Any documentary Sir David Attenborough will offer his pipes to is worth watching, and this short series will be no different. I hope they find some mating animals, just so he has to say the words “dominant” and “mate” in the same phrase. From the press release:
Madagascar, a three-part series exploring the extraordinary wildlife and dramatic landscape of one of the world’s most fascinating islands, premieres Wednesday, May 4, at 7.30pm on Channel Nine.
Narrated by Sir David Attenborough, Madagascar is an ambitious and intimate portrait of a fragile place unlike anywhere else on Earth.
Lying just off the south-eastern coast of Africa, Madagascar is a land of misty mountains, tropical rainforests and weird, spiny desert scrub. Its wildlife has evolved in splendid isolation to become bizarre and totally unique. The great mystery of Madagascar is why it has such a unique and varied assortment of flora and fauna. What is it that makes Madagascar so different from the rest of the world?
Island of Marvels
Part one finds clues from Madagascar’s extraordinary animals, plants and landscape to discover how the island’s remarkable past has produced its intriguing present. Like the Tsingy, a series of jagged limestone peaks which have cut animals off in isolated gorges, forcing them to evolve into unique species.Lost Worlds
On the east side of the island, rugged mountains rise dramatically from the palm-fringed Indian Ocean. These uplands catch drenching rains almost all year round – steep and inaccessible, they form the most diverse part of Madagascar. In part two we travel down from the highest mountains, where trees are few and far between, through lush, cloaking rainforests to the tropical coast. Along the way we discover ringtailed lemurs, jewelled geckos and predatory wasps.Land of Heat and Dust
The southern part of Madagascar is marked by an amazing landscape – from forests of “upside down” trees to alien “spiny deserts”. In stark contrast to the east, the south is bone-dry for most of the year, yet incredibly rich in wildlife. Here only the toughest and most opportunistic species survive – and some of the strategies for survival are ingenious.Madagascar is a land that has never been filmed in such detail before. It’s one of the few places left on the planet where there are still wildlife mysteries. This enthralling Attenborough series brings the weird and wonderful, the beautiful and unique qualities of this special island to television for the first time.
Madagascar – Premieres Wed 04/05 7.30pm, Ch9.