Oceans

I have to concur with roguegrafix's review of this series completely. Well intentioned as it may have been, this series is severely flawed by the way it was presented.

The opening of each of the episodes points out that the Oceans cover two-thirds of the surface of the earth...unfortunately the series itself spends about four-fifth of its running time talking about the personnel involved in producing the series, not the oceans.

You are told about two dozen times about how meticulously experienced and intrepid a diver Paul Rose is; Mr. Cousteau Jr. is genuinely enthusiastic but the timing and number of his many mini-lectures gets tiresome very quickly. The countless shots of the perpetually worried diving safety director becomes an unintended on-going gag.

Do we really need to see Paul Rose jogging around in Messina or Lucie and Philippe baking bread in the sand? Surely Toony getting an emergency filling on board or throwing up on deck could have been consigned to the extras DVD.

All that being said the series is still worth watching for the handful of memorable scenes and some potentially meaningful scientific contributions the expedition may or may not have made. It's just too bad the production decisions took away so much from the magic of the oceans itself.

Interested viewers should seek out the 4-part series ONE OCEAN from CBC's Nature of Things, for a more compelling and moving depiction of the state of our modern Oceans. I believe it is still viewable on-line through CBC.ca.