![]() ![]() But in some cases that’s disingenuous - a quick Web search reveals that you can book an adventure-tourism trip to go watch those Mongolian eagles and their handlers hunt in person. The program is carved into tidy packages that each give one small slice of these exotic lives, presenting them as examples of humans in harmony with nature. Where exactly is the camera operator standing, and how, to get those shots of the fishermen who pluck their catches from the very top of Victoria Falls in Africa? Was that soaring footage from a segment on hunters in Mongolia who use trained eagles to catch game taken with an eagle-cam, as it appears? The filmmaking is breathtaking and, if you think about it too hard, question-inducing. We meet men, also in Indonesia, who plunge unprotected into the toxic gases of an active volcano to mine sulfur. And so we meet a diver in Indonesia who is able to hold his breath for up to five minutes underwater so he can spear a fish or two. It wants only people who are risking their lives in dramatic ways to catch a meal, make a few bucks or just get from one place to another. This series isn’t interested in ordinary fishermen or alpine herders. The series is organized geographically, with the opening hour concentrating on people who live by the sea or ocean, the second installment (also showing Sunday) looking at mountain-dwellers, and others checking in on Arctic regions, jungles and so on. The Discovery Channel, which served up the earlier multipart eye-poppers “Planet Earth” (in 2007) and “Life” (in 2010), on Sunday begins “Human Planet,” a six-hour series produced in conjunction with the BBC that travels to extreme environments where people do remarkable, and remarkably dangerous, things just to get by. Only this installment also carries a nagging “Why are people still living like that?” undercurrent. It’s time once again for some “How the heck did they film that?” TV. ![]()
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