At 95, David Attenborough has been around for so long, and worked so prolifically, that there’s scarcely an animal or region that hasn’t fallen under the spell of his reassuringly avuncular growl. From the skies to the seas, the desert to the tundra, Attenborough has covered every blade of grass and turned every stone. So it’s natural that in his twilight years he is alighting upon subjects with slightly less grandeur or urgency than the halcyon peaks of Planet Earth and Blue Planet. Enter Dynasties II.
The premise of the Dynasties franchise, now in its second iteration, is simple. Each episode follows a different endangered species through the cycle of bringing their young into adulthood. This new series opens with an episode tracking the lives of Chile’s pumas, the big cats who prowl the desolate landscape of Patagonia. The mother cat – Rupestre – is attempting to safely navigate her four cubs through the harsh South American winter, facing off against both the elements and the intramural barbarity of their fellow pumas.
