Customer Rating:  
Summary: Crowded As A Cloud?
Comment: I like aerial films and loved another series, called Britain From The Air, which concentrated on a line of historical perspective from pre-Roman times to the present day (filmed around 1995 I think). This DVD did not do much for me and I am selling my copy.
There was no real overall theme to the series and it did not cover the whole country. Had I been in charge, I would have shown the whole country in the first hour or even two hours. Instead we got a reasonably interesting but "bitty" exposition of various kinds of networks (telephones, taxis etc) using far too many computer graphics (and misleadingly so, as in the inevitable speeded-up shots of Channel shipping etc). There was also, inevitably, the very common fault in TV today of excessive concentration on the presenter rather than on serious display of the subject-matter.
As to the presenter: no beauty and had the annoying habit (very common on TV now because --I think-- taught to presenters) of gesticulating like a Polish rabbi: even weather presenters do it. Oddly enough, this little fellow seems to be rather vain, which came out once or twice as when he interviewed a very attractive young woman in charge of a computer land mapping service and, also, when he remarked that a flying suit made him look fat (perhaps, but like Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, I dislike hyperactive, jogging little dynamos). Marr is or was the Political Editor on BBV TV and does that better. I found his patronising slowed-down speech (for a dumbed-down contemporary BBC TV audience) very annoying. And he does the same in explaining what is shown: "balletic", for example, becomes "ballet-like"...
Too bitty, all in all.
The series was indeed, as another reviewer remarks here, "quirky". Why no real overarching theme? The second disc is a lot better than the first, exploring London, The Land (although, again, only one region -- East Anglia) and one or two other aspects of aerial Britain.
Worth seeing, but it could have been so much better.
Customer Rating:
Summary: is it the complete ' ' Britain from Above ' ?
Comment: On the dvd the Episodes Comprise:
1. Man Made Britain
2. Britain's Landscape
3. Blue Britain
4. The Skyline Of London
5. Britain's Bead Basket
6. Industrial Landscape
but as BBC1 and BBC2 did show different episodes depending which station you were on I wonder if everything is in this dvd box set or perhaps they have plans to bring out a full box set that includes everything.
All below had the main title ' Britain from Above '
BBC1 had 24 Hour Britain
BBC2 had The City
BBC1 had Manmade Britain
BBC2 had The Land
BBC1 had Untamed Britain
BBC2 had The Industrial Landscape
BBC4 had Satellite Earth
Customer Rating:
Summary: Wonderful, fascinating, and informative
Comment: This BBC series is really an educational history and geography programme in disguise. The disguise, a visual plethora orchestrated by the clear and pleasingly light-hearted Andrew Marr, left me stunned, fascinated, and enchanted. I could feel the effort put into sourcing up-to-date aeroplane footage and the historical photos, maps and statistics which complement and annotate today's landscape. The expert opinions included were the type of people who wouldn't usually be given public voice yet enrich an otherwise ignorant Brit, such as national park conservators.
There were very few moments of apathy, instead many of the topics covered are present and live issues in Britain today, and answer many of the absent-minded questions raised during a childhood of staring out the window during long car journeys throughout Britain!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Wow. Superb presentation of a fascinating worldview
Comment: This is a knock-out series which is genuinely hard to stop watching. It peels back the social, geographical and demographic layers of the UK and presents a quirky, fascinating viewpoint on how our country was formed and how it works today.
Many of the items deal with puzzles and questions which have occurred to all of us... but never knew how they actually happened. Andrew Marr explains the how and why without lecturing, from the viewpoint of everyman, sharing our frustrations and mystification at the weird anomolies which afflict the trains / the power grid / city planning / whatever. At last I understand what those 'phantom traffic jams' on the motorways are caused by!
At first glimpse you might think that a 60-minute programme dedicated to just looking down from above might be very, very dull once the initial gimmickery has worn off. But Britain From Above kept us completely interested with its stunning visials from all angles; awesome satellite images, beautiful film from helicopters, and fabulously creative use of GPS tracking to show the movement of vehicles around the country.
Britain From Above works at all levels; it's gorgeous to watch, easy to understand, entertaining and educational. If there is a small gripe it is that the programme feels quite Londoncentric; tilted a little too much towards out capital city (but then, London offers a magnificent backdrop for many of the experiments and illustrations, so it's hard to make that criticism really stick!). And the later episodes look at the broader picture to compensate for the first one.
The first epiosde looks at 24 Hour Britain; a day in the life of the communications and travel networks which pulled out some gems (like the men who inspect the power lines, and why it's so hard to expand ur rail network).
The second installment considers Man Made Britain; how the green rural areas aren't natural at all but were shaped by human activity over centuries. This includes what happened to the ancient wild woods and Iron Age forts, and comes up to date to look at national parks (and discusses whether they are really just artificial playgrounds) and the green belt.
The companion series of 30-minutes extras are also equally fascinating, going into greater detail to look in depth at a theme from the main programme. These explain the higgledy-piggledy development of London (and how Docklands grew), or how East Anglia has changed from the 1940s through to the modern times.
Britain From Above can has really surprised us with its unusual perspective on modern life. You can just sit back and watch the pretty pictures or -- as has happened with us -- you can find yourselves debating the implications of the social and physical structures it reveals. Very, very clever!
This is definitely a series to come back and watch again, and it's available in hi-definition too which makes the most of the gorgeous photography. We've got the final part to watch yet, but so far haven't been disappointed in the slightest. The initial idea didn't seem that promising to be honest -- the series turns out to be one of the best we've seen all year.
9/10
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![Britain From Above [2008]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ILgx9TnuL._SL160_.jpg)
