As Sir David realises he’s helped unearth a new pliosaur, the years fall away until the 97-year-old is a schoolboy fossil hunter once more. Talk about truly exciting television
Attenborough and the Giant Sea Monster is a programme about happiness. I mean, ostensibly it’s a programme about the discovery, extraction and examination of the intact (in 150m year old fossil terms) skull of a pliosaur from a cliff face along the Jurassic coast. But really, it’s a study in joy.
Joy is everywhere. “Is there anything more beautiful than that?” says Attenborough in his introduction, while he cleaves a rock in two like he used to as a schoolboy fossil hunter (“You’re supposed to wear glasses these days”) to reveal an ammonite.
Attenborough and the Giant Sea Monster is on BBC One and iPlayer in the UK. An Australian air date has yet to be announced.
