The one-hour program, which airs weekdays at 7 a.m. and 11 a.m. (and during the evening on some days), is reminiscent of the opening minutes of Kubrick's remarkable 2001: A Space Odyssey. Referred to as "The Dawn of Man," the film's opening masterfully displays the rising of the sun against a beautiful, mountainous backdrop millions of years ago. The director offers a glimpse of what our world was like before man and his evil ways started to interfere.
Likewise, in each episode, Sunrise Earth's producers position their high-def cameras at the brink of dawn in a lush natural setting, usually in a national park or alongside a body of water. Then, as the sun rises over a one to two hour period, the show chronicles how Earth and nature (birds, animals, weather conditions) co-exist at this marvelous time of day.
When seen in vivid, crystal-clear HDTV, the effect is hypnotic. Few viewers will fail to have an impulse to immediately book a flight to join the fun. After watching last night's program on the Cadillac Mountains at the Acadia National Park in Maine, I quickly checked my work schedule for vacation dates. When seen in high-def, the burnt orange skies lingering over the Maine mountains was enough to make me forget, well, nearly everything.
Again, like Kubrick's "Dawn of Man," Sunrise Earth lets the high-def pictures do the talking. There is no narrator getting in the way; only an occasional graphic reveals the location and the time of day. It's a powerful technique. By eliminating the human altogether, Sunrise Earth makes you feel like what you're seeing could be what you would have seen hundreds of years ago. It's nature unplugged.
Sunrise Earth is an example of a documentary that would not fare well on analog television. In fact, Sunrise Earth could get very boring, very quickly, in analog. But, in high-def, it's like watching a succession of oil paintings come alive on your screen. This is not must-see TV; it's must-experience TV.
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