David Attenborough is like the Walter Cronkite of nature documentary hosts. While outside whited itself out, inside there was color on the morning tube.
Life in Color is the latest Netflix/Attenborough collaboration. It’s an excellent one. It has the advances in filming technology–cameras that see in ultraviolet and polarized light. There’s also the ability to “erase” colors to see, for example, what a deer in India might not see. Chital deer do not see in orange. This is fortunate for tigers, who then blend in with the green background of the forest, giving them a leg up in the hunt.
The usual suspects are presented: fish from coral reefs, birds in mating displays, butterflies seeking food and plants providing it, poisonous animals and their non-toxic imitators.
New things inspire wonder: spiders that change color to catch pollenating bees in flowers, bird of paradise mating displays filmed from above–where the female sees them, zebras who survive with contrasting stripes possibly because they “confuse” pesky flies and predators alike.Â
All three episodes caught my morning eye for a binge. The third is a making-of effort. The colors might attract any viewer, especially a lover of nature. Not much preaching on climate change until the end of the series, so swallow that as either a flaw or an encouragement.
Catholic Sensibility 