Customer Reviews
a really captivating series - By: mo, 22 Mar 2008 
every episode of this dvd collection is reallly fascinating & intresting , the programme is well made with great images & cgi , its a series that anyone intrested in space & and planets must own .you will not be disappointed with this series at alll.
regarding Roger Thomas review above - By: Harry Nicholas, 30 Aug 2007 Now like most people I like the facts, & yes, there is no sound in space, but one of the few films to play it this way (2001: A Space Odyssey) has been one of the most controversial.
I worked on about 50% of the effects in this series & was solely responsible for about 20% of the CGI, so naturallly I'm a little miffed when criticized.
David McNab The series producer is enthusiastic about space, but has an audience to consider, so beefing up the graphics with explosions & sound effects, though speculative & not factual, works in this context. Anyone who knows about the early American tests will tell you space exploration is full of explosions.
He's right about one thing though, this is well worth watching.
An excellent series - By: J. Fitzgerald, 16 Jul 2007 I recently did a short Open University course on the Planets & was looking for a TV documentary to complement my learning. I was nearly put off purchasing this series by the Amazon reviewer's comments about the poor quality effects, but after reading some of the customer reviews I decided to buy it - & I'm extremely glad I did.
This is an excellent series that is still contemporary enough to be valid (our knowledge of the planets can change quite rapidly as probes are launched & new observations are made). It not only covers current knowledge of the solar system, but also gives some of the history of space exploration & astronomy - the episode about the race to the Moon is a showcase example. The tone is "grown-up" & serious (rather than patronisingly "fun" or "funky" like some modern documentaries can be), but at the same time one gets a fantastic sense of wonder, a sense that you, too, are discovering new things as you watch (for example) the first colour image arriving from the surface of Mars, or see the orb of Jupiter grow slowly larger as the first Voyager probe approaches it.
One thing to note is that this series doesn't cover one planet per episode. Rather it takes a topic for each programme, such as "Atmosphere" or "Life", but in this way most of the major sights of the solar system are visited in one way or another.
For the record, I think the CGI/special-effects are absolutely fine. Not Hollywood standard, but more than adequate. Jupiter in particular looks pretty cool!
I would recommend this series to pretty much anyone who has an interest in space exploration - you don't need any prior knowledge to find the programmes fascinating & informative.
A note regarding the reviewer who said the music drowned out the narration at times: I had the same minor problem initiallly, until I turned off the spatial (3-D) sound setting on my TV. That eliminated the problem.
To boldly go! - By: G. Wylie, 07 Dec 2006 And boldly did they go!
'The Planets' is a delightful journey through our Solar System which leaves the viewer quite breathless at the mind-boggling scale of the forces which brought it into being. Not only does this mini-series inform about our neighbours in the system, it entertains at the same time. It stimulates the senses & tweaks at the imagination.
It differs from many other of the BBC presentations in that it provides no presenter to divert attention. The narration from Samuel West is excellent & the stunning soundtrack adds to the visual treat.
The introduction of many of the great personalities who furthered our knowledge is a major bonus & the original film coverage of many of the relevant episodes historicallly stunning.
Anyone who is in the slightest interested in seeking an explanation as to how the Solar System came about should acquire the mini-series with its clear & lucid descriptions.
I'm so glad I decided to 'go' with them!
Very Informative without needless flash - By: brainleek007, 25 Nov 2006 I got this DVD set for christmas one year & thoroughly enjoyed it.
I found the programs very informative & interesting to watch - up to the usual high standards we've come to expect form BBC documentaries.
There are alll eight episodes of the series on the two discs in this set. The way the programs have been arranged give a chronological account of space exploration for the most part with the early episodes dealing with the advances of Von Braun in the second world war German rocket factories through to the later episodes covering the advances made in observing the sun & undertanding solar activity. Every episode is excellent.
The presentation is a little more dry than the whizz-bang kind of stuff you might be used to & each epsiodes attempts to tell a story of one aspect of achievment with regards to space exploration/science. This is to be commended however as it lends an air of authority to an already informatively written series.
Some of the computer graphics will seem dated but lets be honest, computer graphics are advancing so fast something that came out a year ago can look dated but these computer generated effects were state of the art at the time & they do stand up today & add a lot to the presentation.
Where this series scored highly for me is that it weaved into the narrative interviews with the actual people form the Russian space agency & NASA who were involved with everything from Sputnik to the observation of the Shoemaker-Levy comet impact on Jupiter. It reallly put the 'human' element back into the exploration of space. A few scenes stick in my mind but one in particular was that of a female Russian scientists who was interviewed peeling potatoes in what appeared to be her smalll apartment while she told the story of how some dodgy calculations led to a Rusian probe crashing on the surface of Mars I think it was! I did come away with an admiration for the Russian achievements throught this series because they seemed to achieve the impossible on far tighter budgetary requirements than the Americans ever did!
If you have an interest in modern space science & exploration this DVD set would be a good investment. The programs are informative & each gives a good account of its chosen subject. The interviews with the folks who actuallly work on this stuff day-in day-out so I can casuallly gawp at their achievements & say 'wow' are great & make a refreshing change from a lot of progams about space that focus purely on the technology involved.
