“Planet Earth” Delivers

I hope that all of you tuned in to Discovery HD Theater’s debut of “Planet Earth” this past Sunday night. There were actually three episodes shown: “From Pole to Pole,” “Mountains” and “Ocean Deep, Ocean Wide.” If you didn’t catch them, Discovery is replaying them this weekend. If you did, you’ll likely agree with my assessment that it was probably the most spectacular footage I’ve ever seen on TV. It’s hard to know where to begin in describing it because so much of what’s being showed has never been seen before, at least not like this.

The shot that sticks in my mind is in “From Pole to Pole” when the great white shark swallows the seal in its gigantic jaws and actually jumps clear out of the water before creating an enormous crash of waves as it dives back in. The entire attack only took one second but thanks to an ultra-slow motion HD camera, Discovery’s photographers were able to stretch it into 47 seconds – which enables you to fully grasp the power on display before your eyes. At one point, the great white is completely out of the water, hovering in mid-air without any part of him touching the sea. Powerful of course, but graceful, too. I think I hit replay on my DVR four times, not quite believing that they could actually get this scene on film in such detail.

The next two installments of the 11-part series air this Sunday night ("Desert" and "Ice Worlds"). In the meantime, if you missed any of the first three episodes, you’ve still got time to catch up. I promise, it’s worth it. This is why HDTV was created.