The release of this has obviously been timed to coincide with the end of the latest Big Cat week, or if you prefer Big Cat 3. This is a daily drama well worth investing your time in and it's a great shame it's only on our small screens once a year.
For anyone unfamiliar with the concept of Big Cat week three presenters follow three sets of big cats around for a week and see what happens. It's that simple, but some of the drama that unfolds is mesmerising and buttock clenchingly tense. Before the end of the first episode you are hooked into caring what happens to these animals and worry almost as much as the presenters, who let me, tell you worry a hell of a lot, every time something seems to be amiss.
We follow the pride of lions dubbed the marsh pride because they live near a marsh handily enough with Simon King who is probably the most dispassionate of the presenters. Saba Douglas Hamilton (driving her Big Cat jeep in bare feet) is attached to a leopard called Bella and her cub Chui while Jonathan Scott tracks the cheetahs. Hamilton is passionate and articulate but rarely gets overly emotional which is more than you can say about Scott who spends every episode getting in a right tizzy about something and is weirdly camp with it. The cheetahs though are the most at risk of the three groups so in a way it's understandable.
Series one has Scott following Kike trying to raise her litter of cubs , something she has never managed successfully before and for series two he follows up to see how she is getting on. King after following the marsh pride for the first series turns his attention to a couple of lions - Chezah and Sala- for the second while Hamilton stays with Bella for both.
There is around 8 hours of footage here, which for the price is a bargain plus there are two additional documentaries centred on Bella and Cheza & Sala. Big Cat Week is one of the TV highlights of the year and in my opinion should be on everyday, or at least as often as the soaps that clog up the schedules like moss in a drainage culvert. Exciting, emotional, nerve-racking, even funny, everything you expect from a soap. The only problem I can envisage is that Jonathan Scott would probably have a nervous breakdown within a month.