Evolution, BBC Two, Monday, four star
Two successions take place this week: the first involves Andy Burnham moving house, the other is Chris Packham taking over from Sir David Attenborough as the nation’s naturalist-in-chief.
Sir David is not officially retiring. Dear God, no. But with the television titan now 100, the passing of the microphone had to happen sooner or later. A five-part series on evolution was a suitably ambitious bid for the crown - get this right and the rest would be (natural) history.
Packham opened in traditional wildlife documentary style, looking out over a misty savannah and waxing lyrical in voiceover. “Across our natural worlds,” he began, “life has taken on countless forms - wondrous, strange and endlessly diverse.”
Had he always sounded so breathy? No time to ponder because he was telling us that we would be exploring evolution through the “journeys” of five species, starting with the elephant. Cut to the Kibwezi Forest in Kenya, and Packham was with a small herd of them. “Look at that!” he cried. Packham never used full stops around animals; only exclamation marks. “Look at the ears on this one! The size of a tablecloth!” The elephant, being far more polite, kept its opinion of Packham’s lugs to itself.
Read more
- The Dark: Outlander actor Laura Donnelly excels in Scottish crime drama
- When Andy Warhol fell out with Bob Dylan over Elvis
- Little House on the Prairie: Is Netflix reboot bold enough?
- If you go into the kitchen today you're sure of a tasty television surprise
How did evolution come up with something as complex, as beautiful, as enormous as this, Packham wondered. With the aid of a whizzy timeline and lots of CGI he talked us through it. How everything began with a giant mass of cells (a quadrillion if you were keeping score); how these became other cells; all the way to LUCA (Last Universal Common Ancestor), the organism that links all living things on the planet.
LUCA survived and thrived, though it wasn’t clear how. “Luca was the little engine that could,” said Packham. It was not a line you could imagine a certain other broadcaster using. But then Packham had to go his own way, be himself, because otherwise what was the point? Evolution doesn’t just apply to organisms.
Anyway, a lot of people like this Packham. This Packham said sorry to an ant he plucked off his arm. This Packham melted on seeing a (very) distant ancestor of the elephant. “I’m tempted to use the c-word. He’s undeniably cute,” he said of the small furry creature. And this Packham wore a pair of comedy teeth to show where tusks came from.
This Packham, in short, was the punky, cheeky, funny younger brother we never knew we needed until he arrived, and now we’re glad to have him. At the end, the bit where Attenborough usually has a “how we made this” segment, Packham offered a team of talking heads. All of them top notch, but I for one was glad to have learned the basics with Packham.
We left him leading a group of elephants out of the forest, all big smiles and exclamation marks again (him, not the pachyderms). “We should cherish all life on Earth, “ he proclaimed. “Evolution is wonderful, life is beautiful.”
Amen to that, brother.
Share