A Natural Disaster

Earth­quakes, vol­canos, tidal waves, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. Is there no end to the night­mares we must suf­fer as res­i­dents of planet Earth? Here in Amer­ica, the great­est coun­try that was ever invented by rich white men for rich white men, we’re catch­ing up on the BBC’s pro­gramme of ani­mals hav­ing sex with each other and killing each other while hav­ing sex with each other, and they called it “Life,” even man­ag­ing to keep a straight face doing it. And while the lucky res­i­dents of the British Isles were lis­ten­ing to the high-definition sounds of bru­tal­ity nar­rated by David Atten­bor­ough, we’ve been sub­jected to the awk­ward phras­ing and weird inflec­tions of the most per­fect woman on the face of the planet, Oprah.

To say that Oprah’s voice makes every scene sound like she’s amazed by the mere exis­tence of crea­tures other than her­self prob­a­bly goes with­out say­ing. One imag­ines her poised before a micro­phone with the script sit­ting on a diamond-studded solid gold podium before her, her hair and make-up peo­ple con­stantly fill­ing in acne scars and comb­ing out her hair into a sem­blance of a wave crash­ing over the indige­nous pop­u­la­tion of Papua New Guinea as she reads about how cut­tle­fish can change color to ward off other males dur­ing the mat­ing rit­ual and mak­ing the record­ing tech­ni­cians con­stantly stop tape as she pro­claims, “Damn! I wish Sted­man would change his stripes! Ho ho ho! Am I right, audience?”

It isn’t just that the woman is so out of touch with real­ity that the idea that she’s been cho­sen to explain these scenes to us seems a bit like ask­ing Rush Lim­baugh to explain the intri­ca­cies of Weight Watch­ers, it’s also that her voice is con­stantly ris­ing and falling at reg­u­lar inter­vals with com­plete indif­fer­ence to what’s actu­ally hap­pen­ing, cre­at­ing a weird and unset­tling sense that what you’re look­ing at isn’t at all what she’s describing.

It’s a puppy, Oprah. Don’t eat it.

Watch­ing Life is equal parts amaz­ing and hor­ri­ble. Sure, it’s an hon­est reflec­tion of the laws of nature, the whole kill or be killed thing, the sur­vival of the fittest thing, the aren’t baby ani­mals cute except when they are being devoured thing. But Mme. Oprah’s nar­ra­tion treats every­thing we’re watch­ing with the same level of sim­mer­ing cute­ness that accom­pa­nies your aunt’s nar­ra­tion of her trip to Honolulu.

“And here’s a fish we saw in the coral. It was pretty. I think it’s a kind of angel fish or some­thing. In this next pic­ture… oh, wait, no, that’s me at the… the pool? I think? I think, yes, that’s the pool and that’s our hotel and you can almost see our room only it’s around the side of that part. And here’s where the hippo attacks the alli­ga­tor and sub­merges below the water.”

The word “mirac­u­lous” needs to have an entirely dif­fer­ent read­ing from the word “larva,” but Oprah’s tongue seems inca­pable of these dis­tinc­tions. She knows only how to move her voice up and down about every three or four syl­la­bles, reSULt­ing in an anNOY­ing rep­e­TI­tion of the SAME falls and RISes reGARD­less of WHAT is CUR­rently on dis­PLAY whether that’s the atTACK of a TIGer or the SUB­tle SLEEP of a FAWN.

Watch­ing the series with the sound turned off helps a lit­tle, though you then miss the nuances of the real world’s sounds while try­ing to deny Oprah’s annoy­ing cadence. It makes one ache for the seem­ingly effort­less nar­ra­tive — and dra­matic — skills of a Stephen Fry, or a John Hurt, or the accom­plished actress that Ms. Win­frey replaced in the role of explain­ing the nat­ural world to Amer­ica, Sigour­ney Weaver.

But no. We are sad­dled, sadly, with a woman whose accom­plish­ments in life have some­how left her unable to explain the accom­plish­ments of Life.

This is Glass­dog, where the wildlife is always hun­gry and the fight for sur­vival takes the form of get­ting the lasy pair of size 11 Pradas at Zappos.

Tags: BBC, boring, drone, french fried pertaters, life, Oprah