Big Blue Live

Seeing as the event is being heavily promoted by the BBC ONE presentation department and its social media outlets, I think it warrants its own thread.

Does anybody think that there will a special ident(s) preceeding the broadcasts? Considering that we have seen three promotional stings promoting Big Blue Live, the possibility of an ident isn't completely outside the window.

EDIT: Surfers, as I anticipated.

You can't have a live programme without a mic being left up by accident. I'm not sure anyone I'm watching with is paying much attention, though, as nobody else noticed Liz Bonnin shouting about there being "no Autocue".

To those like me who are totally oblivious despite the BBC's best efforts, what are we on about here?

It is a live programme from the US documenting the abundance of sea life visible in the particular part of the US they are in. Matt Baker, Liz Bonnin, Steve Backshall, and a helicopter are involved.

Apparently a live programme under the same banner is going to be shown domestically.

Nothing to do with IBM then?

No, unless these animals are a very good simulation.

PBS page:
http://www.pbs.org/big-blue-live/home/

I watched last night, and it took them about 25 minutes before they...

"INCREDIBLE, sorry, you have to look at this whale *LIVE*"
...thought to explain why they..
"AMAZING SCENES *LIVE* Simply incredible at 11am here in California"
... were at Monterey Bay. When they did they just kept saying it's because there is an abundance of food for marine life there at this time of year. They also said that that hasn't always been the case but didn't go into any of the conservation details.
"Oh. My. GOODNESS. You are *so* lucky to see these *LIVE* shots from our helicopter of a whale"

To be fair, the US experts from the aquarium they are at were excellent at explaining details about the animals, but the breathless presentation, especially from the over-excited Irish female presenter, was off-putting. In fact, I found myself breathing a sigh of relief when calm Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall presented a report.

I'll give it another go tonight as I'm genuinely interested in learning about the sea life gathering in that area, but can't help think I would learn more from a properly shot one-hour documentary than this *LIVE*, incredible, amazing show.

I'm also surprised the BBC is tweeting much the same content from three accounts during the programme too - @BigBlueLIve, @BBCearth (whatever that is) and @BBCOne.

It isn't on tonight

Ha! So it isn't. Only three shows. I heard them talk about "here all week with so much more to show you" and stupidly expected more. They only covered humpback whales and some sea otters LIVE last night.

I have to admit that I was a little bit disappointed by it. The animals are impressive but there wasn't much really going on. Thank God for some interesting VTs. Even three days might be a stretch.

Natural History is infinitely better in the traditional 'Attenbourgh' format. You can see why crews have to spend weeks and months, just to get 90 seconds of footage. These 'X-X Live' shows are fine for predicable and planned events, or like Springwatch when there's enough engaging content and presenters to fill the gaps, but not for this sort of thing.