Hidden Depths

David Attenborough’s latest documentary gorgeously reveals the world’s oceans—and shows how badly we’re screwing them up.

- James Parker

NEVER "DECLARES Sir David Attenborough in the first episode of Blue Planet II, his latest hallucinatory swath of masterpiece nature television,“has there been a more crucial time to explore what goes on beneath the surface of the seas!” Attenborough is perorating from the prow of the research vessel Alucia as she plies indigo waters, blipping and whirring and swishing her sensors over the deep. “With revolutionary technology we can enter new worlds and shine a light on behaviors in ways that were impossible just a generation ago. We’ve also come to recognize an uncomfortable fact: The health of our oceans is under threat. They’re changing at a faster rate than ever before in human history.”

The sea around him spreads away, miracle-stuffed, glowing with vitality. At 91 years of age, Attenborough looks rather pelagic himself, a wise and crusty father fish propped against the railing to deliver his sermon. But the old energy is still there, the bucking head movements and the lunging, italicized delivery. As he leans back into a carefully composed tableau of blues—powder-blue shirt, Prussian-blue water, azure stripe of sky—his message, which is the driving conceit of the show, is clear: Having gained access at last to the deep-down information, having consulted with the farthest and freakiest of the fish folk, we are discovering that much of the deep-down information is about us, the frigging humans, and how we’re ruining everything.