Growing Up Wildcats (Animal Planet/Genius DVD)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: D Episodes: B
Growing Up Wildcats (with “wild cats” sometimes split
up in the promos for this disc) offers four excellent episodes of Animal
Planet’s Growing Up… series,
including tales of baby lions, cheetahs, tigers and black leopards. In all cases, they are born in captivity,
need serious help, cannot be reintroduced in the wild and are like nothing you
have seen before.
Each show
took months or even years to make, but it is all worth it to see the growth of
these amazing animals and Edie Falco even hosts the Leopard segment. Each is an hour long, though a mini-series
with bonus footage on each would be nice and overall, this is one of the best
of many DVDs Genius/Animal Planet has issued to date. Hope we get more like it.
The 1.33
X 1 image is shot in analog video and looks good for a low-def production;
though I bet we’ll see HD productions like this down the line. Color is consistent and the camera persons do
a good job of capturing as much as possible.
The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo is just fine and location audio is among
the better we have encountered lately for such productions. Sadly, there are no extras.
- Nicholas Sheffo
