Meerkat Manor - Season 1
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Bill Nighy, Flower the Meerkat, Mozart the Meerkat, Youssarian the Meerkat, Zaphod the MeerkatBrand: WELLSPRING/GENIUS
Producer: Chris Barker
Producer: Lucinda Axelsson
Producer: Mark Wild
Producer: Simon Willock
Writer: Caroline Hawkins
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 273 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-10-09
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Animal Planet
Movie Reviews of Meerkat Manor - Season 1
Movie Review: Meet the Meerkats
Summary: 4 Stars
In real life, meerkats probably aren't very cute, but on "Meerkat Manor" they are simply adorable. The show is culled from material gathered by Cambridge University's Kalahari Meerkat Project, which has been ongoing for a decade. The researchers carefully track the meerkats, and the show focuses on the most successful family, the Whiskers. During Season 1, the Whiskers are thriving under the leadership of dominant female, Flower. She rules the family along with her mate, Zaphod, and she does whatever she needs to do to make sure the family succeeds. As the dominant female, she is able to mate and decide whether or not the other females in the group can mate as well. Typically, only the dominant female mates as too many pups make it difficult to feed the family in the harsh Kalahari. If other females get pregnant, there can be trouble, as we see when two of Flower's daughters deliver pups in Season 1.
The show is simple - we watch the daily routines of the meerkats, which are surprisingly structured. They awaken, clean the burrow, forage for grubs, babysit the pups, bask in the sun, and then retire to the burrow for the evening. As such, the episodes can become a bit repetitious, even when the main focus is on unusual incidents (birth of pups, battles with neighboring clans over precious territory, encounters with puff adders). Fortunately, the producers edit the material creatively, allowing us to get to know the meerkats and their unique personalities, largely via narration by Sean Astin. Viewers come to care about the Whiskers. I certainly developed some favorites, particularly Shakespeare (one of Flower's sons), and I was saddened when another favorite (Mozart) was evicted from the clan.
The episodes average only 20 minutes and really zip along quickly without commercial breaks; I can easily watch 4 of them in a sitting. My only quibble is that the show anthropormorphizes the meerkats to a sometime ridiculous extent. The animals are acting largely on instinct, but the narration makes them sound far more human. Of course, that emphasis is a large part of what makes the show entertaining and the meerkats so darned loveable. So it's a quibble I'm more than happy to live with, even if I sometimes find it a bit too much.
Summary of Meerkat Manor - Season 1
Triumph and mishap, comedy and tragedy - everything a good story needs, but this one is different, it stars a group of wild meerkats in South Africa. This ground-breaking thirteen part series records the daily lives of a group of meerkats known as "The Whiskers". Using state of the art camera technology above and below ground, and by tracking the group's movements 24 hours a day, the series paints a dramatic picture of a year in their highly complex and social lives. From viscous fights with rival gangs to infighting within the group, snake attacks, births of two dozen pups, and tragic deaths, "Meerkat Manor" includes animal behavior never recorded before. With characters that would be more at home in a real life soap opera, their entangled lives make for addictive viewing. MEERKAT MANOR is All My Children meets Wild Kingdom. The show is narrated by Sean Astin of "Lord of the Rings" and"24."Educational DVD Video
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