Last Chance To See, TV Series Blu-Ray

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Product Description

Join Britain's best-loved wit and raconteur, Stephen Fry, as he follows in the footsteps of his great friend, the late writer Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), along with zoologist Mark Carwardine, to remote parts in search of some of the rarest and most threatened animals on Earth.

Twenty years ago Carwardine teamed up with Adams and embarked on a groundbreaking expedition in search of some of the world's most endangered animals. This time, he is joined by Stephen Fry to see how all those animals have been faring in the years since and which, if any, survived.

In this programme we follow the duo on six separate journeys which take them from the steamy jungles of the Amazon to the ice-covered mountain tops of New Zealand and from the edge of a war zone in Central Africa to a sub-tropical paradise in the North Pacific. Along the way, they search for some of the weirdest, most remarkable and most troubled creatures on earth: a large, black, sleepy animal easily mistaken for an unusually listless mudbank, a parrot with a song like an unreleased collection of Pink Floyd studio outtakes, a rhino with square lips, a dragon with deadly saliva, an animal roughly the length of a Boeing 737 and the creature most likely to emerge from the cargo doors of a spaceship.

Last Chance to See is a unique insight into the disappearing world around us, and this is their hilarious, entertaining, informative and thought-provoking adventure.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3451 in DVD
• Released on: 2009-10-19
• Rating: Exempt
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 360 minutes

Synopsis
Twenty years after HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY writer Douglas Adams and his friend, naturalist, Mark Carwardine travelled the globe in search of endangered animals (the progress of which was documented in the popular BBC radio series and companion book LAST CHANCE TO SEE), their amazing journey is retraced and reevaluated in this fascinating TV series. Adams' death in 2001 sadly put an end to the duo's adventures, so this series see his longtime friend, comedy legend Stephen Fry take up the challenge. Fry and Carwardine barely knew each other which makes their initial mission to find the Amazonian Manatee endearingly awkward, with both clearly intimidated by each others' vast knowledge. But the elusive manatee is just the tip of the iceberg, other episodes follow the trail of the Northern White Rhino, man-eating Komodo dragons, a flightless parrot, man's closest living relative, the pygmy chimpanzee and much more. As the pair re-investigate the disappearing animals of the world, the series highlights the worrying immediacy of extinction and what can be done to help prevent it.

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Customer Reviews

It's on TWO disks, 1080i, DTS-HD
I just wanted to point out that this set is on two disks, and not on one as Amazon states.
I've tried to use their method of "updating product info", but I got a rejection email back.

Basically, after watching the first three episodes on BBC-HD, I decided I wanted to buy it.
I came along to Amazon, and noticed that it says all 6 episodes (and therefore approx 6 hours) is squeezed onto one single bluray disk.

Pathetic I thought, I'm not buying that, the quality will be severely compromised.

A few days later, I came across the set at another online store, and it stated 2 disks.
I ordered it, it IS on two disks, and can confirm that it does have a nice high bitrate.

Audio is LCPM Stereo or DTS-HD 5.0. (5.0 comes from the box, my equipment only reports it as multi-channel DTS-HD)

The picture is 1080i, the same as when it aired on BBCHD. It looks fantastic.

So far I've only watched episode 4, and I was concerned initially, as I noticed what looked like video noise in the sky, at the beginning, when Stephen and Mark are on the boat, but after that, it looked flawless, indeed beautiful.
VBR bitrate jumps up to the 30s when required.

I'm very happy with it.

I just wanted to confirm to anybody else who's interested, that this set is a two disk set, with 3 eps per disk, so the quality isn't compromised by squeezing it all onto one bluray.

Maybe when we get quad layer disks would that be acceptable! :)

Enjoy the series.

Few hours of pleasure
This is actually a brilliant documentary over one of the major plagues of this planet. It is shot and treated with the usual outstanding british humor where even small ongoing accidents to the staff create a funny show. At the end you feel delighted by the professional shooting by BBC but you also feel that one of the endangered species on the planet are great people like Stephen Fry and his band.