What I hear you saying is...

DVDs are something that I own very few of -- in fact maybe fewer than 10 titles. But this year as an early Valentine's day present, R gave me a set of the BBC Planet Earth series.

Whoa.

If you have even a scintilla of interest in nature documentaries, then add this to your Netflix queue today, or just buy it.

First, the photography is mind-numbingly beautiful -- as awesome as any still shots you might find in National Geographic, but obviously in motion (which is much harder to do). On my humble 27" Sony Wega it's gorgeous -- but it might inspire me to finally bump up to HD :-)

Second, even if you are not a photographer, their technique will have you constantly asking "how on earth did they shoot that?" To that end, each episode comes with a "diary" at the conclusion that chronicles some of the challenges (five straight weeks hiding in a tent in the jungle for just 15-seconds of footage of birds mating, scaling a *30-story* mountain of bat crap, crashing into Baobab trees with insane French baloonists). Amazing stuff. And if you have ever had aspirations to become a professional nature videographer, this will change your mind.

Third, the narrative is pure. For every "Bambi" moment, there is some gut-wrenching, raw facet of nature exposed that chafes our fragile empathy. Baby elephants wander off into the desert heat to die. Polar bears starve to death in plain site of food. Insects explode with invasive fungi. Not a show for young kids (ok Rich?)

Needless to say, this series is going in the permanent collection in Maison d'Williams

I feel almost guilty embedding this crappy youtube vid of the trailer, but if you imagine smearing vaseline in your eyes, standing outside on the street and then peering back into the darkness of your living room, it would probably look something like this: