Trials of Life

When it comes to wildlife documentaries, there are not many presenters that can match David Attenborough, apart from perhaps David Bellamy. His knowledge and enthusiasm for any subject matter in the animal kingdom is both informative and infectious. Trials of Life is a 12-part BBC series that was three and half years in the making which covers every animal imaginable and many you likely never knew existed. Being A Natural History of Behaviour it covers a wide variety of topics and these are well edited into separate episodes, giving the viewer access to animals and areas they could never have accessed before.

The episode titles are self-explanatory, but don’t let the names fool you, there is something in every episode to keep you entertained. Many viewers could care less about the life of a shrimp or a termite, but these things are covered in such a way that the viewer is transfixed. The regular animals are also given attention - the lions, monkeys, killer whales and dolphins - but Trials of Life looks at different behaviour to that covered in so many previous documentaries. Killer whales that beach themselves to capture baby seals is something I've not seen covered before just for starters. The viewer is also taken on a hunt with a group of chimpanzees in their quest for meat, the preconception always being that these human-like animals are vegetarian. Whatever the animal, this series offers not only unseen behaviour, but it is filmed and presented in a way to make it the best wildlife documentary series ever made in this reviewer's opinion.

Episode Listing:

The attention to detail is incredible, but it is also refreshing to see a series such as this that doesn’t give explanations for activity when there are none. Quite often Attenborough will simply state “nobody knows why they do this� or similar, giving the viewer an account of behaviour without feeling the need to explain its meaning all the time.

With each episode running for around 30 minutes, there are hours of entertainment here for the whole family. The footage used takes you right into the action and covers some very interesting subjects. David Attenborough is a superb presenter who knows his subject matter, but in the end it is his enthusiasm in delivering the story that makes this so entertaining.

"They’ve got one and they are ripping it to pieces!"

Originally airing on television in 1990, Trials of Life is still as fresh and entertaining as it was all those years ago. If you happened to have seen the series during its original, airing or even own the videos, this DVD box set is well worth purchasing. Speaking of the videos, after some further investigation I noticed that not all the footage available on the videos is contained on this DVD release. I can only guess at the reasoning behind this, but even taking that fact into account, this is still a terrific buy.

Trials of Life is presented in full frame and therefore is not 16x9 enhanced. Taking three and a half years to make, this series has a varying quality of picture. My first impression when playing episode one was that the transfer was poor due to the amount of grain, but it does get better. Some scenes are stunning, but others are riddled with problems. Also considering this was made many years ago it does suffer from age, but again this is only in some areas. Overall grain is the biggest problem, causing loss of detail. Colours are generally true and blacks are reasonably solid. Aliasing is only minor and film artefacts are surprisingly few. Subtitles supplied are a strange choice of English and Greek and the English ones viewed are accurate to dialogue on screen.

Default audio supplied is English Dolby Digital 2.0 and this does the job adequately without being spectacular. As is the case with the video, the sound clarity can vary at times, but overall the dialogue of David Attenborough is clear, with only the level varying. Audio synch is generally very good with only a couple of occasions where it is out. Being a dialogue driven series, this track does the job but is certainly not of reference quality - not that it needs to be.

Disc three contains the solitary extra in this box set. It is a Making of featurette entitled Once More Into the Termite Mound. Rather than looking at behind the scenes footage, this is predominantly made up of interviews with experts used for the series. It is extremely informative and entertaining and shows some of the lengths gone to in order to obtain certain footage. It has a running time of 49:18 and could quite easily be classed as part three in this series.

For those with an interest in wildlife documentaries, I cannot recommend this highly enough as I feel it is the best one ever made. Beautifully packaged, this box set is a must have for lovers of nature and quality television.