This is one of the few shows to date that I’ve watched on Apple TV+ and its almost worth the service and its monthly sub $10 cost for this alone. This isn’t an Apple TV+ ad but I’ve enjoyed other programs from this service as well. We’ll see if their quality continues.
Tiny World narrated by Paul Rudd with a nice American voice spoken in a very calm and “nature show” manner with just a hint of his typical sarcastic and juvenile humor tone is focused on the small creatures that quite often go unnoticed in our natural world. At such a minute scale virtually all creatures become “cute” and are anthropomorphized so that the viewer can see themselves even in a spider.
The show nicely glosses over blood and guts of the natural world while still showing its kill or be killed nature…it just Disney-fies it a bit to make the show particularly viewable for children, likewise for mating and sex. Which I’m sure was deliberate. This isn’t a scientific discourse.
Taking place over six episodes, each in a different habitat and filmed over ten years, it is the camera work and imagery that you are left with. The colors are heightened for effect, music moves in time with animal displays and so on. Its a wonderfully enjoyable product helping you appreciate the world beneath all our feet and the fragility of life.
Taking things a bit beyond just the beauty of the show, it becomes to me an important primer for youth on evolution and species differentiation. Seeing the unique and remarkable adaptations to their environment and pressures of these animals makes you almost wonder if there isn’t some grand artist behind the scenes directing things…almost. Its when you make the logical connections behind each of these unique adaptations—from colors to arrow sharp tongues to poison spittle to predator mimicry that you understand the long paths that these species took to get there. This makes it all more impactful as you realize it has taken countless millennia to get these tiny wonders to the exquisite beauty and functions they have today…all of which can be wiped away in a fraction of time.
Absolutely worth watching yourself and should be viewed by every grade school class to fire their imagination and thinking.