Yellowstone [Blu-ray][Region Free] - £8.49 ( 66% Off ) w/ Free Delivery

Yellowstone isn't the sort of natural history documentary to challenge your perceptions, but it is another of the BBC's thoroughly well-produced programmes which is a pleasure to kick back and enjoy.
The park's geology produces a weird backdrop of hot springs, savage winters, vast panoramas filled with wild elk, wolves and bears. There are three 50-minute episodes, one each for Winter, Summer and Autumn, demonstrating the savage extremes which the Yellowstone wildlife must endure. Snow as deep as houses settles for six months, the wild-fires spread in summer. All of this is filmed in gorgeous clarity and detail, demonstrating how the plants and animals cope with one of the harshest environments on the planet which swings between such complete extremes.
Yellowstone has also revised some of my opinions about different animlans; sheep, for instance. The Big Horns which survive throughout the bitter winter in the park are nothing like the tame creatures we see in the UK; the short sequence of the males engaging in their annual ferocious pre-breeding fights is astonishing. They're aggressive, no-holds-barred fighters -- not at all woolly-minded!

Perhaps the most enjoyable part of the series is, ironically, the ten minute fillers which concentrate on the people who work and spend time i nYellowstone. The people who watch geysers are a curious bunch, and the guy who clears the snow from rooftops for six months at a time must really like his own company! Similarly, a chap who swims (in a crash helmet) in the Yellowstone river gives a radically different perspective of life in the surrounds -- and the unhappy effects of introducing foreign species for sport fishing.

Yellowstone underlines the global importance of the National Park, especially now that increasing urbanisation touches almost every wild area in the world. It's an easy series to like, and enjoyable to watch again. Would be really stunning in Hi-Def, too.