Sorry, I know I rarely if ever post anything into this TV review category. Must try to do better.
So to Blizzard featuring BBC2 man-of-the-moment Bruce Parry leading a team of Brits against a Norweigian team across Greenland acting as a mock race to the South Pole. They're in vintage gear and although being tailed by camera crews, they're living as Scott and Amundsen would have done in 1911/2 when their "race" to the pole was in full swing. The two twenty-first century teams are also travelling in the same way as their predecessors did, Amundson using dogs, and Scott man-hauling (ie. dragging their kit along in sledges).
The programme doesn't really answer any questions as it claims it might. Scott's expedition has been analysed in extraordinary detail by many books and programmes before now. But it does give us a really good idea of what it might have been like on that expedition. The injuries, the frustrations and the sheer difficulty of what they were trying to achieve.
Blizzard (and incidentally, I don't think that the title is particularly apt at all - Blizzard conditions had very little to do with either expedition - it was more the early onset of winter that finished Scott's team off) ran over six episodes, strangely scheduled twice a week, and there was no surprise that the Norweigians travelled there and back with weeks to spare, while Parry's team travelled for 90-odd days missing their pole and heading back a bit before the producers pulled them out a few days early due to the fact that their rations, like Scott's, were leaving them malnourished.
The programme did skillfully weave the present day attempts against what Scott and Amundsen would have been facing, telling the story with dramatic reconstructions, but all shot from afar.
I think the only problem with this programme was its sheer length. Six hours is a long time to follow an expedition when the scenery is generally unchanging, yet it's taking well over three months to film in reality.
Posted by adambowie at August 25, 2006 09:46 AM