Stack your mosquito netting, ice pick, safari hat, hiking boots, scuba gear and rappelling ropes in a neat pile. Then sit back, put your feet up and let an amiable Scottish geologist lead a personal tour of the planet full of stunning science and even more stunning HD pictures.
Iain Stewart, whose books and documentaries have been popular on the BBC (“Journeys From the Centre of the Earth”), is never stuffy. This is not Sir David Attenborough territory, rife with poetic odes to taxonomy. No, this is bold, next-gen, hands-on nature reporting with an eye toward the future. His adventures, like his science, are bracingly energetic.
The film, two years in the making, constitutes fine family viewing and painless education at once, to the tune of a distinctive brogue from Dr. Stewart (when he introduces himself, it’s “Steuaauuuggghhhhtt”).
Three nights, five hours and dozens of believe-it-or-not moments continually make the layperson ask, “Really?!”
Stewart’s physical antics help tell the story. Demonstrating how much methane gas is trapped in ice bubbles, and how global warming could release the gas on a grand scale, Stewart is knocked on his rear when he lights up a bubble.
He scuba dives in Mexico’s underwater caverns and tunnels that — according to new imaging from space — were created by the meteorite that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
The affable scientist never hits us over the head with talk of global warming but travels to Greenland to show how the ice sheets and glaciers are melting at an astonishing, and phenomenally increasing, rate.
The Earth will be OK, he says; it’s humans that will be vulnerable.
Stewart’s engaging storytelling makes us ponder the heat of volcanoes, the freeze of glaciers, the layers of atmosphere, the depths of the ocean and the way the systems work together to make Earth one of a kind (until further notice). He’s helped along by computer graphics, explaining the truly mind-boggling.
“Earth: The Biography,” July 13-15 on National Geographic Channel (7-9 p.m. and repeating often), is a keeper. Make a note now for future wish lists.
Unlike a certain recent award-winning documentary series that bragged about “unprecedented,” “never before seen,” “first on film” photography for hours on end, the NatGeo miniseries goes about its business modestly. The jaw- droppingly beautiful natural wonders and spectacular time-lapse photography are superb, and the narration doesn’t labor to tell you so.
Instead, Stewart busily shares gleeful wonder at the way wind chisels rock into sculpture, or the way lumps in volcanic hot springs likely brought about the beginnings of life on the planet. He lets us in on how volcanoes saved the planet, explains how the Mediterranean Sea once dried up and shows a hot-dog boarder riding an air current. Stewart is an amiable traveling companion, and he offers less a lecture than a scientific travelogue.
You don’t have to be a scientist, a hiker or a nature buff to enjoy this series. But owning a high-def television does help. Amazingly, five hours of “Earth: The Biography” leaves you wanting more.
Channel 2 news.
KWGN- Channel 2 will launch a weeknight 5:30 newscast Monday (opposite the network newscasts and a sitcom on other local affiliates), anchored by Ernie Bjorkman and Kellie MacMullan, with meteorologist Dave Fraser, consumer reporter Dave Young and reporter Chris Parente.
“Support for local news has never been stronger on a corporate level,” general manager Jim Zerwekh said in a release, referring to parent company Tribune. “This news expansion demonstrates that Channel 2 is in the local news business to stay.”
Joanne Ostrow’s column appears Tuesday, Friday and Sunday: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com.
