Okavango: Africa's Savage Oasis

By VARIETY STAFF

Read other reviews about this film

Powered By

Okavango: Africa's Savage Oasis (Wed. (27), 8-9 p.m., NBC) Filmed at the Okavango Delta, Kalahari Desert, Botswana, Africa, by National Geographic TV and NHK. Executive producer, Nicholas Noxon; series supervising producer/editor, Barry Nye; senior producer, Teresa Koenig; producers, Tim & June Liversedge; writer, Kevin McCarey; camera, Tim Liversedge; additional cameras, Dave Harmon, Mike Holding; editors, Emmanuel Mairesse, Mike Holding; art director, Yeorgos Lampathakis; sound, June Liversedge, Jeremy West; music, Mark Adler; production design, John David Dean. Narrator: James Coburn Africa begins to look pretty familiar as cheetahs chase antelope, hippos wallow in mudbaths, crox purposefully slide through the Okavango River waters flooding the 5,000 -square-mile Okavango delta in Botswana, Africa. The life-giving waters, soon receding with the winter season, return as "the eternal struggle for survival goes on continually." The inhabitants and the territory look all too familiar. With Kevin McCarey's lucid writing and the clear voice of James Coburn narrating , National Geographic has moved its cast to another locale; patient Tim Liversedge's camera ferrets out animals grazing, wild dogs' puppies playing, pretty carmine bee eaters hovering on the air, a pangolin devouring termites, an elephant shaking down a palm tree for its fruit (and rattling a baboon caught aloft), buffalo panicking and, of course, lions stretching out in the sunlight. The flow from up north slows down and stops, and the drought begins. A catfish crawls on land towards a waterhole, wild dogs cavort (they don't need as much water as other animals), lions lazily lift their maned heads, a puff adder slips near his mate, and a cheetah nails his prey (giraffes rubberneck as he gnaws on his victim). Lightning strikes (fortuitously caught by one of the National Geographic Society's lensers) and fires leap up. Spiders and other insects are consumed, unthreatened birds soar, and four-legged creatures withdraw to apparent safety. The fire over, a shingled pangolin emerges from his cunning shelter, tawny lions lie around, and spotted cheetahs pick up the chase. The wild puppy dogs enjoy themselves growing into maturity, and vultures edge around the action. (Has anyone ever filmed a special on this other-side-of-the-tracks cousin of the eagle?) Photography's pro if not grabbing, the editing propels the various interwoven stories forward, and Mark Adler's music is thoughtful as well as helpful. But this NGS episode seems flat and repetitious. Idea of "Okavango" is to shrug objectively over the cycles of nature as the waters flow down from the mountains of Angola and swamp the enormous delta, fall away, then return. The interdependence of nature's forces is clearly shown, but the docu, despite a lion and lioness fornicating, lacks the true intimacy and impact of the David and Carol Hughes' NGS essay on PBS, "Etosha: The Place of Dry Water" (Jan. 7, 1981), scripted by Nicholas Noxon, exec producer of "Okavango." The present not-so-new concept depends on its cameras, on its narration, and on the subject on which the spec's focused. On this last part, it's hit and miss. Admirably produced in Botswana, it's still shaking down overly familiar-looking territory.