With the grand opening theme as provided by Hans Zimmer, we begin episode two of Frozen Planet II – Frozen Ocean. This episode casts an eye over the Arctic, its landscape and wildlife, through the seasons.
From here on out, a spoiler alert is in effect. Though if anybody has waited as long as I have to watch this series, I would be surprised!
As you might expect from any nature documentary series to which Attenborough is attached, there are beautiful shots of epically wonderful locations and wildlife. Both awe inspiring and dramatically vivid. Shots of polar bears are beautiful, and striking. Scenes of them hunting seals, with vibrant red blood splashed across pristine ice and white fur, are particularly impressive – capturing the beauty and violence of nature all at once.
But also there are purely touching moments. When a female bear meets a male of the species, conflict and violence is anticipated. However, instead, they play. And we watch the animals skating across the ice together, as Attenborough narrates, "apparently, just for the joy of it."
A moment that reveals a depth to the animals most might never see.
A theme of this episode is the temperamental nature of the Arctic environment, of how the landscape changes with seasons, or even from one minute to the next. An aspect of the Arctic that dominates the lives of the animals that live there.
In spring, as temperatures creep above freezing, ice melts and great change inches across the landscape. To emphasise how this changing landscape influences the lives of animals here, we are introduced to beluga whales which, because of ice cover shifting because of spring melt, are at risk of losing open water where they can surface to breathe.
A risk that these animals must face every year.
Later, we meet a one week old harp seal pup and its mother. Its fur is thick and pristine white, matching the icy scenery. Beautiful shots of the pup feeding from the mother as a light snow falls are gorgeous. Indeed, so rich are the images that the viewer risks getting lost in them, missing Attenborough's excellent narration of the events on screen, supplemented with scientific findings and statistics.
The underwater shots of the pup, as it takes its first dip into Arctic waters, are worth watching the episode alone. It is shots like these that make this documentary series a wonder to watch!
Time passes – weeks pass in minutes . . .
The scenes of this pup end sadly in a storm, with the narration informing the viewer that, because of rising temperatures at the Arctic, storms are becoming more frequent, and seal pups are being forced into the sea before they are ready be in the water for any significant period. The story of this seal pup ends ominously with scenes of the youngster on an ice floe being battered by stormy seas.
Two-centimetre skeleton shrimp might not be the highlight of the episode, or even sound particularly interesting to many, but one of the things that these nature documentaries do, through excellent camera operation, is to reveal the beauty and intriguing nature of even the smallest life.
And, from some of the smallest lives in the sea to some of the largest, and longest lived – bowhead whales, which might be a couple of centuries old!
Killer whales, as viewers of previous series might know, tend to promise dramatic scenes. And, when they appear in this episode, Attenborough tells the viewer that the pod we see on screen specialises in hunting bowhead whales.
And so followsscenes of battle and blood in the water. Never pleasant, but as I mentioned in the review of the first episode, a documentary which documents events selectively is close to being no documentary at all.
The killers hunting bowheads is natural. However, we learn that more and more bowheads are being lost to killers for one reason – rising temperatures. With less ice, which the bowheads use as cover and protection when targeted by killers, the bowheads are more easily predated by the orca.
There is more. Walruses rolling from beaches into the sea to try and escape rising heat, and polar bears, bloody-faced and aggressive, coming into conflict with each other over stretched resources. All for one reason – rising temperatures.
One fears that, by now, there will be some rolling their eyes and turning away.
Nature documentaries now must navigate the problem of how to approach the subject of climate change when there are sections of the audience that will never hear it. When scientists are now predicting that the Arctic will be ice free in summer by 2035, there is urgency to documenting and studying rising temperatures and the causes. But, a quick glance at Twitter will tell you there are those who will dismiss the topic out of hand.
The series is revealing in more ways than one; the scenes upon the screen, and the hashtags and opinions screamed into the void across social media following each airing.
In the previous review, I did not mention the segment following the main programme during which we get an insight into the work behind the scenes. It is worth watching and rightfully shines a light on the excellent work of those on location, documenting the nature and wildlife.
In this segment, we follow the team behind the shots of the harp seal mother and pup mentioned earlier. And, in these segments too there is drama. We follow the camera operators in the icy waters striving to get shots of the pup underwater. And then there is the drama of boats trapped between shifting ice floes.
The segment ends with the team forced to abandon the seal pup because of stormy weather. We see the pup left to its fate from behind the scenes this time, and it is as tough a watch from this point of view as it was earlier in the documentary.
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