National Geographic’s ambitious Earth LIVE special presentation Sunday night will broadcast animal behavior in the wild from six continents as it happens while Jane Lynch hosts.
This is the true story, of thousands of wild animals, picked to live in their habitats, play together, and have their lives taped so we can all watch in awe. Earth LIVE, National Geographic’s 2-hour Sunday night presentation, has a little bit of a Real World vibe. Instead of the more crafted storylines of say, a Planet Earth, the idea for this docuspecial is just setting up cameras (carefully planned ones, obviously) and seeing what happens. You know, when animals stop being polite, and start getting … well, you see where I’m going with this.
Top wildlife cinematographers spread across six continents have positioned themselves to capture the most active animal action they can. Of course, it’s not really up to them. If a cackle (yep, that’s apparently what it’s called) of hyenas doesn’t feel like being entertaining in the two hours the show airs, tough luck.
The show is playing up its technological edge as well. The filmmakers, National Geographic’s site says, will “use cutting-edge technology to showcase a number of wildlife firsts. And, for the first time, viewers will watch live wildlife lit only by the moon, in full color, via new low-light camera technology.”
According to The Daily Beast (which seems an aptly-named outlet to report on this), the special will have footage from 52 cameras set up on six continents, in 28 locations across 16 countries at its disposal. Which shots it decides to air all depends. The filmmakers have been tracking many of the populations they are trying to get on camera for years so they have an idea of when the animals might do something cool, but we won’t know if they actually do until 8/7 Central.
As filmmaker Sophie Darlington told the site:
"“I hope people will embrace that, the kind of, ‘Look, nature is writing the script.’ I know it’s a cheesy line, but that’s the truth of it. If the lions decide they’re all going to go into a bush, we’ll find something else lovely to show you. The preparation is immense. But the animals, it’s their story to tell.”"
Then of course there will be co-hosts Jane Lynch and Amazing Race host Phil Keoghan providing jokes and commentary in case the elephants or lions are taking a snooze.
The special might be an indicator that straight observational-style reality programming is growing on audiences. Of course, there’s been the relative success (and subsequent network pounce) of live musicals: Sound of Music, The Wiz, Hairspray, Grease, etc. And other partial forays into the format like First Dates. Maybe execs are figuring out we’ve all grown accustomed to live-streaming on our phones and they could save themselves some money on editors. (Not that National Geographic saved much, Earth LIVE is apparently one of their most expensive endeavors to date.)
Whatever their motivation, the concept is an intriguing one. I didn’t even know I wanted to know what a colony of macaque monkeys will be up to Sunday night in Thailand, but the more that I think about it, I really do.
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Plus, I’m all for any nature programming that is able to shed the boring rep wildlife docs have earned. Planet Earth was able to break through with the sheer epicness of its cinematography and of the natural world itself and become a global pop culture phenomenon. Here’s hoping the creatures are ready for showtime on Sunday and Earth LIVE can do the same.