I can't be the only one have watched this?
I was really looking forward to it but only found out just beforehand that Richard Dawkins was presenting it.
This made my heart sink. Firstly, he isn't the most natural of TV presenters. Secondly, I did wonder how much the programme would be about Darwin and how much would be about Dawkins.
It didn't start off dreadfully well when it looked like the whole thing might become "The Root Of All Evil" but with a bit of Darwin draped around it.
Certainly, the bits with the 16 year old kids were absolutely pointless. Equally, the bits where he kept on going on how "The Origin Of Species" was the most important book in the library of this species etc, reminded me of Brian Clough complaining about Sky commentators going on about how good every game they show is.
As he says, we aren't stupid, we know when a game is good and, equally, the story of Darwin and evolution is fucking fantastic, Richard, just tell us it and we will see that for ourselves.
I was hugely disappointed that Dawkins didn't delve more into what must have been a huge issue for Darwin when his research brought him to the conclusion that there was no God. This seemed to be completely glossed over in a way that a historian, for instance, wouldn't do.
Having said that, this whole series looks like it is going to be about Darwin's work rather than the man himself but it still would have been nice to hear about what must have been a major point in his life.
Having said all this, once the programme went on, there were some really good bits, the Aids section was excellent and Dawkins treated it sensitively. I thought that Dawkins talking over endless footage of animals fucking was an, erm, interesting bit of editing and, for some reason, I really enjoyed the piano keyboard as a timeline for the history of the world.
It will be interesting to see how next week's goes. Hopefully, they will do away with some of the "Richard tell us all how important Darwin is" parts and start showing us instead. For one thing, he isn't the greatest at interacting with other people on TV. Not a criticism, his job isn't to be Johnathon Ross but they should play to his strengths (the science bits)
I was thinking of who I may have preferred to have presented this and I was thinking of David Attenborough and (don't laugh, I know I keep referring to him) Bill Bryson and I remembered that Attenbrough is supposed to be doing his own documentary on Darwin, preseumably for BBC, so I don't know whether this is a spoiler for Channel 4
I was really looking forward to it but only found out just beforehand that Richard Dawkins was presenting it.
This made my heart sink. Firstly, he isn't the most natural of TV presenters. Secondly, I did wonder how much the programme would be about Darwin and how much would be about Dawkins.
It didn't start off dreadfully well when it looked like the whole thing might become "The Root Of All Evil" but with a bit of Darwin draped around it.
Certainly, the bits with the 16 year old kids were absolutely pointless. Equally, the bits where he kept on going on how "The Origin Of Species" was the most important book in the library of this species etc, reminded me of Brian Clough complaining about Sky commentators going on about how good every game they show is.
As he says, we aren't stupid, we know when a game is good and, equally, the story of Darwin and evolution is fucking fantastic, Richard, just tell us it and we will see that for ourselves.
I was hugely disappointed that Dawkins didn't delve more into what must have been a huge issue for Darwin when his research brought him to the conclusion that there was no God. This seemed to be completely glossed over in a way that a historian, for instance, wouldn't do.
Having said that, this whole series looks like it is going to be about Darwin's work rather than the man himself but it still would have been nice to hear about what must have been a major point in his life.
Having said all this, once the programme went on, there were some really good bits, the Aids section was excellent and Dawkins treated it sensitively. I thought that Dawkins talking over endless footage of animals fucking was an, erm, interesting bit of editing and, for some reason, I really enjoyed the piano keyboard as a timeline for the history of the world.
It will be interesting to see how next week's goes. Hopefully, they will do away with some of the "Richard tell us all how important Darwin is" parts and start showing us instead. For one thing, he isn't the greatest at interacting with other people on TV. Not a criticism, his job isn't to be Johnathon Ross but they should play to his strengths (the science bits)
I was thinking of who I may have preferred to have presented this and I was thinking of David Attenborough and (don't laugh, I know I keep referring to him) Bill Bryson and I remembered that Attenbrough is supposed to be doing his own documentary on Darwin, preseumably for BBC, so I don't know whether this is a spoiler for Channel 4
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