2b35352a.jpg

And to think, there was a time when it beggared belief to have a snow-capped mountain near the Equator. The German intelligensia raged about it, dismissing firsthand accounts and generally having a merry argument over it. One dude thought an eyewitness saw instead a massive field of quartz crystals, as if his countrymen had never seen snow before. I guess it was either fight about something thousands of miles away or while away the hours with der reifen und der stock .
Take me down from the ridge where the summer ends
And watch the city spread out just like a jet's flame
[1984] S03E08: Danube Delta

You'd think they'd open this with the Blue Danube waltz, but I guess that was too obvious.

This ep concerns Europe's second-longest river and its resultant delta, containing the world's largest reed patch -- a major nesting site for hundreds of bird species. There was a time when fishermen killed the birds to get rid of their competition, but Good Guy Romania put the kibosh on that, so some protected species (like fish-hungry pelicans) bounced back. It's estimated they take 3% of the Danube's commercial total in 1984...those greedy beaked bastards.

In a nice intersection of man and nature shaking hands, a deep-water canal lets a commercial ship through, and is it passes ancestral heron nesting grounds, the wake strands small fish on the delta's rotting vegetation, providing an easy meal. Given the Black Sea traffic throughout history, it's likely the birds have benefiting from this arrangement for thousands of years.

When the episode originally aired, the wetlands -- which were expanding seaward at a rate of 300 feet a year -- were in danger of the usual: drainage for farmland and expansion for fisheries. Apparently the Romanian-Ukranian views on this have differed for decades and the tug of war has wrecked some of the Danube's natural beauty since 1984.

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You can use this for the next Frog Friday. May our amphibian friends swim freely over the scuttled Nazi fleet resting deep in the silt, where all Nazis belong.
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tagged
:^)
[1985] S03E09: Tumbler in the Sky

Aww yeah, another close look at one particular family eking it out in the wilds -- this time, a rough-and-tumble (no pun intended) mating pair of bateleur eagles in a Kenyan national park. A lot of the drama here derives from one simple fact: the female may only lay one egg every two years.

For eagles on the smaller side, the pair turn into Bonnie and Clyde with wings when needed. No matter the time of year, they're constantly defending their sovereign airspace, driving out intruders and (as seen early in the episode) their older chicks. When the nests are built and repaired over the course of weeks, and the egg is laid, the nest is never unattended. As one pulls housesitting duty, the other is circling nearby, alert so their mate can rest.

There's a scene where the male eagle is sitting on the (unhatched) egg and a bunch of monkeys start harassing it, trying to get it to fly the coop. It just stands its ground, which is a common theme here. In addition to the elements, there are also ravens and marshal eagles, the latter of which can kill antelope. Imagine having that knocking on your door while you're juggling your baby and its needs, plus your own, plus needing to go NORAD on every interloper.

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One meta thing about this episode is the unbroken stretches where there's no voiceovers -- a hallmark of good episodes, if the footage is up to par. Didn't time it, but that monkey-vs.-eagle standoff felt like a good five minutes without needless interruptions. Maybe they deserved to revel in the footage, considering much of the bateleurs' behavior was unknown until this ep aired.
Take me down from the ridge where the summer ends
And watch the city spread out just like a jet's flame
[1985] S03E10: Kinabalu - Summit of Borneo

This time, the Nature crew goes to the highest peak in Malaysia, first climbed by Sir Hugh Low in the 1800s and, accordingly, the crew inspects the animal and plant life on the pinnacles that now bears Low's namesake. Some types of fauna are practically living fossils, predating the mountain itself (estimated to be 1.5 million at time of this show). One conifer discovered in the Sixties seems to be the missing link between oaks and beeches.

And the show spent a LOT of time on the fauna. Not necessarily a bad thing, considering all the cool stuff growing here, from rafflesias and rare orchids (the mountain was once robbed of many by collectors before it became protected) to the always-cool pitcher plants. When Low discovered a pitcher plant for the first time, he actually found a dead rat inside. I'm assuming he found a different sample to take back to England, haha.

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Overall, the upper mountain was very nice: angular, danger lurking in shadowed mountain passes, the "thick Scotch mists" that threaten to engulf any traveler, etc. They say that if the temperatures dropped a few degrees, the glaciers that used to cap the mountains could start reforming. When they show the ice-scoured peaks in that washed-out, VCR-quality of Eighties recordings, it reminds me of those old Lord of the Rings shots. Hell, all Kinabalu was missing at times was Gandalf shepherding some hobbits.

