Planet Earth: Caves / Deserts / Ice Worlds (DVD)

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"Planet Earth" also makes fantastic use of time-lapse photography to capture some of nature's wonders that are invisible to the naked eye. Watching the girth of a cactus plant slowly expanding as it absorbed moisture after a rainfall was certainly striking, but the most dramatic for me was in Antarctica, as seeing how a couple of miles of the sea freezes over in the span of 24 hours during the winter was a marvel in itself.

Video:
The video for "Planet Earth" fills television screens with an anamorphic widescreen aspect ratio of 1.85:1, and the picture quality is easily among the best I've ever seen for a standard DVD release. The varying black levels during the night filming and deep within caverns are sharp and strong, and I didn't notice any grain that often plagues these types of scenes. The bright colors are the most vivid attention-grabber though, and the detail throughout the series is simply stunning. I could see the shine on the scales on the rainbow flat lizards and make out the individual hairs on the coats of the Nubian ibex. Barring high-definition formats, it just doesn't get any better than this.

Audio:
Complementing the spectacular visuals, "Planet Earth" features Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound with optional English, French, and Spanish subtitles. Attenborough's narration can be heard with clarity throughout each episode, and the sounds of wildlife teleports the viewer firmly into each of the ecosystems to complete the experience of a lifetime. I particularly noticed the impressive sound when a billion migrating locusts swarmed the screen, and the droning murmuration from their wings creepily came at me from all sides and put my couch smack-dab in the middle of the plaguing infestation.

Extras:
Technically, there are three bonus 10-minute featurettes hidden behind each of the episodes titled, "Planet Earth Diaries," although I couldn't find any option to select them separately and actually found them by chance using the "Play All" selector. Preferably, the diary entries would have been listed on the menu screen for quick and easy reference, but I'm positive they aren't even included in the high-definition releases so at least they're here on the DVD.

Each diary is a behind-the-scenes tour for a certain section their corresponding episode, and they are just as entertaining to watch as the shows. In "Caves," we get to see the crew getting down and dirty with cockroaches, and that's putting it mildly, to film the massive mounds of bat guano in Borneo's Gomantong Cave. I was amazed how the photographers spent upwards of two months in the middle of nowhere to track down the endangered Bactrian camels in Mongolia's barren Gobi Desert, forced to bring along their own stash of car parts and mechanics just in case of a vehicle breakdown. For over a year, the cameramen endured the bitter cold to get the remarkable footage of a giant mass of male emperor penguins huddled together to keep themselves and their eggs warm. I couldn't believe what the crew put themselves through for the documentary, and they deserve a lot of appreciation for how dedicated they were to deliver accurate and fascinating cinematography.

The Final Cut:
"Planet Earth: Caves / Deserts / Ice Worlds" is without a doubt a fascinating standalone DVD release, but looking at the bigger picture it really contains just a small taste of a much more extravagant feast. I would strongly recommend checking out "Planet Earth: The Complete Collection," gathering the entire eleven-episode run of an unforgettable masterpiece that truly belongs in every home video library.

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