Ain’t that a kick in the head
It’s not every day you see a giraffe kick a lioness in the face, unless you watch a ton of Discovery Channel.
The BBC is promoting a new wildlife documentary. In a clip of their new show, an African cat pursued a giraffe, but the tables turned when the giraffe fought back, smacking the lioness in the face with his two front legs. Ouch. For the record, I was on the giraffe’s side, but then I felt bad for the lioness. She was just doing her job, picking up dinner for the family. Then, dinner struck back.
The show will be coming to America soon. I hate the title. The producers are calling the show, “Planet Earth II.” Of course the name bothers me. It either happens on Planet Earth or somewhere else. You can’t call it Earth II. That conjures up images of alternate realities or desperate doomsday scenarios where we have to move to another planet because we wrecked this one.
If we do have to someday leave home and start again in another solar system, I hope we come up with a more original name, like Utopia, Eden or East Hawaii (come on, you’d go if it was called East Hawaii). Renaming a second Earth-like planet Earth II or New Earth is terribly unoriginal. It’s like that neighbor kid who loses his dog, Buddy, and names the new dog Buddy Two. I think it’s disrespectful to Buddy One and to the planet Earth.
The mistake was calling the first show “Planet Earth.” It’s a bit pretentious, but it is, after all, on the BBC.
I have a problem with this network. For an English television station, they sure show a lot of “Star Trek” reruns. I guess the ones with Jean-Luc Piccard make sense. He’s played by a British actor. However, for some unknown reason, you can find Kirk, Spock and the Klingons on there at three in the morning. There is nothing remotely English about the first “Star Trek,” except the episode with Joan Collins in it.
But I digress, like I do. Nature shows are hard to watch. I didn’t want the giraffe to end up as main course for a pride of lions, but I didn’t want the lioness to be hoofed in the head. It’s a no-win scenario, like the Kobayashi Maru (yet another “Trek” reference).
It’s all about perspective. Picture the slow-motion footage of a frog catching a fly with his tongue. That always looks cool. Now imagine you zoom in for a close-up of the fly’s face, and he’s surprised, panicked, horror-struck. Suddenly, you’re hoping the fly will get away.
I realize flies have very few facial expressions. They always look surprised, because they have big, bulgy eyeballs. I guess if you have thousand visual lenses, you’d always look surprised, too.
In nature, there are always winners and losers. Some days you’re the giraffe, some days you’re the lioness. I like to spend most of my days avoiding a kick in the head, but that’s just me.