Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1282 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-02-25
• Rating: Exempt
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 250 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Billed as the last in David Attenborough’s series of Life nature documentaries, Life In Cold Blood leaves you dearly hoping that proves not to be the case. For once more, as he has done many times in his distinguished career, Attenborough gently - and unobtrusively - delivers an utterly fascinating insight into the world in which we live.

The focus of Life In Cold Blood is on reptiles and amphibians, bringing into focus a series of creatures very much of all shapes and sizes. Across the episodes that make up the series - all of which are contained in this DVD set - the programme makers delve into the lives and mannerisms of its subjects. They do so with some quite stunning camera work, bringing to our screens things that have quite simply never been seen before.

As much as perhaps we shouldn’t take for granted the heights that Attenborough’s work easily scales, Life In Cold Blood happily matches the standards of his earlier series. Often genuinely jaw-dropping, and never less than completely absorbing, the DVD set is rounded off with some equally intriguing extra features that delve into the complex production of the programme itself.

If Life In Cold Blood really does bring the Life series to an end, then it’s even more reason to cherish it. Even without such emotive reasons, this is nonetheless an extraordinary series, that’ll make you look at snakes, frogs, crocodiles and turtles in very different ways. Unmissable. --Simon Brew

DVD Description
Reptiles and amphibians ruled the world for nearly 200 million years and today there are still over 12,500 of them. Some are huge, the deadliest creatures on earth. Some are tiny, among the strangest to be found anywhere. Together, they not only outnumber mammals or birds but in their colourful variety and extraordinary behaviour, they far surpass them.

So where did these ancient creatures come from? How have they transformed themselves into the bizarre and beautiful forms that are alive today? And what's the secret of their epic success?

In Life in Cold Blood, David Attenborough traces the story of their evolution and overturns the myth that these creatures are just primitive killers, to reveal them for what they truly are.

Synopsis
LIFE IN COLD BLOOD is the last of David Attenborough's critically-acclaimed LIFE series and focuses on the amphibians and reptiles that have inhabited the Earth for millions of years.

Customer Reviews

The wonders of cold blooded species
For some reason I enjoyed this series far more the second time around. As is usual with more recent BBC wildlife series, the actual camera work is visually stunning. Shots are posed for effect and I spent most of the time wishing for a bigger screen than my poor old CRT telly.

As most of the stars of the film are slower moving than the usual subjects of current wildlife documentaries, it was a pleasure to see David Attenborough daring to handle snakes, frogs and lizards, annoy nesting alligators and don a specially coated visor to demonstrate how a cheesed off snake spat venom. It will be very sad if this is his last series- either due to age -or worse the threatened BBC cutbacks.

There aren't any extra features over and above the originally broadcast 5 episodes. As has become standard, the last 10 minutes is devoted to a "making of" documentary which provided fascinating information on the research teams whose day in day out dedication to studying the subjects allowed the BBC to go in with a tick list of must have shots.

My most memorable moments were:
The golden waving frogs of Panama- now sadly only in captive breeding.

The bejewelled elegance and variety of Madagascan chameleons.

Pythons swallowing deer and antelopes- having to push the end of their windpipe out while they carefully and slowly swallow their dinner.

The deep vocalisations of alligators causing water to dance like fountains on their backs.

The jealous mating frenzy of male loggerhead turtles- as they tried to split a couple up by nipping the successful male's fins in an underwater scrum.

David with Lonesome George- the sole survivor of a subspecies of Giant Galapagos Tortoise and his thoughts on the need for active conservation.

Unlike the other reviewers I have no faults to find with this series. It's a beautiful tribute to the fascinating variety of this planet and is a totally must see series.

Very interesting but not as good as planet earth
It took many hours of research to produce this new BBC series about reptiles and amphibians.

The aim was to probe that this animals are not boring or charmless.The series has some FANTASTIC shots in particular the shots of the golden frog in panama are highly interesting and achieves the aim of making the animals look very intelligent.

However the series can become repetitive and borrows shots from Planet earth ( flat lizards ) and most of the shots have been done before or in previous series ( blue planet ).

Altogether this DVD will be of interest to the followers of Attenborough but is not as ground breaking as Planet earth.

More please

Please stay on our screen's David!
Life in Cold Blood has been absolutely fascinating. Shot using the latest HD (High Definition) Camera's, all the images are completly crystal clear and good enough to spring out of the TV. The footage contained spans from the emotional to the satisfyingly funny and cute moments to which our friends do odd things. That said, it can leave you on the edge of your seat when you discover the struggle for a male and female Marine Turtle to mate, as does the agonising journey's many of these incredible creature make just to cherish one small meal.

I've always loved David's Wildlife series, but I think something like this can be cherished more with the crystal clear picture quality, and the news that it's likely to be his last series. Nether the less, a DVD such as this should be enjoyed on a Sunday evening when the BBC fail once more to provide good quality TV. Unless you think the likes of "My Family" (people living in bright coloured houses, with canned laughter every 3 seconds) are funny...

Excellent DVD - something to be enjoyed by kids and all the family a-like. Shame the price is a bit higher than most other DVD's, but that's the BBC for you. On the Mr Bean collections, you only get 2 episodes per DVD!