Hopefully Borneo's beauty won't be completely effed up due to deforestation and fires. I've definitely seen other Nature-esque programs on areas being cleared to harvest palm oil en masse, which naturally ruins biodiversity.
Take me down from the ridge where the summer ends
And watch the city spread out just like a jet's flame
[1985] S03E11: Birds of Paradox

This episode focuses on ratites, a large group of birds that flourishes in today's world despite the fact their feathers ensure they're flightless. Continental drift let the birds, which flourished in the Antarctic region back when it was rainforest, survive as Australia and the Indian subcontinent floated to their newer locations. Coincidentally, "ratite" is formed from the word for "raft".

You'd think flightless birds would have been wildly unsuccessful, but despite some dying out, many yet remain. Obviously the show will touch base on ostriches (the largest living bird and fastest biped) and penguins (the largest family), but they also spotlight birds walking the razor's edge of flightlessness, like the steamer duck. They did a callback to Argentina here and might've reused some of their footage from Nature's very first season, specifically the "Flight of the Condor" episodes (which I'd already watched before setting about making this topic).

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A sadder moment is when George starts listing species that have gone extinct because of introduced cats, rats, and human folly (such as Japanese soldiers killing the Wake Island rail for food in WW2). The show also namechecked the extant rail that lives on Inaccessible Island in the Atlantic -- a place of which I've often said I'd move to if I became a billionaire.

This was also one of the first episodes to show interesting computer graphics, displaying how the earth's tectonic drift pulled Gondawanaland apart. Sure, it looks like sub-Encarta fare now, but it would've been next-gen back then. Slowly but surely, Nature is moving into the future. I'd say it was ditching the hand-drawn/cartoony (budget-efficient) stuff, but given the title card, they hadn't left that nest quite yet.
Take me down from the ridge where the summer ends
And watch the city spread out just like a jet's flame
[1985] S03E12: Lost World of the Medusa

This episode returns to the Pacific to explore the island of Palau, specifically the region around its famous Jellyfish Lake. As its name suggests, it's filled with stingerless jellies (Medusae), which get in/out through cracks in the limestone foundation but can't escape after maturing. They floating around in a quasi-landlocked lake with plenty of sunlight for their symbiotic algae, but also few predators, discounting the anemones and slugs along harder ground.

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The rest of the episode is spent on other environments -- like lakes where rainwater falls on top but doesn't truly mix, creating turbid layers -- but the jellyfish zone is still the most interesting part. How aptly named they are, for as Medusa put others in stone, they too are forever bound within stone themselves.

The music in this episode was on point, almost like Ultravox mixed with the Twin Peaks soundtrack. Calmer parts make me wanna listen to the very apropos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcmduaPX1BA
Take me down from the ridge where the summer ends
And watch the city spread out just like a jet's flame
[1985] S03E14: Rhino on the Run

Now here's a story we've heard about our whole lives: people murdering rhinos, cutting off their horns for dagger handles and spurious aphrodisiacs, and leaving the other 96% to rot in the sun. The cruel pillaging drove many reserves' populations to the brink -- or as George Page put it, "the rhinos have become so scarce, that all of them can be identified as individuals in a slim photo album" -- while the countries that could afford round-the-clock guards and well-staffed (and well-fenced) national parks saw their rhinos' flourish.

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I did a tally of how the populations were doing since the episode:

  • Black Rhino went from an est. 8000 individuals to around 6500
  • White Rhino went from an est. 3000 individuals to around 17500
  • Sumatran Rhino went from an est. 700 individuals to around 40
  • Javan Rhino went from an est. 50 individuals to around ?????
  • Indian Rhino went from an est. 1700 individuals to around 3000+


So, some species bounced back due to financed conservation efforts and others have floundered a bit. Was gonna say that maybe the rhinos with round-the-clock guards could have their horns safetly harvested and sold, then the proceeds used to finance better fencing, etc...but maybe we should just let the animals keep their dignity. (It was amusing that one South African guy said that, before the country became a signatory on a certain endangered species act, people used the horns as door stoppers and other knick-knacks.)

Maybe Megadeth saw this episode and then wrote their scathing putdown of trophy hunting?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNVcktiS6C4
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Shotgunnova posted...
Sumatran Rhino went from an est. 700 individuals to around 40

That's harrowing. Short of captivity, there won't be any rhinoceri.
While we count these petals to pluck them off a cosmos
The stem is likely to blast but never does the fate
The episode talked about how white rhinos flourished so much in their protected South African parks, they almost ate themselves out of their own habitat. The problem then became how to get them to other places with similar conditions and protections instead of needing to control their populations somehow, which would be the worst outcome. (Adult rhinos have no natural predators.)

But most parks at the time didn't have many protections, and even with a few armed guards, they might've been spread way too thinly. The Sumatran is the smallest rhino, IIRC, so I'm guessing it was pretty easy to pick on. The Javan at least hides in thick rainforest in a tiny island's national park (seen during the S3 opener) but the ones on the mainland are easy targets.

Hopefully the eggheads can figure something out.
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