Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Having already watched David Attenborough's entire BBC series Planet Earth last year on the BBC, I was somewhat looking forward to seeing this series broadcast on high definition here on the Discovery Channel today. To my horror, instead of hearing the familiar voice of Attenborough, I hear some female voice reading through the narration. After a brief search on the internet I have found out that Discovery Channel execs decided that they would change the narration for this program to Sigorney Weaver (yes, the actress who hasn't worked since the last Aliens sequel) specifically for American audiences. Blech!!!! WHY??? I'm sorry I set my TiVo to record anything with David Attenborough as a narrator. You can hear in his voice that he KNOWS what he is talking about. He is PASSIONATE about the subject. Sigourney Weaver is simply awful. Every line is given with the same over-dramatic, lilting, "I'm reading this from a script" voice. Do the execs at Discovery Channel think that Americans are so stupid that they would be confused by Attenborough's pronunciation of the word "zebra"? Or that he would say "from a to zed" instead of "a to zee" or that he would *gasp* use the word "nil" instead of "zero"? David Attenborough practically invented the nature documentary and has been making them since the 1970s. Replacing him with a Hollywood actress is like having Michael J Fox stand in for Howard Cosell to announce boxing. Shame on you Discovery for cheapening this otherwise extraordinary program because you think that Americans won't understand proper English. Thankfully I have my copies of this program from last year's BBC broadcast.