Planet Earth
I'm sure most people are already familiar with this series. And I haven't met anyone who hasn't enjoyed it, much less thought it was one of the greatest things they've seen on a screen. On IMDB, Planet Earth is the highest rated item in the whole database with over 3200 votes, and it's the highest rated item that isn't a video game with more than 150 votes. In fact the item with the most votes that isn't a video game and is rated higher than Planet Earth on IMDB is a film called Vishnu which has an outrageous score of 10.0 out of 10.0 with 114 votes. However when you consider the fact that it's a relatively new Indian movie that may have a cult fan base and hasn't been seen much out of India it's not anywhere near as outrageous as Planet Earth's score of 9.8 out of 10.0 out of 9,095 votes!!! Documentaries and TV series are exempt from IMDB's Top 250 list, but compare a rating of 9.8 with the current top movie on that list Shawshank Redemption with a score of 9.2.
Certainly it has done a fine job with it's goal of trying to set the bar to a new high for quality in a nature documentary program. The best nature photographers were given some of the best resources and greatest amount of time to capture some spectacular scenes of nature.
I watched this on DVD. I'm sure it would be even more amazing in HD or Blu-ray or whatever all those other higher quality image formats are. If you do see it though, make sure you see the original British version. I hear that for American broadcast the narration is done by Sigourney Weaver, which might not be bad (I haven't heard it), but after you see the original it would be hard to separate the series from David Attenborough's narration. The narration is filled with so much hyperbole that it sometimes gets a little bit silly. Almost everything they show you in the program is apparently the "most" something. The biggest, the smallest, the wettest, the driest, the oldest, the fastest, always the most something. I guess if you get specific enough, anything you could chose to look at is the "most" something. But nonetheless, everything fits together well and it's worth watching.
Every episode even ends with a bit of info about how the cameramen got the shots which you always kind of wonder about. The last episodes are rather depressing since they focus on the impact of humans on the rest of the planet and the extensive loss of life and entire species. The impact is greatest because you have just watched so many different forms of life up close in so many different contexts.
Rating: 9/10