Sex, violence, and family dynamics of animals in David Attenborough’s new BBC series
- Dynasties: The Greatest of Their Kind delivers an intimate and intense look at five animal species – chimpanzees, lions, tigers, penguins and painted wolves
- A Chinese co-production, the series also sends a message about how humankind is shrinking the space for wildlife to survive
David is a knuckle-dragging brute with the puffed-out chest of an extreme alpha male and cauliflower ears that would not look out of place on a boxer. His boldness and ambition have seen him climb up the hierarchy to become master of all he surveys.
This is not Sir David Attenborough, but his namesake, the chimpanzee star of the first episode of the naturalist’s new BBC series, Dynasties: The Greatest of Their Kind.
Executive producer Michael Gunton says he had nothing to do with the ape’s serendipitous name. “All these names are given to these creatures by the scientists who work in the field,” he insists. “We haven’t come up with any. And if we had, we would definitely not have called him David.”
We are living in political times as tumultuous as any of the brutal fight scenes in this natural history epic. Yet when Attenborough rolls up in his open-topped jeep to introduce the series (co-produced with Chinese companies Tencent Penguin Pictures and CCTV9), all seems OK in the world.
In his creased blue short-sleeved shirt, and at 92, the TV titan may look slightly more rumpled than we are used to, but his voice, which punctuates every dramatic moment of the five episodes, is as potent and magisterial as ever.
