Jungles provide the richest habitats on the planet - mysterious worlds of high drama where extraordinary animals attempt to survive in the most competitive place on earth. Flooded forests are home to caiman-hunting jaguars and strange dolphins that swim amongst the tree tops, while in the dense underworld, ninja frogs fight off wasps and flying dragons soar between trees. Acrobatic indri leap through the forests of Madagascar, while the jungle night conceals strange fungi and glow-in-the-dark creatures never filmed before. Written by BBC One
Planet Earth returns for another hour of beautiful images in ultra HD, this time focusing on glimpses in the world's jungles.
Though I'm not taking anything away from the brilliance of the series nor the sufficiency of the episode, "Jungles" does feel a step down from the previous two episodes, if only for the reason that they were so brilliant. Aside from one or two scenes, this episode doesn't show much that Attenborough hasn't already given us in other documentaries.
Notable segments from this installment include a cute spider monkey, a youngster, learning to climb and sway from tree to tree as her older siblings do, and then father coming to the rescue when she gets stuck. Charming stuff.
There was also a shocking segment which showed us dolphins in the jungle! That was really something. And a little creepy too – just imagine your swaying though the depths of a waterlogged jungle and all of a sudden an entity spewing out water out of its blowhole. You'd have no idea that it was a dolphin of all things. It was interesting to see that in the Diaries segment the crew initially thought they were tracking a single dolphin, and it was only until they got a drone camera up in the air that they realized there was an entire school of them.
All in all a satisfying episode in an already-terrific series.
My Rating: 8/10