REVIEW: Attenborough's Life In Colour, Series 1 Episode One 'Seeing In Colour'

 REVIEW: Attenborough's Life In Colour, Series 1 Episode One 'Seeing In Colour'

This first episode of Sir David Attenborough's new series gave me two things I wasn't expecting. One was something fairly atypical of a Sir David Attenborough documentary (although I believe it has happened before), and the other was something that I don't remember seeing being advertised at all.

The first of these surprises was that Sir David Attenborough appears sporadically throughout the episode and directly addresses the audience. It felt weird seeing Sir David Attenborough as well as hearing his voice, as I am so used to just hearing him as a narrator, but it adds a personal touch to the documentary that works well with this piece.

The second was that the version I watched had been uploaded on the iPlayer in true 4K. I did not realise that this was a series that had even been shot with 4K cameras, so it was a very welcome surprise to discover that this was a 4K presentation. And it was absolutely stunning, with beautiful shots of forestry, beaches and the Great Barrier Reef.

This episode dives deep into the way that animals use colour (hence the show's title), and gives some very impressive examples of the way they utilise this colour. For example, mandrill monkeys, we are told, use colour as a sign of status, to show who is the biggest authority, and they receive their colour upon hitting puberty.

And then there's the delving into the way birds use their pieces of colour. It's really clever just how much the birds think about how best to show it off, be it using sunlight or removing any trace of green from the forest ground so that their feathers stand out more to potential partners.

Perhaps the most impressive elements in this episode however is seeing how colour looks to some of these various animals. The ultraviolet cameras, for instance, show us how the world looks from the perspective of an insect. It's so weird seeing the bright colours of a sunflower adopt more of a purple hue under the lens of an ultraviolet camera, and bizarre to imagine that this is how they look to insects.

But it's not just insects who can see things in ultraviolet light, as we are also told that this applies to fish in the marine world too, although it apparently doesn't apply to sharks. For once these small fish have an advantage against the sharks who come for their lunch!

There's some crossover in this episode with the other nature documentary from Sunday's television viewing, Chris Packham's Animal Einsteins, as this episode also explores how some animals see things in polaroid vision. Again, how they film this with these new special industry cameras is hugely impressive, and gives a rare insight into how the world must look to these animals.

It's incredible to see how fiddler crabs use this ability to spot predators far in the distance. The cameraman states near the end of this episode that these crabs could see birds in the distance that he couldn't, because of this polaroid vision, and it makes you think just how beneficial this must be for their daily lives.

Equally amazing is how these mantra shrimps use the same ability to communicate. Communication you normally think of in the form of speech; the thought of colour being used to communicate therefore is not something that usually comes to mind, so it is really interesting to learn about how these animals use such a different technique.

Another thing that doesn't normally cross the mind is flamingos that aren't pink, and yet there are some that don't possess those pink feathers here. It's so weird seeing flamingos with these sort of silvery grey feathers, and even weirder to hear that young flamingos don't get as pink as their feathers until five years into their life!

A great start to this new Sir David Attenborough series overall, with some great visuals and impressive 4K display. It's amazing what these new television cameras can do with showing us ultraviolet and polarised perspectives, and it makes me wonder if we could see them used in other forms of TV down the road. How about a drama series about a human being who sees things through ultraviolet eyesight, for instance? Or a kid who finds the entire world is in polaroid?

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What are your thoughts on Attenborough's Life In Colour's first episode? Let me know in the comments.