Last night saw the premiere of the first episode of Planet Earth 2 in the UK, and already one of its scenes is being dubbed the best in nature documentary history.
The scene depicted an marine iguana seemingly up against insurmountable odds, with it finding itself tasked with climbing up a rocky hillside while surrounding by a sea of evil-looking racer snakes. The iguana, who first attempts to sneak by the snakes undetected by remaining completely motionless, eventually finds itself darting away from a huge crowd of the predators as they rapidly slither in its direction.
The chase scene plays out like the nature equivalent of a high-speed car chase, with the snakes steadily closing in on their prey while the terrified iguana runs for its life. At one point the snakes seemingly manage to overwhelm the lizard, wrapping around it and attempting to asphyxiate it, only for the iguana to somehow break free and continue on at tremendous speed.
The clip has been praised on social media as one of the best in the series, and perhaps one of the best to have ever aired in a nature documentary. That’s pretty high praise considering the already incredibly high standard the previous series of Planet Earth has set, but it’s difficult to deny that the clip is one of the best things David Attenborough has attached to his name thus far. When you factor in that the award-winning documentarian has been doing this ’50s, then it’s clear that the BBC has something very special on its hands.
Watch the scene below:
