Chris Packham Crowned Attenborough's Successor
The new BBC nature documentary 'Evolution' effectively crowns Chris Packham as the successor to David Attenborough, a coronation many will agree is well-deserved. Packham demonstrates the same passion for the subject and the ability to share knowledge accessibly, treading the line between assuming nothing and not infantilising the audience, much like Attenborough.
Series Structure and Content
'Evolution' is a five-part series that takes one animal per episode, delving into a particular aspect of its evolutionary journey. The first episode focuses on elephants and their trunks, a prime example of a selection advantage that has helped life move from primordial soup to land, air, and even back into water. In Kenya, viewers watch African savanna elephants before CGI takes us back 4.2 billion years to LUCA, the last universal common ancestor—a single-cell organism that is the progenitor of all life on Earth.
Mutations over generations led to plants, fungi, and multicellular life forms, eventually resulting in dinosaurs and mammals. A meteorite strike wiped out the dinosaurs, and one mammal became the elephant's ancestor. Over 66 million years, mutations shaped features like longer noses, giving the elephant its trunk.
Scientific Grounding and Wonder
The series is grounded in science, with Packham using fossils, modern creatures, and experiments to illustrate principles. It avoids suggesting evolution is a design process, instead presenting it as a selection process. Packham expresses wonder at the miraculous nature of it all, from retroviruses adding myelin sheaths to nerve cells, increasing computing power, to the advent of thinking.
According to the review, 'Evolution' is television that makes viewers feel like children again, bombarded with new information and mesmerised by fantastic facts. It ignites curiosity, especially in young viewers, much like Attenborough's work did for Packham as a boy.
Broadcast Details
'Evolution' airs on BBC Two and is available on BBC iPlayer in the UK, with overseas broadcasts yet to be announced.
